The series’ latest Harald Vogl feature (from 1984) completes the filmmaker’s gradual movement away from narrative toward a vérité-style essay film. Gone are the post-punk streets of the East Village, replaced with on-the-ground footage of antiwar protests and visitors to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, and observational scenes of union parades, marching bands, street dancers, and Chinatown residents back in Manhattan.
In this ostensible murder mystery, the genre elements are merely a pretext for the series of haunting (if inconclusive and only mildly erotic) homo-social encounters he stages. Starting with the familiar premise of the absent woman, so popular with Downtown filmmakers, Vogl drains his storytelling of any hints of noir stylization. Instead of nighttime scenes, slick streets, and dark alleys, he shoots documentary-style on the nondescript, sunlit streets of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and City Island in a manner that casually references the art-film angst of Michelangelo Antonioni.
