The Fantastic Following review

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If you are a writer, you would relate to the protagonist of Following but not beyond a point. He’s interested in people to the extent that he follows them literally in the hope that he would gather material to write about. This brilliant concept is executed with style in Christopher Nolan’s 1998 classic Following.

Nolan, better known for Memento, shot this movie with no budget. All his actors had regular jobs, hence shooting was only possible over the weekends and it took him about one year to complete filming.

The young wannabe writer in the movie follows people religiously but randomly. In order to stay away from trouble, he devises rules of the game. However things change once he follows a guy called Cobb. He happens to be a burglar. Cobb explains to the aspiring writer that he’s not interested in money but people. Writer starts accompanying him in his excursions only to realize later that he’s fallen into a trap.

I loved Cobb’s lines on burglary, he talks like a poet-philosopher. He tells the writer that he breaks into people’s home to experience their lives. He trifles through people’s private belongings to violate and to imagine. Once the writer is taken into his fold, he tells him “You're developing a taste for it - the violating, the voyeurism... it's definitely you.”

The film has a style of its own. A definite structure. Where future keeps coming back in flashes and past meets present. This narrative style seems a precursor to Memento. Following is shot in Black and White and is only about 70 minutes long.

How Nolan thought of the story is again very interesting. As you rightly guessed a burglary in his own house set him thinking.

A shockingly amazing and original film that takes the genre thriller to another plane.