Aesthetics of violence
Solarmovie
Keanu Reeves did not have an easy career. "On the wave" was in the nineties and he managed to stay on it, playing in the titles of genres nearby action cinema. Later, however, times changed, and with them the likes of the audience and Keanu with his somewhat rigid acting was not so popular. Action cinema also underwent a major metamorphosis. The characters were deepened with more psychological dimensions, which were needed to present slightly more credible actors. Now, however, when the cinema is experiencing a kind of renaissance and again begins to create hard, drawn with a thick line, but also destroyed heroes, Reeves returns in glory to become John Wick. Wicked in mourning for his wife, Wick is attacked by members of the Russian mafia, headed by the straightforward son of the head of the organization (Alfie Allen). The bandits steal John's car and kill the dog - a gift from his deceased wife.
When the father (Michael Nyqvist) learns of his son's misdeeds, he first tries to ease the situation, but when that fails, he sends a wick to kill him. John goes to war with the mafia, and his motivation is revenge. David Leitch and Chad Stahelski had a lot to do with action cinema, starring in small roles. However, it turns out that the experience gained over the years on various plans has helped them create a film at least interesting. Their production seems to be a step between modern aesthetics and traditional solutions. "John Wick" is very strongly embedded in the past, in the aesthetics of the 80s gangster cinema, outlining the characters with thick lines and creating clear oppositions from them.
On the other hand, care for the visual side is a thoroughly modern feature, hence the very careful framing and use of filters, which give the film a bluish, cool color, help maintain a specific, cold image climate. Pictures add a lot to the world presented, suggesting that we move in a calculating world in which there is no room for sentiments. The creators stretch before us the vision of New York, in which crime was organized to such an extent that there are separate hotels and clubs for paid killers and other types from under the dark star. This is a world in which people from the criminal industry know each other well and have mutual respect, and ignorance of certain stories important for this community or violation of its rules is highly undesirable and quickly leads to trouble. The plot of the film is predictable in the sense that since the introduction of all the characters on the scene, we know who will turn against whom and who will come out alive from each fight. And although it is an action movie, the creators are delaying the moment when John Wick is unleashed.
Slowly and carefully, they first create his legend, encapsulating it with subsequent facts and stories, adding him nicknames such as "Baba Jaga" or "Boogeyman" - clearly highlighting his strengths and things important to him. When finally the first fight comes, we jump for joy that we can see what has been announced for so long. And there is something to look at. "John Wick", in contrast to even subsequent films with Liam Neeson like "Abducted", is classic in the fight scenes. The shots of the clashes are therefore long, and any cuts are not intended to mask movements, but to find a better perspective for tracking them. Carefully planned, they look like a dance in which Keanu Reeves as John Wick deprives his life of more partners. This is a kind of return to the patterns from more than two decades ago, in which the assembly was not yet a separate player, chaotic image with numerous cuts, but rather a judge watching and deciding subsequent matches. In subsequent clashes, although extremely violent, you can see some aesthetic values, which means that we come quite close to the border, behind which violence may seem ... pretty. "John Wick" heralds a peculiar renaissance of action cinema, which does not abandon the technical solutions of the present day, uses patterns from the past. This is a movie with comic characters, but in a positive sense, while Keanu's bit "rusty" is an additional asset. In the flood of aged, styled action movie heroes whose deadly moves are not so much shown as suggested, "John Wick" finds a golden mean. Way to him, John! .
