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Fri 1 Mar, GFT, 1pm | Sat 2 Mar, GFT, 8.45pm
The Good Life Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro is one of the most imaginative films of the year. She tells us how she embraced fairytale rhythms and magic realism to tell a politically potent tale about the evils of capitalism
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n new Italian film Happy as Lazzaro, realism and poetry sit side-by-side. Speaking to Alice Rohrwacher, the film’s 37-year-old writer-director, one senses similar qualities. Sometimes her answers will start by describing the humdrum aspects of filmmaking and end in a romantic flourish. At other times she’ll begin with an ironic, almost sarky response, before taking her train of thought to deeply sincere places. Rohrwacher’s film opens like a classic of the neorealist style in which her nation used to specialise. We’re in a bucolic valley in the company of a small
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Interview: Jamie Dunn community of hardscrabble tobacco sharecroppers, who look as if they’re barely surviving. Clothes and living conditions suggest at the very least a pre-war setting. Money and food are in short supply – beds too. The extended family numbers the dozens, spread across four generations, all living on top of one another in a few crumbling farmhouses. Among the throng is Lazzaro, a strapping teenage boy with an angelic face on whose broad shoulders much of the farm’s labour falls. The lad, as good and honest as they come, accepts his unequal share of chores with a nod and a smile. These simple peasants are ruled over by a tyrannical marchioness – dubbed ‘the queen of cigarettes’ – but when this landlord does appear on the scene it’s clear not all is as it seems. For one thing, the marchioness has dragged her moody teenage son, Tancredi, along with her, and with his bleach blond
hair, vibrantly coloured t-shirts and brick-sized mobile phone in hand, he looks like he’s just stepped off the set of 80s teen sitcom Saved by the Bell. The marchioness, it appears, has failed to inform her employees that feudalism was outlawed years ago, keeping them in blissful ignorance as they harvest her tobacco crops for practically nothing. This plot setup, Rohrwacher explains, was inspired by a real-life incident. “There was this strange but true piece, not very important, tucked away in the newspaper, saying something like ‘How stupid are these peasants?’” she recalls. “‘The marchioness forgot to tell them the law changed 15 years ago and they’re still thinking they are part of her property.’ I’ve seen so many stories about people who’ve used their privilege to keep other people in ignorance, but this little article I read many years ago, I always remembered it.” >>
>> While visiting the plantation, Tancredi strikes up an odd-couple friendship with Lazzaro. The mischievous brat has cooked up a plan to fake his own kidnapping in an attempt to extort money out of his tightfisted mother, and the credulous Lazzaro is just happy to be of help to his new friend, getting himself embroiled in the hare-brained scheme with the same easy-going ebullience he shows when doing the lion’s share of the work around the farm. He seems to have no clue he’s being used and suffers with a serene smile. It becomes clear Lazzaro is something of an allegorical figure – although this holy innocent is no hero. “Of course it would be lovely if someone like Lazzaro becomes the justice of the poor, but unfortunately life is not like that,” says Rohrwacher. “The poorest people around him don’t complain, so Lazzaro can’t imagine they need anything; but he listens to the plight of Tancredi, this spoiled kid who’s the only one feeling sorry for himself.” Lazzaro’s level of altruism is not to be aspired to, she explains: “If you were to ask Lazzaro, ‘Can you go and put this bomb in this school?’ he’d say ‘yes’. He’s not someone who’s taking a position on what he sees in front of him because he’s always seeing in other people a possibility of good.” Lazzaro, then, might stand for the minimum wage worker who stays quietly dutiful while their rights are slowly eroded, or the uncomplaining citizen who refuses to vote for radical change despite continuing to get the shitty end of the stick. Rohrwacher is certainly more clued-up and radical than her saintly protagonist. From the neorealist beginning, her thrillingly imaginative film starts to adopt fairytale-like rhythms. A gasp-inducing rupture at the heart of the film – one too surprising to spoil – might even be argued as sending Happy as Lazzaro into time-travelling genre territory. Rather than detract from her film’s fierce political dimensions,
Rohrwacher’s use of the magical only serves to enhance the potency of her message.
