«Sugar» - Series Review by Kinoafisha

Black-and-white Tokyo. View of Mount Fujiyama. Cut. And we're already inside. A man meditatively slices rolls. Knock on the door. Enters a mysterious private detective, John Sugar ("sugary" Colin Farrell), who is looking for the missing son of a yakuza boss. The kidnapper attacks the mysterious guest, refuses to confess to anything, and the detective, saying "I don't like to cause people pain," commits the first act of violence. He kills. After this assignment, John, overwhelmed by guilt but having saved the boy, receives a new job — to find the missing granddaughter of the famous film producer Jonathan Sigal (James Cromwell). With this goal, Mr. Sugar travels to Hollywood, where he will have to confront the terrifying family secrets of filmmakers, violence, and first true love.

"Sugar" is an original Apple TV series that has already carved out a respectable niche among producers of exclusive content. The advantage of the service is that it is not afraid to take risks, financing strange but extremely interesting projects with Hollywood stars in the lead roles. For example, the series "Severance" by Ben Stiller, which, despite its originality, ranked second among the top ten most popular streaming series. The new project is unlikely to achieve such high ratings, although it aspires to greatness (and quite justifiably). Mark Protosevich, who worked on the scripts for "I Am Legend" and the American version of "Oldboy," served as the showrunner for "Sugar." The project was directed by Fernando Meirelles, known for the crime drama "City of God," which was nominated for an Oscar four times.

And it seems that the authors have succeeded in telling nothing less than a story about the search for the language of cinema. Not long ago, in 2021, Colin Farrell starred in a film about cinema by Kogonada, "After Yang," while also exploring what it means to be human. Android memories in the film helped him with this. Now it's time for on-screen self-reflection with voice-overs and philosophical musings. The questions remain the same: who are these people, and is it really so great to be human? But the tools are somewhat different. Not video materials recorded on camera, but actual cinema (primarily film noir).

So, preparation. A black-and-white prologue and circular imagery reminiscent of the early period of film history with its Brighton School pictures and David Wark Griffith's films. The frame will repeatedly close in on itself when Sugar receives letters, messages, and finds clues. This is also a tribute to the black-and-white film noir of the 1940s-1950s, which loved to use circular framing to focus the viewer's attention on essential details. Then John finds himself in a hotel. A voice-over sounds: Sugar delivers an internal monologue about his work, about failures, pain, and the satisfying result — bringing home those who are lost. The entire thriller "Zodiac" by David Fincher is built on similar monologues, which is also considered a film about cinema, where the director's method is likened to the tactics of a killer (not coincidentally, "shot" means both "shot" and "frame").

Further experiments in cinema continue: voyeuristic camera, sometimes handheld, sometimes static, natural light, cross-cutting, fading to black, Dutch angle with a "tilted" horizon line. Again, the series returns to noir when John's curator, Helen, gives him a gun from Glenn Ford's shoot of Fritz Lang's film "The Big Heat" for self-defense. A montage insert from the film immediately follows. The point is that Sugar agrees to carry a weapon, but only if it's from the movies. Fake murder, just a prop.

And so our cine-detective arms himself with the most famous film magazines — fictional issues of Sight and Sound, Cahiers du Cinema, and American Cinematographer. Off-camera, he binge-watches films by the producer who hired him (at least five times each), and finally, the preparatory stage is complete. Film school is done. Now our hero enters the "industry" — into the villa of the creator of the hit "Lady in the Shadows." He arrives in a retro convertible dressed in old-fashioned attire, much like Joe Gillis arrived at the seemingly abandoned mansion on Sunset Boulevard in the 1950 film of the same name. In their first meeting, John immediately confesses to the client that he's not just a cinephile but rather suffers from an addiction to this art form.

The main character explores life through films, imagining himself as a detective from old movies. The creators of the series convey this obsession through montage inserts from classic films. These are sort of "parentheses," reminiscent of parenthetical constructions in language, serving various functions in the show. Sometimes they rhyme or literally repeat actions/backgrounds/frames of the main narrative (for example, Sugar interrogating witnesses, like the noir icon Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep"). In some cases, insignificant events from the narrative, which are glossed over, are restored in an insert from another film (for example, buying a movie ticket or attempting to break into a house through a window). These elements can also continue phrases and even represent the character's hidden feelings (externally, the hero is unshaken, but through an insert, he's represented as Buster Keaton crying). Or John simply recounts a scene from John Carpenter's sci-fi horror "The Thing" in the doctor's office. Towards the end, the hero recalls "L.A. Confidential" with Kim Basinger and Russell Crowe when he realizes he's been betrayed.

There are also scenes in which characters watch movies on TV, for example, Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." Or Sugar goes to the cinema, where they show a fictional film by a film producer, in which the heroine delivers an important passage for Sugar's further transformation into a human being: "Movies make you believe in everything. In ideals, strength, good guys, and, of course, love. But in my life, there's no Charles Boyer. I've never met Gable and Bogart. They don't exist, that's the truth." There are more subtle references in the series as well. For example, when John takes in a stray dog left without an owner, these two solitudes are reminiscent of Marcel Carné's "Port of Shadows" — one of the best examples of "poetic realism" and a precursor to film noir.

The neon-noir series makes for a strange but intriguing watch, which is not so much about the search for the missing, but about the personality of the hero himself, passionately desiring to unravel the mystery of human nature. All of this seems incredibly interesting and not only brings joy in recognizing cinema masterpieces but also engages in interpreting the meanings embedded in such a structure. For example, why, when Sugar swims in the pool, does he see a similar shot from the aforementioned "Sunset Boulevard" by Billy Wilder? Simply because he's a cinephile, and this is a film noir masterpiece? Or because he senses impending death? Or are the authors, once again, like in 1950, acknowledging the crisis of cinema? Is it dying at all, or just giving birth to a new era of TV series? In the finale, the director finds his cinematic language. Serene, without formal excesses, not under the moon but under the setting sun. And it seems that, unlike the cult classic, it heralds an optimistic development of cinema. Although such playing with style may seem too pretentious, it's comforting to conclude that life is much more than just cinema. Even the great one. And then the familiar "The End" title appears. The screen fades to black.