Brick (Rian Johnson 2005)
Posted on October 30 at 15.22, 2006 by Eric Mahleb
The film noir transported to a present-day high school in Southern California.
Except that in this high school, only a few kids seem to occupy the premises, the principal strikes some unusual deals with the students, mothers offer glasses of milk to gang members and the high school itself and the grounds around it seem to exist somewhat out of time and out of space, a fake reality that plays with our senses, expectations and paradigms.
In this parallel universe, a remarkably intelligent and unusually physically robust young man, plays detectives and hunts down the killer of his ex-girlfriend. Film theorists could have a field day with Brick and its representation of a reality that exists in between that of the traditional film noir genre and a present day high-school drama. Like Primer and even Memento to a lesser extent, Brick uses intelligence to overcome the limitations of the medium (and the budget). But just like these two films, it sometimes suffers from too much intelligence in its relentless and unremitting effort towards cleverness, forgetting along the way that emotions are a strong element of the cinematic experience.
My vote: 
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