The English translation will be “black film” or “film of the night” (). In such type of movies “[f]ear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evidently” (Dirks). It appeared during and after the World War II – the previous years of the Cold War. These films portrayed “[t]he criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes” (Dirks). It is not considered a genre, but as tone or style of the film.
The primary characters were the anti-heroes and the females. The anti-heroes, as the name implies it, did not follow the rules or norms, were morally ambiguous, and corrupted in their actions. There were two types of females, the redeemer women and the femmes fatales. The first one is the homemaker, trustworthy, reliable, dutiful women, loving wife and mother. Meanwhile, the second one is mysterious, gorgeous, but ruthless, and deadly. Another name given to…show more content… The redeemer would be Lola Dietrichson and the femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson. The poor Walter Neff got involved with Phyllis and he ended up killing her husband. He got trapped by Phyllis’ beauty since the moment he saw her at the top of the stairs. She took advantage of his weakness for her and that he needed the money. Even though he discovered her plan, he still felt for it and ended up been the only responsible for the murder – because he kills Phyllis. During the murder of Mr. Dietrichson, Phyllis never looked but once her husband was dead, she had that smile in her face – the same Lola described when Phyllis killed her mother. Phyllis played Walter all along while he was consumed by his guilt. Walter’s closeness with the sweet Lola made him have second thoughts about what he had done – even more after she told him about the death of her mother and who she suspected of. At the end of the movie, there is a twist of events; Phyllis did fall for Walter, but he kills