Point Blank May 18, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , trackback
Click, clack. Click, clack. Click, clack.
Clad in a sharp grey suit, Walker pounds his way down a fluorescent-lit airport hallway. For the entirety of Point Blank
Briefly, the plot involves Walker’s determined pursuit of the $93,000 that was his share in a robbery committed with his wife and his old Navy buddy, Reese. All three went to prison at Alcatraz, but Reese and Walker’s wife escaped, shooting Walker repeatedly and leaving him for dead in his cell. In the beginning of the film, we see Walker swim off the island where Alcatraz is located and, through innovatively fragmented editing, return on a boat tour where he meets a mysterious man (Keenan Wynn) looking to bring down the Organization, a faceless entity of crime where Reese now works. The man gives Walker his wife’s current address, says Reese lives there too, and more dynamic editing takes us to her via the Los Angeles airport. The wife answers questions no one asks and a stoic Walker sets his plan to retrieve his cut of the money in motion.
Though you’ll often hear Point Blank categorized as a noir or a neo-noir, those terms really don’t interest me here. Walker is so far removed from classic noir heroes that I can’t make that connection. Lee Marvin plays him literally like an automaton seemingly without humanlike qualities. On the surface, the film plays out like a noir plot, but it never emits that feeling of doom, dread and the wrong side of fate that exemplifies those kind of films. Instead, Point Blank seems like a dreamy psychedelic peak through the looking glass. The entire film situates itself on the brink of reality, teetering precisely between what may be real and what could be imagined. It does a remarkable job of toeing this line and resists any concrete determinations of whether Walker is dead or alive, lucid or dreaming.
As a result, I (and many, many others) can’t help but wondering if everything we see Walker do after he’s shot by Reese in Alcatraz is actually occurring or if it’s in his mind somehow. I like that Boorman never gives any reason to think Walker isn’t either in some alternate existence or that he really is dreaming it all. Prior to being shot, Walker seems very timid in the flashbacks involving his wife and Reese, much different than the animalistic near-psychotic we see throughout the picture. Towards the end of the film, when Carroll O’Connor is talking to Walker, he appears to again become the unsure, more deliberate person we see in the flashbacks. Yet, there’s never any way for the viewer to definitively know if we’re seeing movie reality or the delirious dreams of a man shot by his co-conspirator. No matter how many times you watch the film, it’s impossible to figure out whether Walker is really taking down the Organization or if it’s an elaborate fantasy.
Furthermore, dreaming or not, is Walker even really still alive? More than one person in the film remarks that they thought he was dead and it’s entirely conceivable to think a man shot and left for dead would struggle to exit Alcatraz, much less swim across the ocean to San Francisco. Then there’s the passing of time between Walker’s escape and our first real-time meeting when he’s on the tourist boat. His hair seems greyer, his personality has calcified, and we’re never told why he’d be taking this boat tour in the first place. If he’s so interested in the money owed him (which is a question in its own right, considering the ending), what’s he been doing since his escape? We’re never told and the mystery of Walker is completely shrouded in uncertainty and question upon question. Trying to determine Walker’s existence can be a maddening exercise in futility, with no right or wrong answer.
Other characters in the film seem to either help Walker for unknown reasons or fear him. Keenan Wynn emerges from the shadows repeatedly, popping up at just the right moment to provide pieces of information and encouragement. Again, though, is this character real or part of Walker’s imagined revenge fantasy? The ending suggests he plays an integral part in the plot, but that’s assuming we’re dealing with reality when we may not be. Angie Dickinson, playing Walker’s ex-sister-in-law, goes to great lengths to provide help, later on attacks him violently, and ultimately is still unable to resist him. If Walker was dreaming the story as a fantasy, every piece fits exactly in place. In Point Blank, it’s possible to question everything from multiple angles and the only answers you’ll find will be rooted somewhere inside your own subjective head. I don’t know if I can recall another film so ambiguous without going over the deep end of belief.
Then again, that’s part of the charm in Point Blank. While it has a straightforward plot that’s fairly easy to follow, involving Walker’s efforts to disrupt the Organization and receive his $93,000, the film also has enough weird, open to interpretation moments to tide over the arthouse crowd. Boorman’s splendid direction, made even more remarkable considering his only previous feature starred the Dave Clark Five, adds layers of headscratching wonders mixed with stand-out colors marked by a palette that changes tones with Marvin’s suits. The DVD commentary, a conversation between Boorman and Steven Soderbergh, particularly made me appreciate the change in color and monochromatic detail prevalent in scenes such as Walker’s visit to his wife when, still wearing the grey suit, he sits on a grey couch with grey pillows in front of a backdrop of grey curtains and walls.
Instead of giving us a typical crime drama revenge story, Boorman turned Point Blank into an existential action film littered with ellipses. Whereas some directors, namely David Lynch, revel in fractured narratives challenging the viewer to put the pieces together, confidently telling the audience that there is an answer and “everything makes perfect sense,” Boorman’s film goes the opposite route. Instead of making sense only after repeatedly watching and deciphering, Point Blank superficially makes sense with little reflection. It’s only after closely examining the editing and, especially, the recurring flashbacks that we’re left in a daze of confusion. Thrillingly, the audience never gets its answer to many of the questions about Walker, as he almost dematerializes in the end. Somehow the film is both open-ended and straightforward, a major accomplishment in simmering late 1960s Hollywood.
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