Nightmare Alley was released in an age where such glossy films full of stars, commercial ambitions, and no cosplays, have probably gone, however temporary, who knows, out of fashion. Shame, because catching up with it only now, I realise that it deserved a lot more attention—mine, to start with—and that despite drawing from classic noir material, it is a lot closer to our days than its stylish appearance might lead to think. Better phrased by Martin Scorsese, who even wrote a heartfelt article1 to persuade people to put the bloody remote down and go see it in a cinema, ‘Guillermo is certainly speaking from and to his own time, but he’s doing so in the idiom of a time gone by, and the urgency and despair of then overlaps with the urgency and despair of now in a way that’s quite disturbing. It’s like a warning bell.’
To an equally relatable contrast, Nightmare Alley’s haunted souls roam in a surreal land of wonders. The aesthetics of the film are so meticulously designed to let their perfection give way to an almost alienating feeling. Richly packed with gorgeous antiques, every set looks like a recreated environment in a history museum or a model inside a snowglobe. Of course they are great, and yet indulgently artificial in their vintage warmth, especially for the gritty notes of the subject.
The story unfolds at a slow pace through a lengthy first act, though before I know, the film has switched to a completely different tempo. The tension grows from lazy golden-lit cinema déjà-vus, including what seemed to me a slightly forced homage to one of the most memorable moments from Goodfellas—‘Go on, go on, around the corner,’ says the fishy Clem to Stan, indicating a mattress where he could crunch for the night—to near hart-attack intensity as our hero’s foolhardiness paves him the way to self-destruction. On the one hand, Nightmare Alley seems to try and give more answers than it should, or if anything than I wanted. I didn’t need to know about Stan’s past to connect with the character. Nor I needed the hilarity of the epilogue—more apt to a short film anyway—to close the circle. But on the other, I was fine not to know the details of what the spine-chilling Ezra Grindle really did to his lovers, or the meaning of the fantastic creature in the jar. My imagination works well enough, and it feels great when a director is aware and knows how to feed it.
