This is what we're watching: "Inherent Vice" is a masterpiece masquerading as a detective, in which Joaquin Phoenix strikes with at least tanks

In a new series of articles, every week I talk about what films and series have amazed me.

I recently discovered that I don't remember the plot of the movie "Inherent Vice". He remembered the characters, individual scenes, lines, but could not link them into something unified. When I rewatched it, I understood why.

"Inherited Vice" is a detective puzzle that lacks details. While watching, it always seems as if something has been missed or forgotten - sometimes the transitions from one scene to another look illogical. Imagine a novel from which a quarter of the pages were accidentally torn out - you get "Inherited Vice".

If to characterize the film in one word, you have to choose "absurd". "Birth defect" constantly reminds that it is detective, but the causal relationship is regularly violated. The clues that allow you to solve the case look even funnier: as soon as the main character Doc talks to a random person, valuable information pops up.

However, this is not a boring and predictable film, rather the opposite - the hero studies painfully wild things, and the characters are too strange, so that their actions are not always explained by logic. Watching the development of events is terribly interesting, even if you do not always understand what exactly is happening.

If the plot of "Inherent Vice" is strange and incomprehensible, then everything is great with the visuals of the film. In the first scene, the director mixes the red-orange light of a table lamp, Doc's blue jeans, and street lighting. It turns out a psychedelic mixture of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Remember" and neon visions Nicholas Winding Refn. Given the surrealism of the plot, the opening scene serves as the perfect entry point into the film's strange world.

Fans of film noir or its elements will appreciate the original rethinking of the genre in Inherent Vice. Here is the neo-noir of the new Hollywood ("Chinatown"), and the black humor of the early Coen brothers ("Miller's Crossing"), and the mobile psyche of the protagonist in the spirit of post-noirs ("Remember" Nolan). If you really want to delve into references and references, then you can watch the film endlessly.

Well, who played Doc Joaquin Phoenix in "Congenital Vice" is a genius. This is not the expression of the "Joker" or the coldness of "You were never here" - it simply brilliantly merges with the general absurdity, simultaneously studying and personifying it.