After paying due homage to Bergman (Interiors), Chekhov (September) and Fellini (Stardust Memories), Shadows and Fog finds Woody Allen in a less sombre but still European state of mind with an affectionate valentine to German Expressionism, a literary but mainly cinematic movement which found its definitive form in Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Murnau's Nosferatu (1923). Shot in crisp black and white, the film is set in an unnamed european city during the 1920s and features the auteur as Max Kleinmann, a nerdy, neurotic bookworm who is inveigled one night into joining a band of pitch-fork wielding vigilantes roaming the city's labyrinthine streets searching for a serial killer. In due course, Kleinman's nocturnal, Kafka-esque meander brings him into contact with a bunch of characters who wouldn't look out of place in a Todd Browning movie: a circus sword swallower (Mia Farrow), her philandering clown boyfriend (John Malcovich), an adulterous strongman's wife (Madonna), a Fat Lady, a Dwarf and a trio of prostitutes played by Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster and Kathy Bates. Eschewing the restrictions of a traditional three-part narrative structure, the film is composed more as a series of period-styled vignettes infused with Allen's familiar dead-pan, anachronistic witicisms and philosophical non-sequiturs. Like Zelig and The Purple Rose of Cairo, it remains an exercise in style where the schematic conceits are as conspicuous as the starry cameo cast. It may not be top-tier Allen, but the concept is inspired and thanks in large part to the chiaroscuro grandeur of cinematographer Carlo di Palma's evocative images, it all makes for an entertaining 85 minutes.
