Under the Silver Lake- d. David Robert Mitchell (2019) Review
“We crave mystery because there’s none left,” remarks a character early on in Under the Silver Lake. In a society where technology allows the answers to nearly all of our questions, this desire for adventure and mystery still needs to be satiated. Director David Robert Mitchell’s third film attempts to explore this craving for wonder in the digital age. The movie centers around Sam, a Kurt Cobain obsessed, unemployed screenwriter who falls in love with a girl named Sarah after a chance encounter spurred into action by his voyeuristic spying. Sarah goes missing almost immediately, a serial killer known as the Dog Killer is the primary suspect, and Sam spends the duration of the film obsessing over signs, symbols, and messages in an attempt to discover the truth behind her disappearance.
The results of Sam’s journey make for a surprisingly funny and engaging film, even though it falls short of addressing the full conceit of a digital age noir by remaining bogged down in the same analog technology staples present in other paranoia-filled films that have come before. Under the Silver Lake culls freely and liberally from the flawed protagonists of Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window and Vertigo) and the quirky characters and surreality of David Lynch (Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive). However, Mitchell never tries to obscure these influences and play dumb; Sam’s apartment is littered with Hitchcock movie posters, and Patrick Fischler from Mulholland Drive plays a supporting role as a crackpot conspiracy theorist. Silver Lake feels more like a winking love letter to fans of the genre than a rip off.
Although the film is very much a pastiche, it still produces moments of true originality. One scene in particular sees Sam come face to face with an enigmatic man known only as The Songwriter. Over a lengthy monologue, the man reveals to Sam that every song he ever loved was manufactured by himself to secretly communicate with an elite upper class for unknown nefarious purposes. The Songwriter plays various hit songs from Sam’s life with increasing speed in one hand and shoots at him with a revolver in the other, as Sam frantically runs around the room in anguish. The Songwriter eventually plays “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and Sam, flustered by the newfound meaninglessness of the youth rebellion anthem, finally retaliates by beating him to death with Kurt Cobain’s own guitar in an act of absurd brutality.
Andrew Garfield’s performance as Sam is endlessly watchable, even if the character itself is detestable. Sam is characterized as oversexed, lazy, and irritable, and Garfield sells the character with his listless stare and neuroticism. We witness Sam beat up a child, stalk various women in his search for clues, exclaim his hate for the homeless, and engage in self absorbed sex. In one particularly uncomfortable scene, Sam pleasures himself to the pictures of dozens of women at once. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis further characterizes Sam’s sketchiness by his use of subjective shots that emphasize his male gaze. Multiple scenes feature uncomfortable zooming close-ups of women that could easily turn some audiences off. In addition, Sam frequently interprets women around him as literal dogs; their voices are reduced to cartoonish barks in his mind. One could make an argument that the film is reductive and dismissive of women, but it is overwhelmingly clear that Sam’s viewpoint is not one to be sympathized with. As opposed to a Hitchcockian or Lynchian leading man, Mitchell’s Sam offers a blunt look at how a noir movie protagonist would act in the real world.
Sam’s moral abhorrence is matched with his penchant for conspiracy theories and hidden meanings. Silver Lake complements this trait with cryptic symbols which beg viewers to descend down the rabbit hole with him. During the screening, I found myself frantically writing down any numbers and markings I saw in the mise-en-scene in hopes to piece some part of the mystery together, with no avail. Sam’s own search for clues to Sarah’s disappearance is often futile and unsatisfying, and the experience of watching Silver Lake is an exercise in the illusive nature of closure.
Under the Silver Lake also marks Mitchell’s second collaboration with composer Disasterpeace (Richard Vreeland). After hearing his soundtrack for the indie game Fez, Mitchell enlisted Vreeland to lend his atmospheric synthscapes to It Follows. The results proved to be integral to the film, as the score injects it with a nostalgic, yet foreboding mood. Under the Silver Lake’s score is a sea change for Vreeland. Gone are the eighties indebted electronics of It Follows and the warm synthesizers of Fez; instead, Vreeland pairs Garfield’s descent into paranoia with lush Bernard Herrman-esque Hollywood string orchestras. If nothing else, Silver Lake establishes Disasterpeace as a versatile and unpredictable composer in the vein of the late Johan Johansson.