MR. ARKADIN AKA CONFIDENTIAL REPORT (1955)

Mr. Arkadin (1955)

Mr. Arkadin, written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles, is a fractured noir that plays like a riddle wrapped in fog. It's a globe-trotting tale of identity, manipulation, and buried secrets—less a conventional narrative and more a surreal, disjointed journey through the darker corners of postwar Europe. At the center is Gregory Arkadin, a mysterious billionaire who hires a small-time smuggler to investigate his past, claiming to have amnesia. But nothing is what it seems.

Welles gives Arkadin the full theatrical treatment: eccentric, intimidating, and often inscrutable. The film is packed with grotesque characters and strange locales—castles, carnivals, shadowy alleys—evoking a dreamlike or even nightmarish quality. It’s shot with extreme angles, expressionist lighting, and unsettling juxtapositions, turning each frame into a visual puzzle.

However, Mr. Arkadin is famously chaotic. Multiple versions exist due to studio interference and Welles’s own restlessness in the editing room. Yet even in its most disjointed form, it pulses with Welles’s unmistakable vision. Themes of truth, power, and the unreliability of memory echo his earlier work in Citizen Kane, though more cryptic here.

It’s not an easy film, but it’s a fascinating one—best appreciated as an atmospheric mosaic rather than a neatly plotted thriller. For admirers of Welles, it's essential viewing. For others, it’s an enigmatic but unforgettable cinematic experience.