Is it all a lie?

Rating: 10/10 (9 August 2002)

(Am I biased because my nickname is Verbal, I'm a huge fan of this movie, and I'm a HUGE Kevin Spacey fan? Nooo, this movie gave me those things! With that in mind, read on)
***SPOILERS***
Saying the whole movie is a lie is not really accurate. The whole movie is being told from the perspective of someone who, to serve his own interests, lies throughout his retelling. We know for sure that he lies about names and probably details of events, BUT there is truth to his lies. Kobayashi is a real person, and the guys are all real, and I believe the basic details of the movie are true. But part of the beauty of this film is that you don't know for sure what is true and what's not. Here's how Kevin Spacey described this movie-
He said it's like a play. When you go to see a play, you are in one seat and you can only see the play from that one seat. But if you go to see it again, your perspective changes and you might see things in the play you never saw before, and have a different view on the play than you did the first time. And everytime you see it from a different seat, you get another piece of what the whole picture looks like.
This is the most perfect analogy for this movie that I have heard yet. It's one of the few films I have seen that really gets better each time I see it. Because each time, I see something in a different way and I notice something I hadn't noticed before. The film is an intricate web, which I find fascinating.
Now, about the director lying with his camera... well, in the scenes where Verbal's telling the story, Bryan Singer is simply portraying the picture Kujan must be getting in his mind as he buys into the lie Verbal is feeding him. Not only that, but before the particular scene you mentioned, the perspective changes. Kujan actually says, "Let me tell you what I know..." and at that moment (as Singer points out on the commentary) the storytelling view switches to his own. What we see now on the boat is what Kujan believes has been going on. He doesn't think that Verbal killed Keaton, and certainly doesn't think Verbal is Soze. This is because Verbal has done such a brilliant job of convincing Kujan that Kujan's suspicions about Keaton are right. Verbal has done it! He's planned out the whole thing carefully, and now he's convinced Kujan that he's just an innocent victim. Not only that, but he's also convinced Kujan that Keyser Soze isn't even real at all.

Remember, the whole theme of the film is, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This is just one example of how Keyser Soze ("the Devil himself") has done this, and an insight into how he's certainly done it before and will keep on doing it.

On a little different note, would someone PLEASE explain to me how in the world Kevin Spacey was Best Supporting Actor??? Verbal is the storyteller, and Keyser is who the movie is all about. It's not about the other criminals! It's totally about Keyser and Verbal, both of which are portrayed (sometimes simultaneously) by Spacey. If there's ever been a movie that's totally about one person, it's this one! How in the WORLD did the Academy see it any other way?