“ Lazzaro is not taking a position on what he sees in front of him, because he’s always seeing in other people a possibility of good” Alice Rohrwacher “Poetry can be politics,” Rohrwacher says of her film’s singular style, before hesitating. “No,” she corrects herself. “Poetry is politics! You can use the fairytale to be more universal in the political sense.” But it’s not just in terms of content that Rohrwacher’s politics are expressed. “It’s political, too, to tell a story where the protagonist isn’t your typical hero. And the script is political because it doesn’t follow the rule of the hero’s journey; it doesn’t follow the rules that at page 40 you have to reveal this, and then there’s a second turning point at page whatever, and the antagonist goes here. It’s political because it
throws out those rules.” Australian actor Cate Blanchett and her fellow Cannes jury members seem to agree with Rohrwacher on her script’s qualities. When Happy as Lazzaro premiered at last year’s edition of that grandest of film festivals, Rohrwacher won best screenplay. Many commentators had hoped, however, that the Italian filmmaker might have been the first woman to lift the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, since Jane Campion a quarter of a century ago for The Piano. Rohrwacher was well aware that much hope was placed on the shoulders of Happy as Lazzaro – one of only three films by female directors in Cannes’ competition field of 21 features – but for her, the film industry’s problems go well beyond who wins the Palme d’Or. “At Cannes, we got a lot of questions about women directors, but it’s like asking the problems of immigration to a refugee who is the only one to survive the horrible trip out of their homeland. I think we have to go back much further: put the same questions to people who decide who goes to the film schools, to the people who determine to whom they give money to make films.” Unlike her protagonist Lazzaro, Rohrwacher doesn’t suffer these injustices with a smile. “It would be easier for everyone if a woman won the prize at Cannes in some ways, but you’d also have people saying, ‘Ah, she won because she’s a woman.’ So it’s always against you.”
R E VIE WS Styx Director: Wolfgang Fischer Starring: Susanne Wolff, Gedion Oduor Wekesa
There’s nothing new about dramatic tales of tragic solo sailing trips making their way to the big screen – we’ve had two Donald Crowhurst biopics in the past year alone – but Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx takes its protagonist into more complex and provocative waters than most. As she enjoys a long-anticipated expedition to Ascension Island, Rieke (the impressive Susanne Wolff ) comes across a stricken ship filled with African migrants en route to Europe, now in desperate need of assistance. Over the radio, a coast guard warns her that the
Mon 25 Feb, Everyman, 6pm Tue 26 Feb, CCA, 3.30pm
official policy is to not engage, but can paramedic Rieke really do nothing and sail onwards while these people are crying out for help? Styx is one of the most compelling cinematic attempts to tackle the ongoing migrant crisis because it boils it down to one empathetic woman’s personal experience, placing her in a moral quandary that offers no easy answers. Fischer’s storytelling is nimble and precise, while Benedict Neuenfels’ cinematography gives us a crucial sense of space, particularly through the arresting aerial photography that emphasises just how alone these people really are. [Philip Concannon]
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I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians Director: Radu Jude Starring: Ioana Iacob, Alex Bogdan, Alexandru Dabija, Ion Rizea, Claudia Ieremia
How do you make art that illuminates past atrocities? How do you do so in a country that seems determined to forget such dark periods of their history? How does an artist work under censorship? These are some of the questions tackled by Radu Jude in I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, the title being inspired by a quote from Conducător Ion Antonescu that kickstarted the 1941 massacre
Eighth Grade Director: Bo Burnham Starring: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson, Jake Ryan, Fred Hechinger, Daniel Zolghadri, Catherine Oliviere
Adolescence is brutal. Or at least it feels that way. The great achievement of Bo Burnham’s debut feature, Eighth Grade, is that he manages to visually articulate this teen angst, and the results are hilarious and oh so cringe-worthy. Our focus is 13-year-old Kayla (Fisher), who presents a motivational vlog aimed at her peers with topics like ‘How to be confident’, despite being a cripplingly shy social pariah. Burnham has a knack for putting us in Kayla’s awkward skin: a pool party full of cooler
of Jews in Odessa, and the Romanian government’s subsequent complicity in the Nazi Holocaust. The superb Ioana Iacob plays Mariana, a theatre director hired to stage a large-scale public event celebrating Romanian military history. The authorities are expecting something patriotic and valedictory, but Mariana has very different ideas. There are times when Jude’s film threatens to be as long-winded and indigestible as its title. This is a dense examination of Romania’s inglorious past and it occasionally gets bogged down in expositional talk, as it does when
Tue 26, GFT, 8pm Wed 27 Feb, GFT, 3.15pm
Mariana reads from a history book to her boyfriend over Skype. For those who stick with it, however, this is a stimulating and rewarding experience. At his best, Jude’s filmmaking is pointed, witty and dynamic (as anyone who enjoyed his 2015 feature Aferim! will attest) and this film has a cumulative power, exploring contemporary Romanian anti-Semitism and cultural amnesia through a series of long and ambitious sequences, all of which are skilfully negotiated by his exceptional cast. It’s all building to a sensational climax, wherein Jude switches out his
16mm footage for TV-style HD images to capture the climactic presentation of Mariana’s show in a public square in Bucharest. It’s a fascinating, unsettling and hilariously audacious spectacle, one we watch slack-jawed as the assembled dignitaries and onlookers begin to understand the nature of the show that Mariana has put on for them. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians is a potent argument for truth in art, and a provocative challenge for all nations to reckon honestly with their own history. [Philip Concannon]
Thurs 28 Feb, GFT, 6.30pm Fri 1 Mar, GFT, 3.45pm
kids becomes a waking nightmare, while every appearance of Kayla’s crush sends the image into a dopey swoon. Anna Meredith’s swirling electronic score taps us into Kayla’s psyche too, amping up the feeling of anxiety one moment, acting as the teen’s faux-triumphant theme music the next. Eighth Grade finds its tender heart in Kayla’s relationship with her adorkable father, who knows his daughter is struggling but doesn’t quite know how to help. Burnham’s refusal to cast the internet as the film’s bogeyman is refreshing too. Adolescence is brutal, and this remarkably well-observed film doesn’t sugar-coat it. [Jamie Dunn]
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TOP FIVE
week two Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 27 Feb, Buchanan Galleries, 8.30pm Dress up as your favourite historical figure and pop along to this pop-up in the Galleries, where quoting along to Bill S Preston Esq and Ted Theodore Logan in very much encouraged.
