Archivi tag: in evidenza

English version, Film, Film (English)

Strange Days by Kathryn Bigelow

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Article by: Matteo Merlano                                                                                       Translation by: Lorenzo Matarazzo

  • Los Angeles, December 31 1999, at the dawn of the new millennium tensions and chaos rule a militarized city, slave to a new drug which is powerful and unstoppable: Deck, i.e. other persons’ experiences recorded on mini-disc and directly wired to the brain of the user. Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is the biggest “experiences’” dealer around, but when he receives a clip containing a Deck fix showing the truth about the homicide of rapper Jeriko One, leader of the rising afroamerican rebellion, his life takes a dangerous turn.

    Set only four years after the moment of shooting, Strange Days predicted the future in a rather disturbing way. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman director who cleared the Action genre through the customs of male-only directions (masterpieces such as Point Break and Near Dark are works of hers) and gives us the image of a Los Angeles which is nocturnal, violent and full of tensions and contradictions (a big part of the credit goes to the script from James Cameron, Bigelow’s ex-husband) where the characters wander like ghosts searching for Life, not theirs, but other people’s, the one which is “transferred” in the brain like a file from a Usb drive. No one is safe in this world and to escape sadness everyone is willing to do anything. A movie filled with a 90s’ atmosphere, from the aesthetic choices (fast montage and a photography reminiscent of the one used in videoclips) to the Hip Hop, Techno and Post-Punk countercultures, up to the human side, where in a society which lacks direction the only salvation is true love, when it is absolute and romantic. Great soundtrack: Tricky, Deep Forest, Peter Gabriel and Skunk Anansie, to name a few.
    Perfect cast with Fiennes, at ease and troubled at the same time in this scenario, a Juliette Lewis who is more beautiful and reckless than ever and Angela Basset, who carries on the role of tough women so dear to Cameron (Sigourney Weaver in Aliens and Linda Hamilton in Terminator), as well as a disturbing Vincent D’Onofrio, playing a corrupted and psychopathic policeman.

    It is unbelievable how much of the vision from Bigelow and Cameron came true. At the time of production racial tensions had reached their peak because of the police killing of Rodney King in 1992. Today they have emerged again for the same reason in many places around the United States. A militarized L.A. sadly reminds of the big European cities of these weeks. After the 13 November tragedy in Paris and after other similar events, Strange Days appears extremely contemporary. A must see which helps to understand the dark, crazy and “strange” days that we are living in now, year of the Lord 2015.

 

Conferenze Stampa, English version, Film, Film (English), Report, TFF 33 - 2015, Torino Film Festival

The Press conference: Suffragette Opens 33 TFF Press Conference

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Article by: Danila Prestifilippo                                                                                     Translation by: Roberto Gelli
Not only was Suffragette shown yesterday evening to inaugurate 33th TFF, but also the film was the protagonist of the first press conference, which took place this morning. Film director Sarah Gavron, screenwriter Abi Morgan and one of its producers Faye Ward answered journalists’ questions and explained the film goals and the choices they made, in order to create the short film.

Muad (Carey Mulligan), a female worker, is the protagonist. She is a fictional character and fights together with other women, who represent really existed historical feminists like Emmeline Pankhurst (Merylin Streep). As director Gavron pointed out, the aim of this semihistorical approach was to make a connection between the women, who were given the mocking name Suffragettes and started their battle for their right to vote hundred years ago and modern women, who are still struggling with salary discrepancy, sexual violence and for their right to children protection and tutoring.

Suffragettes social movement has fought for fifty years but, if it is true that the first forty years had been a pacific struggle, in the following sixteen months the fight became more violent and cruel and almost none knows about it. The absence of films that tell us about the violence these courageous women had to endure, played a great role in persuading Faya Ward and Alison Owen to produce the film. Faya Ward stated: “We wanted the public to be aware of the importance of the sacrifices and the success related to Suffragettes fight. We also wanted to underline how their results are effective in nowadays society. We have tried to give modern spectators some contact points, in order for women not only to be politically active, but also to encourage them to be and become what they really feel they are or they could be. Our attempt was to give voice to those, who were not yet given their chance on the big screen.”

