Following
Christopher Nolan’s debut feature Following is all the more impressive in hindsight. The 1998 noir was a passion project for the director, who took a full year to complete production as his cast and crew all had day jobs. But the result is a solid yarn in which Nolan’s confidence as a director is already fully formed. This is not the work of someone who is trying to be a filmmaker; it’s the work of a born filmmaker. The twisty story of a struggling young writer who follows strangers around the streets of London only to find himself being followed by a stranger as well is classic noir, and visually Nolan captures the intensity and paranoia of his lead character through plenty of handheld, striking black-and-white photography (Nolan served as his own cinematographer). The story unfolds in a fractured narrative—which would become a hallmark of Nolan’s films going forward—and while its conclusion is somewhat contrived, it’s satisfying nonetheless.