Film noir buffs — and we are legion — have decades upon decades of seductive yet bleak movies to draw us into the seamy underbelly of crime, corruption, and betrayal that marks the genre and reflects its essence. (The term “film noir” is of French origin and, roughly translated, means “dark film.”) Influenced by the hardboiled dramas that Hollywood cranked out in the 1930s, the heyday of American film noir may have been the 1940s and 1950s, but there have been myriad examples produced in countries including France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Mexico; excursions into the form by the celebrated likes of Hitchcock, Welles, Scorsese, Lynch, Tarantino, Cronenberg, and the Coen Brothers; as well as a range of neo-noirs — feature-length dramas and prestige TV miniseries — that are being made today.
Two recent forays into noir are spiced with extraordinary twists that set them apart from the usual stylistic standards: The eight-episode Apple TV+ series Sugar is a contemporary detective story with a classic, urban Los Angeles setting and a unconventional investigator as its hero. Mars Express is a French animated science-fiction movie set more than a century and a half in the future. As different as they are from one another, they each tap into the tragic, fatalistic tone that’s been the nature of the style since its inception.
‘Sugar’
California’s most famous cities have long been associated with tough, no-nonsense detectives, thanks to the vintage crime fiction written by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Hammett’s San Francisco gumshoe Sam Spade is probably best known as the main character in the novel The Maltese Falcon and the crucial movie of the same name that starred Humphrey Bogart as Spade. As for Chandler’s wry and scuffling Los Angeles P.I. Philip Marlowe, his adventures were adapted for a handful of films, with multiple interpretations of The Long Goodbye and The Big Sleep through the decades. Of the two locations, L.A. has the edge when it comes to film noir narratives, with such high-water marks as 1974’s Chinatown and 1997’s L.A. Confidential in the cinemas and, over the past few years, Bosch on TV.
Now, there’s a fresh take on the SoCal-based private-eye paradigm with Sugar. Whether or not it was written with him in mind, Colin Farrell easily slips into the role of John Sugar, a flawed but noble, multilingual, weapons-savvy, movie-loving finder of missing persons. Sugar’s all-consuming mission is to seek out Olivia, the wayward granddaughter of legendary Hollywood filmmaker Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell). Hired by the elder Siegel despite little concern on the part of Olivia’s father (Dennis Boutsikaris) and a lot of friction from her brother (Nate Corddry), Sugar dives into the search. Along the way, Sugar meets and befriends a sardonic singer-songwriter (Amy Ryan) with a connection to Olivia, and he encounters opposition from expected and unlikely sources.
Sugar benefits from the Chandler-esque vibe, particularly its depiction of the less-than-savory side of Los Angeles and the amoral doings of the wealthy and powerful.
Created by screenwriter Mark Protosevich (Thor, Oldboy), Sugar benefits from the Chandler-esque vibe, particularly its depiction of the less-than-savory side of Los Angeles and the amoral doings of the wealthy and powerful, and the numerous famous locales and scenic backdrops that the city offers. The cast, anchored by Farrell, delivers; the puzzles at the heart of the show are engaging; the musical score is a cool jazz breeze; and the interspersed clips from classic movies that occasionally accompany and mirror Sugar’s inner-voice narration are clever links to the history of film noir. It’s probably best not to reveal anything about a mind-bending turn the series takes, other than to say that it jacks up what’s special about Sugar — and that’s an extra sweetener for something so steeped in a traditional, familiar milieu.
Sugar is available for streaming on Apple TV+.
‘Mars Express’
The French connection to film noir has been in effect for decades, beyond the provenance of the name. Some of the greatest noirs of all time have come from France — among them, director Henri-George Clouzot’s punchy 1947 cop flick Quai des Orfèvres; the 1954 no-honor-among-thieves nail-biter Touchez pas au grisbi, directed by Jacques Becker; and the spare and sublime heist movie Bob le Flambeur from the prolific filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. Now, French animator Jérémie Périn has delivered his first feature-length directorial effort, Mars Express — a cyber-punk knockout that evokes the live-action 1982 sci-fi neo-noir triumph Blade Runner and its 1995 Japanese anime equivalent Ghost in the Shell and deserves to be mentioned alongside those landmarks.
Périn uses spectacular animation, note-perfect voice acting, and a gorgeous electronica-dappled score to bring to life his smart and complex mystery set on Mars in the year 2200 after a thrilling opening sequence on Earth. Hard-drinking, resilient private eye Aline Ruby and an emotionally turbulent android copy of her late partner, Carlos, are working on a case for their former military comrade Chris Royjacker, who is now a tech zillionaire. When a young woman is murdered and her roommate disappears, it’s up to Aline and Carlos to find the missing girl. It’s a dangerous pursuit. Furthermore, what they uncover as they make their way through the dark underbelly of a domed Martian city populated by humans, robots, cyborgs, and androids is a plot so massive that it will impact all beings in our solar system.
One of the most notable and resonant things about Mars Express, in addition to its phenomenal look, is how it addresses the validity of artificial life and the status and rights of mechanical citizens in this speculative futuristic reality. Although the story’s far-flung time and place give it a fictional veneer, the question of sentient A.I. is one that’s increasingly relevant in contemporary society. Incidentally, there is a version that’s dubbed into English and one in the original French with English subtitles. The latter features the voice of Léa Drucker as Aline and one of France’s most accomplished and well-regarded leading men (as well as James Bond’s main antagonist in Quantum of Solace) Mathieu Amalric as the shady Royjacker. If you don’t mind reading subtitles, the somewhat better sync of dialogue to animation in the French version makes for a more satisfying experience. Regardless of language choices, Mars Express is an eye-popping and thoughtful illustration of sci-fi noir.
Mars Express is playing in select theaters and is available on various streaming platforms.
Updated Thursday, May 16 at 8:35 p.m.