Abi Morgan, who had already been the screenwriter of movies such as The Iron Lady, emphasized that the challenge was to choose a really meaningful example of woman’s life and be able to put it in a precise historical context. She said: “On the one hand the character of Muad underlines the role of lots of passive supporters who became activists, on the other hand it investigates the reasons which persuaded women like her to put their jobs, their families and their homes at risk, in the name of a civil right”. The film focuses on the political matter and puts in the foreground these courageous protagonists, so the decision to not examine in depth personal stories was due to the fact that there are not enough literary or movie material at disposal, to which one can refer to. With reference to that, Morgan added that it was much more important to end the film with information about Saudi Arabia and its 2015 law concerning women right to vote only if accompanied by men, rather than to think at some sort of dramatization of Maud in the Hollywood style.

Sarah Gavron gave some further meaningful figures: “Still today, 66 million of women worldwide have no right to vote, 2/3 are illiterate and only 22% hold public offices. It says that the face of poverty is female and unfortunately these figures confirm it”.

The film’s aim is not only political and historical, it concerns the social matter too by denouncing and preventing the high young people abstaining rate, above all among women. Director Gavron told about the reaction of most of the female audience attending Suffragette’s introduction meetings. As she had hoped, after seeing the film, they expressed their wish to vote again because it made them aware of the sacrifices made by British feminist movement. She also reported that the troupe film (almost completely composed by women) wanted to give a clear signal during the film shooting, so they symbolically demonstrated against government by obtaining the permission to film in the House of Parliament in London, that same institutional place, which had declared against women right to vote.

Asked about a possible way to increase female presence in all sectors, starting from institutional offices, Abi Morgan answered: “We have to introduce the concept of positive discrimination and keep insisting about the importance women have within a context implying equality of the sexes. Geena Daves said “See in order to Be”: we need to have a radical attitude, to leverage the mass media but, in order to be successful, women complicity is essential”.

Faye Ward ended the press conference by making a consideration about the fact that Suffragette is a film of women who fight for their right to vote but “today the concept of fight may imply different ways. Each one of us can be what he wants to be, and this is true for both genders and all races. It is enough that we find our own voice and utter our words in every place, in political institutions or other kind of institutions.

English version, Film, Film (English)

Interruption by Yorgos Zois

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Article by: Alessandro Amato

Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero

In aesthetic terms “Catharsis” means purifying the human passions that are understood and overcome with art. However, this word comes from Ancient Classic Greece and is connected with a sort of religious ritual that requires to purify both body and soul. Nowadays Greece is facing a cultural and social crisis: in few words it is an adrift country. Despite this, Greek cinema is constantly focusing on this national crisis and ready to supervise its flow. There is no real school of contemporary Greek cinema but there are several common artistic trends in these Greek movie makers.

Interruption is the first feature film by Yorgos Zois and without doubt follows this trend. This film starts with some out of focus lights blurring in a dark space. These lights stand for something not clear but alive that is going to bump soon into an unexpected future. This obscure element is actually an ancient man who’s completely naked. There’s a young blond and short haired woman with him. Those lights we have noticed at the very beginning of the film are actually Clitennestra and her lover Aegystus. Nonetheless the old man and the girl are Agamemnon and Cassandra. The starting events of The Oresteia are well known: the queen and her lover will kill the king who has come back to Troy after many years with another woman. The clash between Cassandra and the new masters of the palace occurs in a glass cube in the middle of the stage. According to mythology there should be then Orestes coming back from his exile and his vengeance versus his mother. Anyway the performance is suddenly stopped by a group of young people running through the stage and telling us they are the Chorus. Their leader is a black haired guy with an amused smile who takes some people from the audience as volunteers. They will introduce themselves and take active part in the show.

