Archivi tag: TFF – 23 novembre 2014

WHE ARE WHAT WE ARE: what we fear the most

Article by: Emanuel Trotto

Translation by: Giulia Magazzù

 Who said that a remake is a less important film than the original? Certainly, if in the new product does not provide anything more – or even less – of what was suggested in the model, then the answer is “yes, it is just an unnecessary duplication”. Many recent operations of this kind prove that this theory is true (Carrie by Kimberly Pierce, for example). However, if starting from the original product we decide to take a completely different way, working on elements that become peculiar of the new feature, then we have something more: think of The Departed by Martin Scorsese and of the relationship with Andrew Lau’s Infernal Affairs. These two films are completely autonomous. Jim Mickle’s We are What We are belongs to this category.

We are What We are is a re-imaging of the Mexican film Somo the que hay by Jorge Michel Grau (2010). If the “prototype” (if we can define it so) is set in the streets of Mexico City, Mickle sets his work in the province of Castkills, the poorest area of the state of New York, anguished by floods. The floods bring out numerous buried human bones, not far from the home of the Parker family, which is mourning the death of the mother. The family is dominated by authoritarian father figure of Frank, who obliges the three children (two teenagers, Iris and Rose, and little Rory) to a period of forced fasting in view of an important ritual of which, since the mother has died, the eldest daughter Iris becomes the main celebrant. It consists of killing young women and then feeding themselves with their flesh.

Especially in this part, Mickle’s film differs widely from the original: eating human flesh is not something related only to a routine or to something ancestrally necessary, but it is much more: it consists in literally taking into account the evangelical concept of feeding oneself with the body of the Lord (as a matter of fact, the story unfolds between Friday and Sunday). It is also something atavistic, primitive, which survives in the tribal cultures, where the body of the defeated enemy is both a source of food and of the power of the winner. The victims are girls, and the story revolves mainly around the two older daughters: they are a little more than teenagers, with a irrepressible and longing sexuality that the father-master nips in the bud. Feeding on the sexually active (or immature) bodies of the victims gives them the power to get along without the carnal impulse. The temptation of the flesh with the flesh.

Genre films, and especially horror films, have always fielded the uncertainties and fears of the times in which they were filmed. Jim Mickle, who has always loved horror movies (his favourite movies are The Evil Dead by Raimi and Suspiria by Argento), uses them as a tool for a strong polemic against the institutions, a second level running parallel to the horror theme, as he had already done in Mulberry Street (2006) and Stake Land (2010).

Here, with a gothic film style setting, he focuses on religion, its madness, its most hidden side. Taking quite literally Stephen King, who argues that “in order to scare the others, we need to talk about something that scares us”, he sketched a dark film that speaks of faith that, in real life, can be terrifying. And the fear of the unknown that religion gives us is more frightening than anything else.

 

LET’S GO

Article by: Matteo Bagnasacco

Translation by: Paola Pupella

 “Let’s go”, directed by Antonietta De Lillo, was included in the section “Diritti & Rovesci”, a new section of the 32nd Torino Film Festival edited by Paolo Virzì.  In her film, the director of “Il resto è niente (Everything else is nothing)” tells the story of Luca Musella.

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ROLLING THUNDER: THERE ARE NO AMERICAN FLAGS

Article by: Emanuel Trotto

Translation by: Paola Pupella

A Vietnam veteran, unsuited, insomniac, unable to integrate in society, finally arms himself and carries out a massacre. We are not talking about Taxi Driver, but a just subsequent film to Scorsese’s masterpiece (showing only one year later, in 1977): Rolling Thunder.

Both films arise from the anguished pen of Paul Schrader, who, after a noteworthy activity as a scriptwriter (The Yakuza for Sidney Pollack, Obsession for Brian De Palma), firmly intended to become a director. However, because of production problems, his project was rather handed to John Flynn as director and Heywood Gould as re-scriptwriter. Schrader’s debut will happen later, in 1978, with a working class drama entitled Blue Collar.

The story of alienation and revenge of Major Rane is perfect. When the protagonist comes back to his hometown in Texas, after 7 years of imprisonment in Vietnam (that scarred him deeply), his fellow citizens reward “his heroism” with a box of silver dollars. Some bandits proceed to steal his money and kill cruelly his wife and his child. Major Rane then decides to take the law into his own hands.

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ECHOES OF GHOTIC FAIRY TALES FROM THE STATES

butter on the latch

Article by: Alessandro Arpa

Translation by: IlariaRana

 A soft earthquake has been dedicated to Josephine Decker, a young American filmmaker. “Gone Wild”, “Madonna miaviolenta”, “Thou wast mild and lovely”, “Balkan Camp” and “Butter on the latch” are the films she presented at the Turin Film Festival. Her films include Mumblecore elements and magic realism. In fact, Josephine Decker draws inspiration from Joe Swanberg (director of the renowned film “Uncle Kent”), whomshe considers her mentor, and from John Steinbeck and his novels based on an obsessive panic symbiosis.

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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.

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WISDOM AND HAUGHTINESS

Article by: Romilda Boffano

Translation by: Ilaria Rana

“La Sapienza” is the fifth feature film by Eugéne Green. Its preview was screened last summer at the Locarno Film Festival and it opens the section “Onde” of the 32nd Turin Film Festival. This film tells about the meeting between two couples. Alexandre and Alienor Schmidt are married and they are an architect and a psychoanalyst respectively.

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EUGENE GREEN’S PRESS CONFERENCE

Article by: Matteo Merlano

Translation by: Ilaria Rana

 A press conference is often a useful instrument for getting rid of any doubts about a film. “La sapienza” is undoubtedly one of those films that must be discussed a lot, whether for its techniques, its narration or the recitative style of its actors. It is a film in which each shot represents a room (in fact the underlying theme is architecture) and each actor talks with themselves without interacting with the others. Each line is pronounced clearly and it represents a struggle rather than a sentence with a meaning. It is a kind of cinema that may not please people.

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