By C. Ramsay
An incredibly stylish overview of individualistic American exceptionalism and the paranoia of established institutions. Beginning with the assassination of a U.S. senator with presidential aspirations, an event witnessed by numerous people including Warren Beatty’s investigative reporter Joseph Frady, the film builds to getting so swept up in its dualities that it begs the viewer to question their own complicity.
After the opening events of the film, Frady is shown to have had to re-attain his position of employment after having previously faced repercussions for a drinking problem, evoking the American ethos of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. That with enough introspection, application, and grind, self-actualization will be achieved—but with previous faults rendered inconsequential. The emphasis is not on the growth of a person, but their supposed reinvention. It is on their ability to adjust not because of a catalyst, but in spite of it. With any prolonged bout of introspection, though, is the risk of aggrandized self-assurance, something Frady exhibits from the start of the film to its bitter end.
While we never really get much insight into Joseph Frady as he was before the core events of the film, his return to work exemplifies brashness, and he functions consistently under the assumption that he is bypassing various social parameters. He creates his own rules at his job, manifesting his desired assignments and paying no heed to the authority of his boss. Lee, his colleague and ex, already aware of a conspiracy surrounding the assassination the film begins with and terrified of her place in it, is turned away by Frady after begging for his help, resulting in a hard cut to her body in a morgue. It’s at this point that Frady takes her claims seriously, but only for individualistic purposes which arguably alternate between a desire for self-preservation and delusions of grandeur around single-handedly publicizing the previously unknown machinations of the world. Legality is consequently viewed as being based around individual discretion by Frady, with him fluctuating between working around it, actively against it, or for it depending on the events most recently informing his perspective.
The indoctrination montage Frady is subjected to after having infiltrated the Parallax Corporation acts as the crux of the film. Reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, in which “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,” The Parallax View’s montage flickers through different series of images following title cards in a quickening succession. Love. Hate. Mother. Father. Family. Country. Me. While beginning as wholesome and ideal, some of the images begin to depict atrocities under the same title cards, and Frady’s reactions are monitored. Whether this exercise is meant to identify Frady’s ability to differentiate his sentiments for preferred ideals when suddenly shown the opposite or to deliberately equate them becomes blurred as quickly as the images cycle from one to the next. Mirroring this is Frady’s attitude and way of moving through the world blurring with his own ideals. Paranoia is heroism. Extrajudicial is legal. Operative is target. The composition of the film, too, begins more loosely, often with a larger frame of focus that makes the locations appear monumental compared to the people within them. This framing coincides with Frady’s confidence in his ability to generate a different outcome for himself than the others who were witness to the initial assassination, but is contrasted with tighter, more balanced, and more curated shots as Frady begins to lose his sense of power over what he faces. Control is the lack of. A setup as American as apple pie, itself a co-optation so strong that it begins to obscure the origin when viewed from within looking out. From this vantage, who is there really to identify otherwise? Do parallax views exist at all when they do not stand as static, and can instead be reinterpreted, translated, or remade to suit the whims of those with power?
Joseph Frady is implied to be the same person before the events of the film as he is at their onset as he is at their end. Sprinting with presumed aim and full self-service towards something that is unattainable through such an approach and therefore doesn’t matter.
Star rating (/5): ★★★★★
Recommend?: Yes!