“What’s happening here is fiction or reality?” this is the question made by to a member of the Chorus to a girl.
“It’s the reality” replies the girl but she doesn’t look very convinced. The wonderful event this movie is trying to show is the theme of being guilty putting it aside for a while and playing it without misleading it. Now it’s high time to recollect Pirandello.
This movie is about a nowadays issue. At the end the young man kills himself while the theatre audience stands up thinking the tragedy came to its end. He’s another victim of nowadays spread indifference. It’s time that the actors and people taking part in the tragedy take off their clothes as a metaphor of their shame. But if they purified themselves and cleansed their guilty souls what about us and our Catharsis?

English version, Film, Film (English)

Mia madre fa l’attrice by Mario Balsamo

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Article by: Lara Vallino                                                                             Translation by: Andrea Cristallini

MIA MADRE FA L’ATTRICE

Documentaries have often been overlooked or dimissed as not suitable for cinema screenings on the grounds that they are too specialized, although they bring to the big screen unknown or intentionally ignored realities. Conversely, after his succesful Noi non siamo come James Bond, which gained him the Jury Prize at TFF 30, Mario Balsamo makes his comeback in Turin with another slice of his life: the documentary Mia madre fa l’attrice, one of the four Italian movies in the main section of the festival.
No polar bears or exotic indigenous peoples then, here we are in fact presented with a typical emotional connection, the one between a mother and her son. Since the dawn of times, this indissoluble bond has always been subject to study, and this is still the case today. Either audiences are not tired of listening to the same old story, or perhaps a universally accepted definition has not been agreed upon yet.
Mario Balsamo shows us the very self of his mother: a tough character, a troublesome person, the woman he loved most in his life. He also reveals the difficulties in their relationship: they seem to have become more distant than ever, separated by a wall of mutual incomprehension.
However, sometimes something happens that teaches us how to look at life from a new perspective and after the events he related in his documentary in 2012, Mario is not the same man anymore. He wants to reconnect with the multifaceted woman and be finally able to love her not just as an actress but also as his mother. He takes the most important film in which his mother acted in the 1950s, Piero Costa’s La Barriera della legge, as an opportunity to get close to her again through their shared passion for the film art. Costa’s film is a constant remembrance for Silvana and an obsession for Mario, although neither of them has ever seen it.
They embark on the search for this cinematographic work, that appeared to be no longer available and that they will eventually find uninteresting once they get to see it.
But it’s a well-known fact that it’s the journey that counts. They go on the road in a Lancia Fulvia 810, around Pietrasanta and Versilia, visiting the very same places where Silvana would display her talent many years ago. We witness amusing and moving dialogues, halfway between reality and fantasy, gradually leading to a reconciliation which results in a long-awaited hug. A happy ending for the director, who may finally manage to see in Silvana Stefanini a mother, rather than just an actress.

 

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

Riaru Onigokko / Tag by Sion Sono

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Article by: Luca Richiardi                                                                                                 Translation by: Cristiana Caffiero

Life is surreal.

There are movies with no soul which just try to step towards any directions without a reason. There are movies that are just empty and dreary. Well, this movie is just their opposite. “Tag” is directed by Sion Sono: it violently breaks in and manages to find a sharp conclusion both in a literal and figurative way. It confuses the feelings and perception of its audience but it doesn’t hide the fact that it has lost the sense of perception itself. This film needs to show its total dismay in order to penetrate the subconscious side of its audience and finally break through its conscious one. However, “Tag” is not addressed to an ordinary audience, for the simple reason that the movie is directed by Sion Sono. It’s a typical Japanese film with its peculiar artistic language which could by perceived as unfamiliar by a western audience, or at least by an audience not acquainted with Japanese pop culture.
This kind of audience might fail to notice the potential for social criticism hidden behind an excess of grotesque violence, which may appear then as empty divertissement: what has been defined, in jargon (particularly in the world of anime, manga and videogames enthusiasts) sa fanservice.
What exactly is fanservice? Excessive and pointless violence, schoolgirls in extra short miniskirts which are constantly lifted, eroticism, promiscuity, reification of the woman.
“Tag” contains all these elements. It’s thrown onto the screen in a shameless, exaggerated, intentionally provocative way, as if to ask: “Is this what you want?” As the film unravels, laughing at all this becomes a gesture that makes the spectator feel guilty.
This collage made of absurdities, which people may have fun in, is a heaven for “nerd” teenagers and hides a cruel and dreadful hell. It reveals itself step by step, while we follow the young female protagonist Mitsuko in her absurd suffering.
Among all this violence, torture and death, her loss of identity is what mostly harms. It makes her appear to be an empty box or a mannequin identical to many others. She looks as a figure, whose not uniform nature may be compared to that of Jesus and therefore doomed to sacrifice. It is a kind of essential sacrifice, a spontaneous gesture which gets away from this torture pattern felt as a function of a sadistic pleasure. And it takes place exactly in front of a parody which blames and despises these masses of obsessive fans.
What is such a heroic sacrifice aimed at? It is understood, its aim matches the film’s one: a sabotage internal to the system so that it can penetrate deeper and, hopefully, it can be able to reach and consequently wake up consciences, in order to take them away from this grotesque circle of hell.

