About Chinatown

So I took Arturo's advice and watched Chinatown over the weekend. I just got to say that If you guys are interesting in watching one of the most developed story lines you will probably see in the movie industry, this is your movie. A brief review, directed by Roman Polansky, Chinatown tells the story of private investigator, Jack Gittes (Jack Nicholson), as we tries to unveil a conspiracy to steal the water supply of the city of Los Angeles. I know this storyline sounds kind of dull and overdone, but I think that Chinatown is more than that. The plot for this story unfolds by itself. The audience goes along with the movie as this reveals every key point of the story. This type of storytelling is so subtle that you don't even realize the complexity of it until you are done watching the movie. It just flows very naturally. I don't want to spoil the movie, but the big theme of the story (the water supply stealing) ends up being not as important as the story lines between the characters develop and overshadow the water supply storyline. I also think that it's really impressive that Polansky only use the main character, Jack Gittes, as his only mean to reveal the plot.

Chinatown reminded me of Dexter. In this show we also get a lot of information from Dexter's point of view. Dexter is also a suspenseful drama where the audience follows him as he investigates his different victims. For example, the way both of this characters sneak around to get the information that they need is pretty similar.

But coming back to Chinatown, its composition is pretty interesting as well. There is some pretty cool shots in this movie. Especially when Gitter is observing or hiding from someone, which brings me back to the story being tell only through Gitter's point of view.

I think that this movie is worth watching. I'm not really into movies from the 70's and early 80's because they tend to be pretty cheesy with the music and the general mood (and I did see some of this in Chinatown, especially during the credits), but I guess that was the style back in those days. But you should definitely watch this movie since it's a great example of storytelling and direction.