In an unnamed European city, a serial killer who strangles his victims is on the loose. A bookish clerk finds himself part of a vigilante mob trying to solve the crime, and then becomes one of the suspects. Joining him is woman who has just run away from a circus currently stationed in town, and they desperately try to prove his innocence while avoiding the mob as well as the real killer.
This Kafkaesque comedy is the 20th feature written and directed by Woody Allen, and while not one of his more acclaimed titles, it is perhaps the most distinct in its visual approach: Allen's intention was to pay tribute to the German Expressionist films of the 1920's and 30's, with an elaborate set (the biggest ever built in New York City) and striking black and white photography by Carlo Di Palma (a veteran of several Michaelangelo Antonioni films).
Shadows and Fog features one of Allen's most impressive star-packed casts, including Mia Farrow, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin, Donald Pleasance, Madonna, David Ogden Stiers, Kathy Bates, Wallace Shawn, and Julie Kavner.
The story was adapted from a one-act play titled "Death", an existentialism parody which Allen had written 20 years earlier. While there is no shortage of Allen's trademark one-liners and amusing characters, the repressive mood and meditation on mortality work as a powerful contrast, enhanced by music borrowed from Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht's dark musical The Three-Penny Opera.
Film runs approximately 90 min.
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