Following

Christopher Nolan’s first film is coming to Polish theaters for the first time!

The film is being presented in a digitally restored version of the picture and sound, which Christopher Nolan personally oversaw.

Christopher Nolan’s feature-length directorial debut is also a manifesto for his future films: labyrinthine storytelling, an obsession with control, and a fascination with the fluid nature of identity.

Shot on a shoestring budget (just $6,000!), in black and white, using natural light and the London apartments of the director’s friends. Following remains one of the most striking examples of 1990s independent cinema.

 

The film’s protagonist, an unnamed young writer, begins following random people on the streets of London, treating them as material for his observations. However, what starts as an innocent fascination quickly turns into a dangerous ritual when he meets the charismatic burglar Cobb – a guide to the world of manipulation, the performance of one’s own personality, and moral disorientation.

 

Nolan guides the viewer through a series of seemingly unrelated events, breaking up the linearity of the narrative and forcing the audience to constantly reconstruct reality.

Even in this early film, all the themes that would later define the director’s work – Memento, Inception or Oppenheimer: fragmented memory, distrust of perception, characters trapped within the constructs of their own minds, and time treated as a tool for dramatic manipulation.

Following serves as a sketch of Nolan’s future style, while remaining an exceptionally raw and intimate work – an urban noir about loneliness, obsession, and the desire to take control of someone else’s life.