a review of 淡蓝之眸

Chekhov's Gun is the idea that if in a story there's a gun hanging on a wall, it's going to be fired at some point. I say Chekhov was a hack, and I say it with my chest. Russian literature does not have a grip on me the way it does on foreigners who find it exotic or Russians deluded by their blind patriotism. I see it for what it is. Perhaps because most Russian writers sought the extermination of my kind. There are many elements to a story. The ones that take focus need to have meaning and relate to the rest of the story, but that doesn't mean they have to become plot-points. Many guns here remained unfired. Even literal ones (the one hanging on the wall of Landor's cottage). This movie operates more in what is left unsaid than what isn't. Much like Alan Moore's Providence, which immerses the protagonist (and by proxy the audience) into the world of Lovecraft, The Pale Blue Eye does the same with Poe. There are untold stories on the peripheries and they usually pack more of a punch than the one being told. You're supposed to take certain wonders at face value as simply existing beyond this movie's lens, represented here as mere mentions, never picked up and explored. But it's that precise quality that gives this movie more life than a contrived Chekhovian reality of constant gunshots. It's like a privilege to peek into something you're not a part of. A world of mysteries. And I have never seen such an homage to Poe. Characters, themes, motifs, somehow it all converges so coherently. Even official adaptations of his work often feel less faithful.