Hello, hello. I am a film nerd (specifically noir). This is gonna be a long post! After the third episode, I noticed some really interesting parallels the episode three, especially visually, has with the film The Third Man.
Set in post-WWII Vienna, the 1949 film follows Holly Martins, an unsuccessful American author, searching for his childhood friend, Harry Lime, who offered him a job there. Quickly, Holly gets pulled into a web of deceit after finding out that Harry is dead. Meanwhile, the city has been divided into districts overseen by Britain, the US, and Russia, meaning that no one can pass through it without facing scrutiny. Holly wanders the bombed-out streets of the city, trying to find out how and why his friend got murdered. In a twist, Holly discovers that Harry was never dead, and has been secretly navigating the torn up city through the sewer system the whole time. Harry had been watching Holly throughout everything.
That remind you of anyone? The scene of Louis and Armand in the sewer, though not a literal chase, bears a visual and thematic resemblance.
In this scene, Armand exerts a startling amount of power over Louis in a cat and mouse game of whether he should live or die. Their back and forth dialogue and the lighting scheme both bear resemblance to the dark but fast-paced mood of film noir.
Though Harry puts on a tough face, he's a dead man walking. He's on the run from everything he's done and Holly and him can't see eye to eye. His actions and past are a shadow over everything, and he has to go underground to hide from them.
Louis, similarly, is followed everywhere by the shadows of his past. Armand is not far behind, his powers meaning that they he can see into Louis' troubled psyche. In this scene they are adversaries, but the power always lands squarely back with Armand. Unlike the ending of the The Third Man, Louis lives after their chase. Harry Lime, especially given the strictures of the noir genre, had to die for the story to have its narrative arc.
Louis and Armand come back to the surface world, uneasily. This subverts noir endings, which makes sense -- they are vampires, bound by different tensions. Armand's love of Louis triumphs, just as Holly's friendship for Harry isn't enough. But, there's disaster that follows for both pairs nonetheless.
iwtv continues to be so smart in its portrayal of memories and trauma, the way lestat’s memories of his family are so obnoxiously loud, everyone’s screaming all the time for no reason and everyone’s acting like caricatures, like an actual assault on the senses, as if lestat’s mind is filled with unbearable noise every time he thinks about them. lestat’s memories coming at him all fragmented and loud and violent, attacking him and beating him into submission as he desperately tries to escape them is such an interesting contrast to how louis would carefully weave a thread of his past pretending the glaring holes in it weren’t there
armand, his eyes enormous: you MOCK armand? you make fun of his traumas on the stage? oh! oh! suicide for the band! suicide for the band for One Thousand Years!!!!
Honestly it's not that bad as it sounds. It takes the eagles about 2 hours to get to my liver and another 2 to eat it. The whole ordeal is over by one and I've got the afternoon to myself.
WHY MUST SHE BE KEPT? AND WHY IN THIS PLACE SHE MUST BE KEPT? AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF YOU ARE NOT ASKED? AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF YOU ARE NOT ANSWERED? AND WHAT IS IT TO SEE AND TO KNOW, BUT TO BE TOLD YOU HAVE NOT SEEN. YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN. AND WHY IS HER TONGUE CUT OUT? AND WHY IS HER DEATH PROLONGED AND WHEN WILL IT STOP AND WHO WILL STOP IT? AND WHY MUST THEY, MUST WE, MUST I, MUST HE, MUST THEY, AS THE MILLENNIA, UNFOLD? WHY THE GIRL CURLED? WHY HER EYES LOWERED? WHY ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD? WHY LIMP IN THE STRAW? I AM THE GIRL! I AM THE GOD! I AM THE VOICE! I AM THE SONG! I AM THE NIGHT AND I CAN ANSWER! I CAN ARRANGE IT! I CAN SAY RISE, AND I CAN SPEAK! AND I AM HER! AND I AM SHE! AND I, I, I, I AM THE ANSWER!