 

English version, Film, Film (English)

Lost and Beauty: the Dying Italy

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa                                                                         Translation by: Chiara Toscan

TF<<Chi la ridusse a tale? E questo è peggio,

Che di catene ha carche ambe le braccia;

Sì che sparte le chiome e senza velo

Siede in terra negletta e sconsolata,

Nascondendo la faccia

Tra le ginocchia, e piange.

Piangi, che ben hai donde, Italia mia…>>.

After 27th edition’s winning film La bocca del lupo (The Wolf’s Mouth) TFF dedicated the pre-opening night to the latest laborious work by Pietro Marcello, Bella e perduta (Lost and Beautiful), the only Italian film contending for Locarno International film festival 2015. This bitter tale fuses documentary and fantastical fiction, while poetically denouncing the collapse of human-nature relationship. The film also functions as an off-key requiem for the Italian Republic, a frank protest against the apathy of an immortal caste system of defeatists. The protagonist, Tommaso Cestrone, is a humble, real-life shepherd in line with Marcello’s stock characters, the so renamed “Angel of Carditello” is the only volunteer serving the Royal Estate of Carditello which simbolises the ill-treated and forgotten beauty. Piles of debris and tyres pollute the magic atmosphere of the place that has become a dump for memories. Tommaso is the only one committed to the enhancement from the indifference of the world. Tommaso, among his last wishes, wants to save Sarchiapone, a young talking buffalo that, at times, recalls the melancholy poetry hidden in Balthazar, the donkey protagonist of Au Hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson. At this stage of the film, Pulcinella appears from the obscure bowels of Vesuvius. He arrives in the nowadays Campania to grant Tommaso’s wish. Pulcinella and Sarchiapone embark on a journey in the forgotten territories of “the land of fire”: a sore journey without hope. Bella e Perduta is a protean film that had a difficult birth. The initial intention of the director was changed during the course of production due to the sudden cardiac death of the real Tommaso Cestrone. For this reason, the film was completed after two years of development. The only choice left to the director was to merge the hints of reality with dreamlike situations. The figure of Pulcinella connects the primordial meaning of psychopomp very intelligently for the immortals. Although the protagonists improvise around a default scenerio, it is difficult to reach the sincere expressive power of transexual Mary Monaco and Enzo Motta, who are the protagonists of “La Bocca del Lupo”. Tommaso and the interpreter of Pulcinella are suspended and suddenly crushed by the power of nature, mother and executioner at the same time. The foolishness of human being is expressed by the look and subjective shots of Sarchiapone who hopes to survive at the mercy of man. But now eveything is destined to collapse and takes attention to the tomb of Tommaso: <<Will we remember this land? >>

Probably not. Maybe yes but it will be very late, and there will remain neither your tears Sarchiapone… nor ours.

