"The Parallax View" and "The Trigger Effect" reveal to us in a most stylish and frightening way the near total vulnerability we have given ourselves to in relying on those twin pillars of the social system -- the corporations and the utilities, and the fear we should anticipate when the childlike trust we put in them is violated.
Warren Beatty stars in "The Parallax View," a cinematic Roman a clef about the inconclusive findings of the Warren Commission's investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy.
"The Parallax View's" visual style fairly drips with paranoic dislocation. Cinematographer's Gordon Willis' fractured frames and shadows hide as much as they reveal.
Alan Pakula's "The Parallax View" was the second in what critics have dubbed the director's "paranoia trilogy" which along with "Klute" (1971) and "All the President's Men" (1976) expose us as sacrificial lambs when we attempt to swim upstream against the currents of sex, money and power.
As a result of "The Parallax View's" depiction of paranoia, Robert Redford, who owned the story rights to "All the President's Men" sought Pakula to direct it saying "Pakula has a very good grasp of fear." Maybe Pakula developed his "grasp of fear" by directing Liza Minnelli in his first outing behind the megaphone on "The Sterile Cuckoo." Since then, he has helmed such films as "Sophie's Choice," "Presumed Innocent" and "The Pelican Brief."
"The Parallax View" has a paranoid bent with a distinctly '70s sensibility as it came hard on the heels of such delusional events as the secret bombing of Cambodia, the agent orange cover-up and Watergate. Back then, we came to believe that the government sometimes lies to the people. Of course, now we know better. Now we know that the government always lies to the people.
"The Trigger Effect" demonstrates that we have become particularly dependent on electrical power, and should it disappear, it will trigger a series of events which will result in anarchy. The story is based on an old "Twillight Zone" episode called "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" which starred actor Claude Akins, the director's uncle.
On paper at least, the personnel involved in the making of "The Trigger Effect" auger a great film. Elisabeth Shue, fresh from her critical triumph in "Leaving Las Vegas" squares off against "Blue Velvet's" Kyle MacLachlan.
The character who comes between them is Dermot Mulroney, one of the attractive players featured in perhaps 1995's best independent film, "Living in Oblivion." Rookie director David Koepps's previous film work was as a writer on the screenplay adaptations for "Jurassic Park" and last year's giga-hit "Mission Impossible."
If you have ever wondered about who is really pulling the strings of power or felt an icy stab of paranoia about this country's overly complex infrastructure suddenly crumbling like a House of cards, then this is the double feature for you.
