Flic (2005) understanding.

[u/Difficult_One_5062]

I just watched a film called Flic (2005) and have many questions about the film. Particularly about what it means.

I got the vibe of several Kurosawa Kiyoshi films from it- Cure, Pulse and Charisma. I also thought of this film to be Lynchian due to the way it is merging reality and fiction.

What is the true reality of the film if it even exists? Is it all a dream thought by the protagonist as well see at the end? If so then we never learn of the identity of the killer right? On which is he really leaving the town? Or is he going towards it? Are there multiple interpretations of it?

Darn this is nerve wracking rightfully so. Might join my top 100 once i unravel it.

[u/Next_Tradition9619]

I can't really help you in terms of interpretation since I didn't get it either and just enjoyed the ride, but a couple of years ago I REALLY got into Masahiro Kobayashi's movie, even reading his autobiography and hunting down all the pink films (Japanese softcore porn) that he wrote the scripts for. Disappointingly he hardly wrote about the actual movies in his book and mostly focused on the casting process and the reception at film festivals.

He was a complete movie nerd, though, obsessed with Truffaut and New Hollywood. His movies often have something self aware and meta going on. One of his early films, Bootleg Movie, ends with to characters that have been killed earlier just standing up and walking away while having a casual conversation. In another movie of his (Man Walking on Snow), he shows several takes of the same scene with different outcomes.

I think in Flic, Kobayashi just made up stuff as he went along. He loved doing that. And as weird as it sounds, I think that the pink Film he wrote in the 90s with the catchy title "Adultery Diary: One more time while I'm still wet" is almost the prototype to Flic. A generic story about a cheating wife that gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. Kobayashi piled twists on top of twists, even though they barely make sense and even contradict each other. He just was that kind of writer.

Sorry I couldn't help you out with concrete answers. To me, Flic is just a love letter to the power of fiction, made by a true nerd

[u/frederick_tussock]

It's been a little while since I watched it but I took it to be a Vertigo or Lost Highway-type situation where our protagonist is haunted by his failing to save his wife and subsequently becomes trapped in a fantasy/nightmare/limbo of this town where a similar case is presented for him to solve and redeem himself but can never actually resolve itself proper.

I think in driving away from the town the protagonist is driving right back towards it, there's ultimately no escape for him.