Genesis
Sat 2 Mar, GFT, 5.30pm Sun 3 Mar, CCA, 11.30am
harrowing, the other as light and sweet as candyfloss. At an all-boys boarding school, a smart-mouth with a penchant for JD Salinger has developed romantic feelings for his best friend. Back in Montreal, a young woman breaks up with her geeky, commitment-phobe boyfriend and embarks on a fling with a more dynamic older man. Told in parallel, with the connection between the respective protagonists initially concealed, both characters put their hearts on the line and make foolhardy choices. Lesage’s startling compositions do
Director: Philippe Lesage Starring: Théodore Pellerin, Noée Abita, Édouard Tremblay-Grenier, Pier-Luc Funk, Émilie Bierre, Maxime Dumontier
Come to Philippe Lesage movies for the euphoric dance scenes; stay for the watchful, perceptive filmmaking. The talented Quebecois writerdirector’s second fiction film, Genesis, is concerned with that most familiar of subjects: young love. But Lesage has a thrillingly unconventional structure on which to hang his trio of intimate tales of adolescent amour, two of which are
most of the talking, but he also knows how to write a charged late-night conversation or a tender declaration of love. Dreamy synth ballad Outside, by Montreal outfit Tops, drifts in and out of both stories, as if echoing each protagonist’s pain. It all might be too heartbreaking if it weren’t for Genesis’s surprise coda, an achingly tentative first romance at an adventure camp that brings back a familiar face from Lesage’s equally impressive debut, The Demons. It’s as if Lesage has to end on this tender grace note to remind us love is possible, and worth getting hurt for. [Jamie Dunn]
Mon 25 Feb, GFT, 8pm | Thu 28 Feb, GFT, 1.15pm
Under the Silver Lake This thrillingly dreamlike and borderline baffling detective yarn, set in the sunny but sinister LA familiar to David Lynch and Thomas Pynchon fans, follows
Director: David Robert Mitchel Starring: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Patrick Fischler, Grace Van Patten,
Andrew Garfield as Sam, a feckless layabout who idles away his days getting stoned, playing Nintendo and perving at his female neighbours. It’s the latter,
creepy hobby that gets him embroiled in a conspiracy when his object of lust, Sarah (Keough), mysteriously vacates her apartment overnight. Despite hardly knowing her, he turns sleuth, stumbling from one bizarre clue to another. Like this writer-director’s previous genre riffs – coming-of-age movie The Myth of the American Sleepover and slasher It Follows – it’s the skew-whiff atmosphere that sells Under the Silver Lake’s convoluted story. Sam discovers a city filled with secret codes and disquieting characters: a canine killer on the prowl, a naked assassin with the face of an owl, and the obscenely wealthy, who’re up to something untoward in tunnels below the Hollywood hills. The score suggests Vertigo, and like that film, our detective hero is not to be admired, although Garfield’s endearing goofiness might fool you into doing so. [Jamie Dunn]
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Sales
The Surprise Film 27 Feb, GFT, 8.40pm Every year we try and guess what the Surprise Film will be, and every year we’re, well, surprised, which we guess is the point. Cinephiles of an adventurous nature should snap up a ticket.
A Bread Factory 1 & 2 3 Mar, GFT, from 1pm Patrick Wang’s sprawling four hour epic focuses on a small town’s modest art centre, and the lively community it has built up over four decades, who are fighting back against the new, shiney Chinesefunded art complex in town. May Days: The Films of Elaine May From 25 Feb, GFT In her four fantastic features, Elaine May explores the fragile male psyche via a morbid black comedy (A New Leaf), a spiky anti rom-com (The Heartbreak Kid), a caustic buddy movie (Mikey and Nicky) and a daft spy caper centred on two clueless lounge singers (Ishtar); each screening is unmissable.
The Blair Witch Project 2 Mar, Secret Location, 4pm & 7pm Didn’t think The Blair Witch Project could get any more terrifying? GFF are taking brave audience to a spooky secret location to acquaint themselves with this landmark scary movie.
Sandy Park George Sully
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