Klara's cinema

Yesterday was a busy and contrasted day at the Mostra, during which we experienced the weird, the best and the worst. Basically a classical festival day. Let’s start with the first projection we attended, Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” and illustrate the situation with various extracts of post screening discussions (there might be some spoilers in there but as there is no plot, this should not be too bothering):

Dialogue 1:

Movie buddy : “I thought about it and there might be a link between the (lengthy) opening scene and these birds in the cage and the end, when the gate closes down on the sisters in the tunnel…”

Me : “you might be right indeed, but how would you explain the meaning of it?”

Movie buddy : “…” (long silence)

Me : “…” (long silence)

Dialogue 2:

Movie buddy : “I am not sure I got that whole story with the fox”

Me : “Indeed, I guess that as they called the fox Cupid, it was a metaphor for something…”

Movie buddy : “Right, but a metaphor for what?!”

Me: “…” (long silence)

Movie buddy “…” (long silence)

Dialogue 3:

Me: “this whole countryside part lost me completely from the start. And once the fox appears it gets even less understandable”

Movie buddy: “but the fox appears right at the beginning of the countryside part, no? and how on earth did the sisters even get to the countryside?”

Me: “I guess you were sleeping during that part of the movie”

Movie buddy: “…” (long silence)

Me: “…” (long silence)

Me: “anyhow, digging a tunnel for more than two years and ending up with a gate locking down on you is really a bummer. Whatever the tunnel and the gate mean…”

(end of discussions section)

So yeah, I do have a feeling we did not get it (and, to be honnest, I am not sure that there was anything to get). Besides the lenghty bird cage opening scene, it all starts interestingly, depicting these two sisters (Kate and Rooney Mara) who basically act as one person – they dress the same, talk the same, do the same. If we make abstraction of the fact that the story is set in Ireland and that everyone in the movie has a strong Irish accent besides the two sisters who sound as American as can be, both Maras do a pretty good acting job.

Problem is that once the story branches off (sadly pretty early on in the movie) towards something beyond any comprehension, it (obviously) becomes pretty impossible to understand what Herzog is trying to say. One day later (and some hours of thinking behind me), I am still not much smarter than yesterday. It was not an unpleasant experience, though. We watched it until the end (most probably with blank faces showing our perplexity) and are still wondering now what this was all about. But quite strangely (at least on my side) without feeling any animosity towards what we saw. Weird.

Thank god the second movie came up right after and prevented us from ruminating an entire evening about the meaning of the meaningless.

Movie 2, Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine” was the blast we all expected! It was funny, it was moving, it was endearing and sad, it was just exactly what you expect from the promise of a cooperation between genius McDonagh and monument Malkovitch.

In this case, I won’t spoil too much as, (surprise!), there is actually a story and a good one. As it has by now become one of McDonagh’s signature, it is a tale of friendship between two men (John Malkovitch and – also fantastic – Sam Rockwell), two CIA employees that, for a given reason (that I shall not display here), end up spending a few days on Easter Island together. Both travel from Chile, a Chile that has just elected Allende as president – we are thus in the early seventies.

As all McDonagh’s movies it is full of swearing and irony counterbalanced by this huuuuge bubble of tenderness that makes your little heart melt in this unique unexplainable way.

Malkovitch being the gracefully ageing monument that he is, provides one of these unforgettable performances that only a few are able to offer at this level. I swear that if he does not get at least the best actor Lion, if not the Oscar, I will be left with a Herzogian level of perplexity.

A masterpiece!

The little Italian movie that got screened after that stood absolutely no chance – despite the fact that it had quite a convincing argument for itself named Alessandro Borghi (if you have not seen “Suburra”, I can only recommend) . But even Alessandro’s blue eyes could not help saving this mediocre drama of full of clichés, bad acting (not Alessandro, Alessandro is untouchable from my very biaised perspective) and cheesiness. One that can be forgotten as much as “Wild Horse Nine” shall remain unforgettable.