Quentin Tarantino is well known for his complex style of 
filmmaking, Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, that 
uses flashbacks and flash forwards and a technique of 
interweaving of story lines. However, this is not a novelty, it’s 
merely a fresh look at a previously done and redone method that 
has finally found a niche in the broader audiences. Alain 
Resnais, one of the great results of the French wave, reused 
this "broken technique" in such masterpieces as Mon Uncle 
D’Amerique and Last Year in Marienbad.

There are a few films in the history of cinema that one could say 
have truly set a milestone and an example for thousands of other 
films to follow and learn from. "The Searchers" was the first 
film by John Ford to set an example in unconventional narrative 
in a film. Another such film is "The Godfather II" that continued 
that tradition of broken narrative by going back and forth in 
time.

Rashomon used the back and forth in an ingenious way to 
recount events that appear differently every time told by a 
different person. The whole film revolved around one scene that 
continuously changed as it was filtered through different 
perspectives and recounted in a new way. The Sixth Sense also did 
this nicely by utilizing the "flashback flashforward" and broken 
time frame technique in a very interesting manner considering 
that it is all done in the audience’s head. At the end of the 
film, when the twist is revealed, the audience flashes back in 
their own heads and references the key clues that were left 
behind.
 
Memento broke the narrative conventions by completely flipping 
the A-Z narrative upside down and starting at the end and making 
it way to the beginning. The most recent innovation that will 
begin a new trend of filmmaker is used in the new "Quentin 
Tarantino-esque" film The Machiavelli Hangman.
 
So many of these structural techniques have been used over and 
over that one would wonder just how original this new filmmaking 
technique would be. The Machiavelli Hangman’s ingenious... 
Machiavelli Hangman could only be described as a Rubik’s Cube 
that weaves in and out of 3 time frames and 4 locations and in 
the end, manages to connect all the same colors together and make 
perfect sense. 

Machiavelli Hangman’s original approach is not so much in its 
ability to weave in and out of time frames, but the fact that it 
does so without the audience realizing that there has been a 
change of location and time half the time. This misleads the 
audience until they are surprised by the fact that they didn't 
see it coming. It’s a lot like closing your eyes while you're 
inside your room, and opening them again to find that you're 
standing near the ocean. 

And the fact that it has comedic elements would also appear to 
the larger audiences, rather than just the art crowds. Finally, 
audiences are growing more intelligent and there are products out 
there to satisfy those hungry minds. 

Apu Fergamas is an movie photojournalist based in Los Angeles. 
As Apu revealed the history of the cinema, Apu's intent was to 
give you a head's up on the soon to be released movie, 
"Machiavelli Hangman": http://www.hangmanmovie.com