Thompson on Hollywood Review: Czech Oscar Entry ‘In the Shadow’, Sleek Neo-Noir and Gorgeously Old-Fashioned Policier

I usually cringe at wall-to-wall score, but in this case I liked it. Jan Muchow and Michal Novinski’s music achieves a sense of dynamism, of a one-way train ride that can’t be abandoned. I mentioned a rabbit hole earlier, which in fact opens wide like the mouth of a monster. When Hakl discovers the body of a woman savagely murdered in an attic, and then minutes later a slaughter of bullet-riddled bodies in an office, he knows he’s tumbling perilously into something sinister. But he’s also obsessed by it. Film music communicates obsession. And obsession, like Hakl’s desire for the truth and his society’s desire for muffling it, is ceaseless.

Read the full review here.