 

Film, Report, TFF 32 - 2014, Torino Film Festival

PREMIO MARIA ADRIANA PROLO 2014 A BRUNO BOZZETTO

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La profondità nell’essenzialità

Vedere in una stessa sede Bruno Bozzetto e Piero Angela è un’emozione riservata a pochi. La sera del 27 novembre questo privilegio è stato concesso solo ai fortunati che sono riusciti a mettersi in coda in tempo, data la moltitudine di persone accorse in occasione dell’evento e la ristrettezza della sala Massimo 2.

Continua la lettura di PREMIO MARIA ADRIANA PROLO 2014 A BRUNO BOZZETTO →

English version, Film

BRIEF INDUCEMENT TO SUICIDE

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa

Translation by: Ilaria Rana

 Can you imagine a Manet painted by prisoners? This is “Anuncian Sismos”, the first film by Rocio Caliri and Melina Marcow, two young Argentinean directors. This film, produced by Hulot Cine, draws inspiration from a real story. A small town located in the north of Argentina has been affected by several juvenile suicides, and the town decides to adopt a solution to solve this problem.

The film doesn’t explain why these suicides happen, but it stresses the consequences of these events on a group of youngsters. The final result is a 68-minute film without a specific aim. Its fragmentary narration is interrupted by inserts of petty philosophy. Although interesting, the film seems to be unclear and full of random elements. Furthermore, this situation doesn’t disconcert the main character, Mariano, who has a girlfriend with whom he spends some romantic and pathetic moments and he also has fun with his school friends.

It reminds us of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema, but it hasn’t its same poetic charge. This time the Turin Film Festival has chosen a nerve-racking film. “Anuncian Sismos” is not a film for an old people’s home, as someone would risk to drop dead.

English version, Film

BETTER BUTCHER THAN CALF

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa

Translation by: Greta Moroni

 Mange tes morts is the worst insult one can ever say to a gipsy, and it is also the title of the new work by Jean-Charles Hue. This director took part in the 2009 Torino Film Festival with Carne Viva, a portrait of Tijuana reality.

This full-length film by Hue is a story of formation that in the end becomes a road movie with existentialism features. At the beginning, the film is a documentary set in the Jenisch gipsy community. The story, which may seem too simple, consists in a journey among the “gadjo” (not gipsy people) to steal a load of copper.

The French director shot a film based on the Hamletic doubt spread among Jenisch people: the choice between baptism and the consequent submission to the atavistic Christian morals or the choice to take up a career as a master thief.

The main character Jason Dorkel – a 21st century Hamlet in Nikes – chooses the first option. But Fred, Jason’s stepbrother, compromises the calm of the community. After fifteen years of jail he comes back into the Jenisch community without changing his behaviour: he is still a criminal.

Zvyagintsev was right: the return is the most ferocious butchery of the conscience. Fred is like evil that sodomises the weakest people and leads Jason to his ruin. Until then, he was depicted as a lamb doomed to hellfire.

From now on, the film becomes less united than the first part. There are a number of surreal scenes, like the one in which Fred bravely challenges police officers that seem bored psychologists ready to listen to their patients’ troubles. Actors pretend a solemnity that does not pertain to them and often improvise in an unexpected way. Mange tes morts is a nice film but it is also defective, it is interesting but also far from being a masterpiece.

Conferenze Stampa, English version, Film, Film (English), Report, TFF 32 - 2014

The Theory of Everything

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Article by: Barbara Vacchetti

Translation by: Simona Restifo Pecorella

“This is not a story about a disease, but the story of a human relationship”, said Eddie Redmayne yesterday at the press conference of the Turin Film Festival. He is the protagonist of ‘The Theory of Everything’, in which he plays the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Actually, that is what the film is all about: it is a love story. Between whom though? Between Stephen and his first wife, Jane, or between Stephen and physics?

The film is the adaptation of the autobiographical book ‘Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking’, written by his first wife. It starts right from the first meeting between them, and then proceeds along the years, when they were in love and supported each other, when they created a family and when finally got separated.

Despite the serious tones, it manages to be funny in some moments. The two references to the famous British series ‘Doctor Who’ were particularly interesting and gave it a decisive British print.

