The Green Fog: NZIFF Review

The Green Fog: NZIFF Review

The Green Fog is a film which really defies review in many ways.

In assembling footage from over 100 San Francisco set TV series and movies, director Guy Maddin's done something akin to turning on a radio and cycling repeatedly through channels, with the static inadvertently creating a narrative by mistake more than by design.

However, design is the big thing for Maddin here, with the assemblage working well in some parts and less well in others.

Some scenes feel shoehorned in (mainly the latter day material in honesty) but for the large part, the assemblage of classic material works well, with scenes interlaid like a giant overlaying jigsaw and segueing cleverly into each other.

The Green Fog is funny too, with an extended Chuck Norris sequence providing inadvertent humour over similar facials and cheesy looks. There's also a clever obliteration of dialogue throughout, with loops and looks giving more than anything else could to convey something - it's cleverly done in many ways.

But it's also frustrating for those non- cinephiles as well - certainly, there's an overall feeling that The Green Fog itself which pops up here and now has little to do with anything, and there's no definite clue as to what it's supposed to be come the "film's" conclusion.

There's an anarchy present in The Green Fog, and thankfully it doesn't outstay its welcome - but it's overly smart and smug at times, a cinephile's wet dream and a scrambled San Francisco broadcast that bemuses more than anything.