New Hollywood strikes again

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2007)

Perhaps the reason why I liked Zodiac so much is because it's like a content, legitimate child of Pakula and Stone: All the President's Men without paranoia and JFK minus the conspiracy. Very much a 'talkie', but also a careful, almost elegiac study of America that lost its innocence, bypassed by summer of love and jaded by Watergate. Where Pakula would have build up uneasiness and Stone spirals of suspicion, Fincher lets time and inefficiency do the work and every suspense gets counteracted by series of anticlimaxes. Fincher never lets us focus for too long on either one character or a suspect, throwing sly hints here and there that lead nowhere, and we are back with our good, obsessive guys, suspending the paranoia once again. Impeccably directed, shot and edited, this film is a rare delight of attentive storytelling (only once, about three quarters in, somewhat forgetting Glynnehall's character, which could probably be attributed to compromised editing).
Another thing that is worth mentioning is how rarely one encounters a period drama that doesn't overwhelm with period details. Apart from astonishingly faithfully recreated photography, in its warm brown and yellowish hues, soundtrack is as an unobtrusive and historically discreet, all fuzzy, sticky funk and r'n'b, eerie pop loop of Lynn Anderson and Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man in particular lending a sinister and ironic touch.
A special mention goes, among all really great cast, to Anthony Edwards for continuing where Kevin Costner got distracted by megalomania and Robert Downing Jr for not over-camping it.