Playing the role of Stephen Hawking has not been easy, but the charming interpretation of charismatic Eddie Redmayne convinced everyone right away – maybe also earning him an Oscar nominee for best actor this year. For the time being, however, he has received the Maserati award last night in Turin.

Eddie Redmayne ritira il premio Maserati
Eddie Redmayne received the Maserati award

Yesterday morning, at the press conference, the British actor told us that he was eager to participate in the film project but, as soon as he obtained the part of Hawking, he realized the difficulties this role could entail. In fact, dancer and choreographer Alexandra Reynolds followed him in the preparation of his role by teaching him how to move his body properly and to use only certain muscles. Moreover, the actor went to a specialized clinic where he could study the physical and emotional troubles caused by ALS illness.

Eddie Redmayne in conferenza stampa
Eddie Redmayne at the press conference

Interpreting this role certainly involved a very hard work, both physical and psychological. However, Eddie Redmayne stated that it was primarily the meeting with Stephen Hawking that helped him immerse adequately in the role and make him understand even the smallest aspects of this wonderful, iconic man, who wants to reveal us something more than the mysteries of the Universe.

The film focuses precisely on this point. It does not say much about physics, black holes or Hawking radiations, but it rather concentrates on human relationships. The difficulties encountered along the way can only be overcome with a tremendous force of will and with the affection of caring people. It is a study on love and on different ways of loving. That is what the “theory of everything” is really about.

 

Foto di Bianca Beonio Bocchieri

 

English version, Film

FELIX ET MEIRA: A PURE AND SILENT LOVE

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Article by: Karima Vinti

Translation by: Giulia Magazzù

Felix and Meira are completely different. He leads a life without responsibilities and family ties. His only concern is to squander the legacy of his father. She is a young Jewish woman, married and mother of a child that lives bored inside of her community. There is no strange connection between them, yet they meet by chance and fall in love.

Although set in a present-day Montreal, this romance unfolds like an episode set in another century. From the first shots, you notice the strange dresses in this Jewish community that recall the costumes of the past century. The women wear clothes that do not emphasize their femininity and their task within the community and their family is very narrow: they must ensure procreation, sometimes giving birth to six, eight or even fourteen children.

However, all these things fit Meira snugly. She loves listening to contemporary music, drawing and living like a normal person, but her husband forbid all these activities. When she meets Felix, his extravagance manages to conquer her heart, while undermining all the certainties of the woman.

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‘Felix et Meira’ is the third work of the director Maxime Giroux, who has already participated at the Turin Film Festival in 2008 with his first full-length film ‘Demain’.

The director states to have shot this film taking into account the vulnerability and restlessness of the characters, trying to follow with the camera all their movements and trying to seize their humanity. He portraits a love story that seems difficult, and yet stronger than any social restriction. Within the film nothing is emphasized, not gestures, not words nor their love. It is a pure and silent love that looks for a way out to get in with the long-awaited happy conclusion.

English version, Film

Qui

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Article by: Elisa Carbone

Translation by: Licia Ficulle

 

“Qui” (“Here”): a simple word composed of only three letters.

Anyone hearing this word gets confused, with an unconscious question mark impressed on their forehead, because that single word doesn’t explain the theme of the film. However, since the first scenes we understand that this adverb, “qui”, is related to a place, a specific location in Piedmont: Val di Susa. Everyone knows at least something about the thorny matter of TAV, or rather NO TAV. Sincerely, I expected grouches and quite irascible characters, but I made a mistake. In fact, the first protagonist chosen by Daniele Gaglianone (the director of La mia classe, I nostri anni and La ferita, his lasts film) is a middle-aged woman, a smiling pilgrim who goes every day to Chiomonte because of religious reasons. Unfortunately, since the construction site for the Turin-Lyon high-speed train started, part of her itinerary has been closed with an unusual barbed wire fence used only in Israel, so the woman is forced to walk.

