New York, 1975. Freed after five years in prison thanks to his corrupt lawyer, Puerto Rican mobster Carlito Brigante returns home to the Spanish district of Harlem. He wants to leave banditry to take his life in hand. But his former accomplices are not of this opinion…
Film critic
« Escape to Paradise ». Carlito Brigante, from a stretcher, stares at this reddish advertisement, the only touch of color in the film’s opening sequence. A woman dances in front of the ocean lit by the setting sun. The twilight atmosphere of The Impasse (Carlito’s Way in VO) is immediately asked. All the dreams of this former drug baron are brought together in this image, an inaccessible mirage that he sees vanish on his deathbed. Helpless, the protagonist remembers his last moments. A week before, the Puerto Rican was released from prison and swore to stop his criminal activities to rebuild himself alongside the woman of his life.
By announcing the death of his character from the first minutes of the feature film, Brian DePalma confronts us with this fatality, this inevitable outcome: Carlito Brigante will not get out of this impasse, regardless of his future choices. Little by little, the renowned former mobster will have to leave his place. In five years, the legend of Harlem has been replaced by petty robbers who have become barons, who have traded their honor for the lure of gain. Cannabis is outdated, cocaine has taken over. Nightclubs have become the scene of the neighborhood’s biggest drug deals. Carlito is obsolete. It will never move faster than this tornado of novelties.
Ten years after the timeless classic Scarface, the duo Brian de Palma – Al Pacino returns with a diametrically different film. Considered today as one of the greatest films of its director and despite its poor reception on its release, the years have done good to The Impasse, yet a whistleblower of the passage of time and the consequences of constant overconsumption. Sean Penn, unrecognizable, is perfect in his role as a crooked lawyer. Penelope Ann Miller, interprets with splendor the captivating Gail. It’s hard not to think of his mesmerizing dance, lulled by the voice of Joe Cocker. His performance gives credibility a little more to Carlito’s total loss of control over the woman of his life.
More poetic and more tragic than Scarface, The Impasse will become, over time, a reference of film noir. After killing Tony Montana, a Cuban thug whose ambitions caused the loss, De Palma decides to give his new protagonist an opposite trajectory: the Puerto Rican has already known glory and now prefers a more reasonable dream. Al Pacino leaves the recklessness of Tony for the maturity of Carlito, whose fate will be no different.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
This announced fatality leads to the constant mistrust of the spectator, who undeniably attaches himself to Carlito while hoping, in vain, for another conclusion. The Puerto Rican, like us, is however on the lookout: he analyzes each shady behavior, each discussion of his rivals in an attempt to understand and overcome them. Around a billiard table, in a club, in a train station: everyone fails in their task to make it sink. It’s himself, refusing to apply his own principles, who is dashing to the grave. Betrayal strikes where it was least expected, relentless, and leaves no way out.
This portrait of a man who defies death is sublimated by the dantesque performance of Al Pacino, almost inhabited by this dreamer out of step with his time. De Palma’s constantly renewed photography and impeccable camera take his film to another dimension, making it one of the greatest of its kind. Carlito’s funeral march ends in the most beautiful of ways, with a sequence shot of disconcerting ingenuity, as the protagonist tries to outrun the mobsters through the escalators of Grand Central.
And here we are again facing the compassionate gaze of Al Pacino. « Escape to Paradise ». This announced and dreaded end for more than two hours arrives and leaves us, helpless, in front of this advertising poster. But Carlito did not fail. The woman of his life can finally flourish, far from the hostile New York environment that she was unable to fight. And the poster comes to life. Gail whirls in front of this sunset, under the livid eyes of the protagonist who will never see her rise again. By dint of running blindly after his dream, Carlito hastened his way to the infinite night.
DISCOVER A CINEMA CLASSIC EVERY SUNDAY IN DAY OF WORSHIP
2023-05-28 05:38:10
#IMPASSE #Review #Brian #Palmas #film #Pacino
