Out of the Past (1947)

This is a very confusing movie and I had a hard time following. There was a flashback that lasted so long I forgot that it was a flashback. But I was at least able to follow the first flashback, what happened in the present though...I'm simply not sure. After reading the Wikipedia synopsis, they definitely left out a bunch of parts from the movie. I was unsure about Jeff's motivations in the movie. He obviously fell for Kathie the first time in Mexico, but once it is revealed how dangerous she is, does he fall for it the second time? And when he knows that he is being set up, why does he just let himself be set up? He literally just goes with it and verbalizes that he knows he is being set up, but he does exactly what they want him to do. Is this the fatalism that has resigned him to his destiny?

Despite the convoluted story, the cinematography is quite something. They play a lot with shadows and spotlights. The movie has a bit of a horror feel because it is so dark. We watch carefully constructed silhouettes for much of the movie, though unlike the other noir films we watched, the film opens on day out in nature without rain. When do things start to take a turn for the dark? When he goes back to her cabin in the jungle at night in the rain. It is not the concrete jungle, but an actual wild, uncouth jungle in Mexico. There's not turning back now because she has him.

And then I definitely missed something at the end. The Wikipedia synopsis is pretty clear about the ending. And maybe I was just being oblivious, but I think the cues were too subtle for me to able to read all of that from the movie.