Gaglianone introduces ten Val di Susa’s people, who suddenly have been surrounded by building sites, new insurmountable boundaries, and the commitment to exhibit their ID’s many times to functionaries; no matter if their houses are close and previous to those new fences. We don’t know the names or something else about the characters; we know just what they narrate during the interview. There is the Radio Blackout speaker who recalls the tragic moments during a police’s riot attack: he wanted to describe what happened but he couldn’t speak with the gas mask, so he removed it and tried to breath in spite of tear-gas. The mayor of Venaus says: «I was on my citizens’ side, knowing to be on the State side: on the other side (with reference to the police during the attacks) there was something more».

And there is even an old nice lady, a farm owner in this area “NO TAV”; she recalls her protest against the demolition of a house: she chained herself, with handcuffs bought in a sex shop, and she didn’t even know how to open them.

“Qui”, narrates histories of “normal” people, citizens that demand justice to a State who never asked them anything about the TAV project, a State who destroys their land and puts in danger the health of everyone (everything written in the official project), and moreover, a State who «deletes the human dignity linked to everyday life».

This documentary is surely “biased” but it would be helpful and educational to broadcast it on network at national level, where the NO TAV supporters are usually presented like violent and irrational people.

Maybe we can understand why these people rise up against TAV. This problem does not concern, only, Val di Susa’s area because, as Gaglianone explains: «the stories reveal, behind the urgency of the event and the modernity, a dimension that goes beyond the triggering causes of the conflict. So, “qui”-“here” is not elsewhere: it is everywhere».

And that is why everyone should be interested in it.

English version, Film

YOUNG BODIES HEAL QUICKLY, AN ATYPICAL ON THE ROAD FILM

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Article by: Matteo Merlano

Translation by: Giulia Magazzù

 American experiments ride along familiar roads. Filmmakers play with pre-existing genres, distorting, shrivelling and demolishing them. It is the case of this bizarre film by New Yorker director Andrew T. Betzer, which already been presented at the Tribeca Film Festival and has now landed in Turin in the Waves section. The film portraits the flight of two brothers (Gabriel Croft and Hale Lytle), guilty of the murder of a girl, through a disorienting and lost America, inhabited by freaks, nostalgic for the Reich and the war in Vietnam (as the bizarre character of an old “freak”).

Betzer depicts an unforgiving portrait of his country shot in a quite handcrafted way. ‘Young Bodies Heal Quickly’ shows us a lost and crazy version of the US, just like the two young protagonists who are running around the country without an existential reason. So far, the idea is interesting and the dirty and blurred photography conveys this alienating effect. Eventually, this style weighs and after the first hour, the story goes completely off the visual and editing rails. Experimenting does not mean raving and the impression we had leaving the cinema is that in several parts Young Bodies Heal Quickly got lost, dragging the viewer in this disorientation. The final climax is too long and dispersive and putting an explicit sex scene (cameo by Josephine Decker that, after the short film Violent Madonna Mia seems to take taste in expression of sexuality explicit) does not help the audience in finding his soothed attention.

Generally, the film is an interesting experiment and visual exploration of a possible new language of American independent cinema. It is always of Seventh Art, which requires implementing every available form. Maybe a little storytelling would not hurt, in a time when the real experiment is perhaps the tale. “But that’s another story”, quote.

English version, Film

PRIMA DI ANDAR VIA: A moving farewell among the living

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Article by: Karima Vinti

Translation by: Renato Panzera

How would you react if one of your family members, or a friend, told you you that “tomorrow they are not going to be alive”? “Prima di andar via” could be the answer.

Directed by Michele Placido, this adaptation of the theatre show directed by Francesco Frangipane and written by Filippo Gili is about a family’s reaction to the son confessing his suicidal intentions. What causes this insane decision is that he cannot live without his wife, who died three months before. In a first moment they don’t understand whether Francesco (Filippo Gili) is telling the truth or he’s just talking nonsense. But Francesco is convinced of his decision and doesn’t want to go back. For him, nothing is worth it anymore, and he can’t picture his future with another woman because no one could ever be as great as Giovanna. The hug scene with his mother is touching, a hug that wants to last forever, full of love and pain.

