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Riaru Onigokko / Tag by Sion Sono
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.
Lost and Beauty: the Dying Italy
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.
Gallery 11 Marzo 2015
Tutte le immagini sono di Gabriele Zola – Copyright Gabriele Zola
PREMIO MARIA ADRIANA PROLO 2014 A BRUNO BOZZETTO
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.
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BRIEF INDUCEMENT TO SUICIDE
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.
BETTER BUTCHER THAN CALF
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.
The Theory of Everything
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.
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.
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
FELIX ET MEIRA: A PURE AND SILENT LOVE
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.
‘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.
Qui
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.
YOUNG BODIES HEAL QUICKLY, AN ATYPICAL ON THE ROAD FILM
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.
PRIMA DI ANDAR VIA: A moving farewell among the living
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.
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.
WALKING WITH RED RHINO, A PRAISE OF EXERIMENTAL CINEMA
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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THE GUEST – THE 80’s ARE BACK WITH A BANG
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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N-CAPACE, ELEONORA DANCO’S DEBUT AS A FILM DIRECTOR
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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THE BABADOOK
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.
“HABITAT – L’AQUILA TODAY” BY EMILIANO DANTE
Article by: Ilaria Longo
Translation by: Ilaria Codeluppi
The Italian section of TFF DOC opens with ‘Habitat – personal notes’ (Habitat – Note personali), with which Emiliano Dante returns to the festival after his debut, five years ago, with Into the blue.
His goal is the same: to film the urban tragedy of L’Aquila. The main characters are the director himself and his former tent-mates: Alessio and Paolo.
Emiliano lives in one of the houses built by “project C.A.S.E.”. His girlfriend, Valentina, still lives in her old house; Alessio is a real estate agent and lives with Gemma in a house where they pay a low rent, since the earthquake damaged it. Paolo, who has become a painter after the tragedy, does not know what to expect from his life and from his daughter’s birth.
Everyone opens up sincerely to their friend Emiliano, behind the camera, without filters or victim complex: they are just hopeless. They are afraid of this ghost city, and some of them have tried to follow their friends, emigrating; but something has made them come back. “What do you dream of, Emiliano?” is a question that seems to look at the future, but it is actually the same old nightmare: the earthquake.
A peculiar documentary that does not open with a banal overview of the city ruins, but with the characters driving the 14 kilometers that separate them from the city. The new houses were built quite far from L’Aquila, in order to ease the reconstruction of the city center; but the clothes hanging from the balconies reveal that the clock has stopped on April 6, 2009.
A black and white movie to represent a city forgotten by the media, where there is nothing left to do. Emiliano Dante, producer, director, scriptwriter and actor reveals the loneliness and the dereliction still felt in L’Aquila. “I don’t want to conclude with an overview of the torchlight procession in memory of the tragedy” says the main character, “because here in L’Aquila we feel lonely”. A sincere and intimate look, far from a political critique.
DIPLOMACY, PARIS SHAKES OFF ITS FETTERS
Article by: Alessandro Arpa
Translation by: Simona Restifo Pecorella
After years of absence, Volker Schlöndorff, leading exponent of the New German Cinema, makes his comeback in Italian cinemas with ‘Diplomacy- A night to save Paris’, which is an adaptation of the play by CyrilGely. The German director chooses again the Second World War’s theme after ‘La mer à l’aube’, bringing to the big screen an episode that really happened.
Volker Schlöndorff and Emanuela Martini during the presentation of ‘Diplomacy- A night to save Paris’ (Photo by Bianca Brocchieri).
The action takes place over the night between 24 and 25 August 1944, when the Allies entered in Paris finally ending the war. Although the Nazis were aware of their imminent defeat, the Führer did not surrender and ordered at General Dietrich von Choltitz (played masterfully by Niels Arestrup) to burn Paris. However, with monuments and bridges mined and ready to explode, the order of Hitler, as we know, has never been executed. Even though the ending is obvious, Schlöndorff is able to create a captivating and pressing thriller thanks to the excellent interpretation of Niels Arestrup and André Dussollieras the Swedish console Raoul Nordling, and to the high skills of the director. The Maaurice Hôtel is the stage in which the duel between two star performers takes place: on one side there is Nordling, defender of humanity and symbol of a pacifist moral; on the other side, there is commander von Choltitz, faithful to the Nazi cause and obedient to each command given by his superiors. Proposing a reality as that of World War II, by now engraved on the collective memory, is the pretext that allows Schlöndorff to investigate the nature of the human soul, divided between political duty and a silent reminder of brotherhood. This particular episode has already been brought to the big screen in 1966 by René Clément in ‘Paris brûle-t-il?’, but the German director treats it in an innovative way by avoiding captions and illustrative style, and also combining cleverly evocative pictures of repertory with digital reconstructions of magical Parisian skyline.
AN “ANGRY” PRE-OPENING FOR THE 32nd TFF
Article by: Alisa Marghella
Translation by: Giulia Magazzù
The amazing performance directed by New Yorker Josephine Decker launches the new cooperation between the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation (which has long been paying attention to the promotion of young contemporary artists and to the contamination of artistic languages) and the Torino Film Festival, which entitled the 2nd Prize of Competition (7000 euros) to the Foundation, in acknowledgement of this new bond.
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