the | man | who | wasn't

Belgrade International Film Festival

"The Man Who Wasn't There" (Joel Coen, director) Review by Radmila Djurica
The Man Who Wasn't There reminds the viewer of American films from the 40s, and to bring viewers back to the 40s it is filmed in black-and-white. The story also fits the black-and-white film. Ed is a barber in a little town in Northern California. He's unhappy with his life and marriage because his wife Doris is cheating on him. So he gets the idea to try an easy money job and leave the barber's life. His plan is full of secrets.
		The idea came to the Coen brothers when they were viewing black-and-white pictures from the 40s in a hairdressing salon. To make a picture like those of the 40s, it is necessary to have a setting where the crime will start and end. In this case, everything starts and ends at a barber shop, in a California town in the 40s.
It is really unusual for someone to make such a film today, but that was what the original idea was all about. Even the way the main character becomes connected to a crime is like the plots common to the crime films of the 40s. The hero gets involved in a crime and into trouble accidentally! And good and evil are as black and white as the film.