The film was entirely shot in a small theatre. Lights and scenic design tend to give a sad, melancholic and furious air. The actors are not famous in the Italian cinematographic circle — with the exception of Giorgio Colangeli — but it’s worth writing their names: Filippo Gili, Michaela Martini, Aurora Peres, Vanessa Scalera, and Francesca Alunno. The actors succeeded in representing something that can really touch your soul. A fantastic interpretation from everyone, with no exceptions.

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Michele Placido at the “Cinema Massimo” after the screening of “Prima di andar via”.

After the first view at the “Cinema “Massimo” on November 24th, Michele Placido, some of the actors and Francesco Frangipane talked about their work with an excited public which warmly greeted the film with a long final applause. Michele Placido stated that it had been a beautiful experience and that he had decided to make it a film right after he saw the theatre show.

Director Francesco Frangipane stated: “The theatre show has hardly been around. The only achievement was the possibility of playing the show at the “Elfo Puccini” theatre in Milan”. Next, the director reflected upon the quality of performances in Italy, maintaining that the actors in this movie have nothing to envy to the so called “famous actors”, even though more well prepared figures are needed in our cinema. “If Italian directors went a bit more often to the theatre, perhaps the Italian cinema would be more lively”. Finally all of the actors thanked Michele Placido. According to them, it is because of Michele’s generosity that this movie made it to the big screen.

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Michele Placido with some cast members of  “Prima di andar via”.
English version, Film

WALKING WITH RED RHINO, A PRAISE OF EXERIMENTAL CINEMA

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Article by: Alessandro Arpa

Translation by: Ilaria Rana

“Filmmakers must be merciless, or they are for the catering”

Alberto Signetto was definitely merciless. He loved to consider himself as a rhino because he was a “treacherous, stubborn, fat, bulky and hardly tameable animal” and he represented the fight against conformism. “Walking with red rhino”, the last film by Marilena Moretti, pays homage to one of the most underestimated Italian personalities of the 20th century.

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English version, Film

THE GUEST – THE 80’s ARE BACK WITH A BANG

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Article by: Paolo Nosenzo

Translation by: Ilaria Codeluppi

 The Petersons are a perfectly normal family, still grieving for the death of their elder son, Caleb, fallen in the Middle East. One day, a boy named David Collins knocks on their door, saying that he has served in the army with Caleb, and that he had promised him to take care of his beloved ones. At the beginning, they are a bit suspicious, but David soon gains the respect and affection of the whole family, including Caleb’s siblings, Anna and Luke. After a few violent episodes happen in the small community, Anna starts to suspect that David is hiding something, and that he’s not really who he says he is.

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English version, Film

N-CAPACE, ELEONORA DANCO’S DEBUT AS A FILM DIRECTOR

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Article by: Giulia Conte

Translation by: Ilaria Codeluppi

 Eleonora Danco, theatre author and actress, makes her debut as a film director with her first feature-length movie. N-Capace is the second movie, together with Frastuono, by DavideMaldi, that represents Italy in this 32nd Turin Film festival.

Eleonora Danco plays a woman, a tormented soul, that wanders around from Terracina to Rome, places which have a connection both to her childhood and her present life. Along the way, she questions the teenagers and elderly people she meets, asking questions about death, school, love, sex, religion, homosexuality, violence and traditions. Her purpose is to understand their feelings through the answers, and to feel their emotions.

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English version, Film

THE BABADOOK

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Article by: Davide Bertolino

Translation by: Carla Cristina Loddo

After the success both of the critic and the audience at the Sundance Film Festival, The Babadook, first feature film by the newcomer Jennifer Kent, participates in competition at the Torino Film Festival. Even by following with absolute rigour the classical phases of horror films with a possession subject (the monster, the kid who plays with the presence, the mother initially incredulous), the Australian film cleverly avoids banality giving a new point of view, certainly in a more psychological and deeper way than numerous other products of the same genre.

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