Zodiac: a long way home

Every self-respecting movie maniac can recall at least one occasion, when he or she had this need of watching a movie about something, that usually doesn't visit their thoughts very often. It's like Inception, the idea is like a virus, spreading and taking hostage your mind and then you know: if you won't watch the movie, you'll just go nuts. So you do. Sometimes the need is to watch rhinos copulate, sometimes we just have to see James Franco cutting off his limb, but me - i needed a serial killer.

I honestly wasn't prepared for the length of this movie - telling a story about one serial killer in THREE HOURS? Man, you have to have guts for this, cause that's a risky job. Not everyone can keep the audience interested for that long, even with gunshots, blow ups and other special effects to back you up. So what David Fincher did? He minimized anything that can cause an adrenaline rush, placed the action in cold, wet and dark San Francisco, banned smiling on set and using any of crew's charms to attract the watcher (pretty boy Jake Gyllenhaal did a good job, but Robert Downey Jr's charisma just couldn't sit quietly in the corner) and you know what? It worked.

Even though Zodiac is not a classic about-a-murderer kind of movie. The hunt for the I-5 Killer would probably better satisfy my need (yup, on the list), 'cause Zodiac doesn't say much about the Zodiac himself (spoiler! - we don't even get to know for sure!), but it tells the story of people, whose lives got influenced by the crimes and the mystery. So have you expected a delicious Happy Meal of Murder, with Follow-his-steps fries and an extra large juicy murder details Coke - you'll be disappointed.

So what if we eat some slow food sometimes? Zodiac gives us the opportunity to be a part of police investigation the way, it probably really looks like. With chances and possibilities dying and disappearing with every minute, it reaches a dead end. With people involved and those, who did not care at all. With the hunt, the code cracking, the hopes rising and falling down on their heads. With the presumption of innocence and the feeling, you might have just the right psycho sitting in front of you, but you have no proof, and therefore, you have nothing to fight him back. With cases unclosed for years, with details popping up here and there, after a month, a year, a decade. Fincher doesn't let us take the shortcut, it's not a journey from A to B, with characters telling us what they've found during those ten years, having fake conversations: we witness their every step, their urge to find out, their fear, their curiosity and a moment, when job becomes a destructive obsession and there's nothing left in your mind, but the statement:

It's always sunny in Philadelphia, they say... Well, lucky you, Philly, cause in Fincher's San Francisco the weather forecast is: rainy, cold, with no sights of sun, sky or happiness. It's the dark side of the city, he's trying to show us, and he succedeed. Characters chase each other between puddles, on wet streets and pavements, and everything seems to be hostile. People to people, city to people and everything seems tougher. All optimistic, happy scenes are followed by a murder, and the watcher is taught that for every smile there is a price. We are being trained to expect that, just as we unawaresly sink into the bad atmosphere of danger and fear, the whole movie is based on. That's why i caught myself holding my breath for no reason - or maybe actually for the Zodiac's general reason.

Fortunately, we're not getting killed after smiling over a strange relationship between extremely introverted vel. retired Robert Greysmith (Gyllenhaal) and popular and well respected journalist Paul Avery (Downey Jr). Downey Jr, as Downey Jrs like to do, is funny and smart and witty and popular, but for some reason he becomes interested in Gyllenhaal (it's not what you're thinking, Jake, we're far away from mountains), especially in a beautiful mind of his. Cracking codes, thinking outside the box - not everyone can do that, but our boy scout seems to be much more than an average newspaper draftsman. Paul Avery sees that and takes him under his wings, right into the battle with an unknown opponent, a battle in which he's lost his job, position, home and peaceful mind. He didn't lose his wit, though. Thank God  James Vanderbilt (screenwriter).

Gyllenhaal makes good Greysmith, the guy that no one pays attention to, but his whole role is based on several types of looks. The i've-got-an-idea look, the no-one-understands-why-i'm-obsessed-with-this-killer look, the i'm-trying-to-look-normal look and the standard Gyllenhaal puppy-eyes look. I'm not saying it' bad, but that's nothing we haven't seen before. And doing the same, but being funny at the same time, it's a complete different story, right, Rob?

Leaving our journo duet alone, there's another pair worth noticing: Marc Rufallo's Dave Toschi and Anthony Edwards' Armstrong. They're cops, so investigating Zodiac's case is their job, but they'll soon start to notice how destructive it is. It's a tough relationship. You know, how every cop movie tells the story how the policemen working in pairs became BFFs? Well, there comes a time when you have to decide, whether to go down with your fella or save yourself. And when you decide on the door number 2 you know, that you've betrayed you friend. Even when he says it's all right. You've lost something. Well, good job Rufallo and Edwards, a nice piece of acting.

So what's the fun in the game, where everyone loses? Themselves, their friends, family, lives... There's none, but when you follow something long enough, you become it, obsession starts making your life. That's why Zodiac isn't about Zodiac really. It's not about the victims, it's not about their beloved. It's about some people seemingly unconnected with the crimes, but ruined by them anyway. It's about searching for an answer you'll never get and being left with the question marks forever. So if you sit and bite your fingernails, thinking: 'where's that murderer, Gyllenhaal's boring', you better stop watching now, otherwise it's gonna be a 180minutes long nightmare of boredom. But if you're open to something new, to slowing a bit in order to see more, to think more, that might be the serial killer movie for you. Answers won't be brought to you on a plate, more, there will be no clear answers. There are just questions. Is it him? Is it real?

IS IT TRUE?