davidepresciuttini

Some were annoyed by the simplistic and populist plot and symbolism, united to a well crafted but self-celebratory style that makes it palatable to a refined audience. A recurring question is, is this actual satire (a comic take on a topic, meant to actually criticise it by bringing out its contradictions, shortcomings, foolishness, to make viewers laugh but also reflect on the topic) or a farce (a playful but all along not serious mockery of a topic, where situations and characters are exaggerated and grotesque only in order to entertain)? But there is something subtle that makes it hard to discern between satire and farce, postmodern worldview tends to mix the two things: a distanciating postmodern irony can be both aimed to an object but also to the subject that exerts it, in a never ending interpreting circle where what is authentic and what is crafted is always put into question. In this sense, we could also read triangle of sadness as a parody of itself (parody being a trivialised comic take on something serious), as it tries to be satire of modern society and at the same time, satirises its own (the liberal left's) quest for a better world.

The couple of leading characters belong to the shallow world of fashion, they are literally living ads, constantly living the life of the rich in order to promote anything but without owning much themselves. They are, with some personal differences, two social climbers and have no real problem with the capitalist system as it is, they aspire to wealth and fame. Nonetheless, they do show to have certain moral concerns, mainly regarding gender roles. Carl wants to have equality in their relationship (equality that was promoted on the screen during the fashion show) and Yaya praises Abigail for having put the men in the group in line and being a strong woman in charge and, when at the very end they find out that they can easily go back to civilised life, she offers her to work with her as an assistant. I believe that this last part was a reference to intersectionalism, and we are left with the question, can it work? Will Aibigal kill Yaya or join her? I somehow think that these two dialogues, at the beginning and at the end, were the actual satirical and sincere aims of the movie. A shallow liberal egalitarian agenda in a hypercapitalist world is not providing any solution to the forgotten issue of class. Carl and Yaya arguing are just acting like first world teenagers. Yaya's proposal to Abigail is for sure a well meant and caring move, but is it an actual political move?

I believe that the all the grotesque middle part of the rich on the boat, with all its clear and easy to read symbolism, was more of a farce, an exetremisation of what letfists and liberals think of our world, rather than an actual serious critique of our world.

In the last part on the desert island we see that power dynamics can be mirrored and revived upside down. Perhaps this is not just meant to be a bitter nihilist realisation that power always corrupts and recreates abusive relationships, but that today in our world we can see no alternative to this mindset. Pivotal is the moment in which Abigail, alone with Carl, says that she is working hard and is entitled to have something back, that he is not forced to sleep with her. That is of course a mockery of the core value of meritocracy: even the merits of those hardworking meritocratic self-made individuals don't directly justify oppressing the others to get what they want from them. The communist alternative has clearly failed, embodied by a drunk captain that has lost hope and even made a career. Rather than just criticising the world we live in as a capitalist and unequal one in a rather populist and boombastic way, Triangle of Sadness aims to show that no social force has the strength to undermine the world we live in and what is tragic about it is the bad conscience of western liberals that see the world through the lens of capitalist dystopia but don't have the drive nor the instruments to change it. I had even a stronger sense of this after having watched the square, that deals with almost the topic from another angle. Both movies seem to point to a tragic view of those liberals criticising the shortcomings of a capitalist world, but at the same not quite apt to the task of actually changing it. In showing us their nightmare, it gives the sense of the confused spirit of our time.

The original willow movie was already not to be taken too seriously : the protagonist is a armless trickster and wouldn't get much done without madmartigan who is a scoundrel and not quite a proper hero, and the daughter of the villain evil queen falls in love with him and changes side. It was all along a parody of a fantasy, not as much as 'princess bride' but still.

Willow series brings the parody to another level, that of postmodern pastiche, that is, to mixup up elements from different worlds and genres and ironically challenge the tropes of the reference genre (fantasy in this case). Every new episode feels more like the Lord of the rings is blending further with Disenchantment (the cartoon series) .

I found Elora's training in magic hilarious, Boorman character even less likely and more grotesque than the 80s madmartigan. Then, having the characters basically raving and doing drugs was great and unexpected, turning trolls into refined individuals was fun too.

I am not a big series fan in general, I would say that generally contemporary series screenwriters have one good idea that unfolds slowly and keeps viewers stuck to the screen and then they have to fill episodes with romantic and emotional clash subplots (like in good old soap operas). Here at least even romance and grudge between characters are not cheesy because everything is a farce and the storytelling is actually original.

To sum it up, I find willow better than the 'serious' but actually very cliche and cheesy standard series, it is not either a great piece of art ( to me only twin peaks and the young pope reach a truly high cinematic value) but it's fun and original.

I was so happy to see Amanda, the first movie by a young and very promising Italian director!

It's a indie movie that explores solitude and lack of meaning and purpose in the rich world, in a comic way, to cathartically laugh about it.

All characters show different traits of malaise: Amanda the protagonist, an entitled girl with a strong and straightforward attitude, doesn't have any friends and purpose in life. She relentlessly tries to meet people in a world where everybody seems to be surrounded by equally introvert individuals too scared and lost to connect. In techno raves one can be together without communicating with the others and, conversely, on chatroulette one can talk to random strangers without having them close, in both ways there seems to be no meaningful communication.

The girl that is to become friend of Amanda shows another side of loneliness, she has cut herself out of the world and doesn't want to have any interaction with the others, living in a state of calm apathy.

These girls, two wealthy outcasts, are an hymn to being different and they also remember us, along with their problematic family members, that wealth has also its downsides.

The movie lingers on bizarre scenes and dialogues that are reminiscent of Sorrentino imagery, the plot is original and unpredictable. Here and there there are hints at other themes like consumerism (the idealisation of objects, and they might even substitute loved ones) and religion (a perceived oddity in a secular world) that delight the spectator with unexpected surreal witty fun.

The city where the action takes place is never intentionally mentioned (in the real world it is Turin, probably not even just that but also different places across Piedmont region), I think it is meant to be a generic first world city where first world issues take place. The urban scenes in neon light convey a sense of anonymity and, in their own way, so do the rich villas.

I am looking forward to seeing the next movies by Carolina Cavalli! I am so happy to see a new star rising in Italian cinema.

I watched Gremlins again as an adult and I discovered a moral and political content that as a child I wouldn't be able to detect, and that's what I will expand on in this review.

This movie can be interpreted as an environmentalist and social critique of triumphant American consumerism and capitalism in the 80s.

Gismo the Mogwai is a good-hearted and intelligent being, possesses many qualities and, even if is not clearly stated, it may well be immortal. It can be considered a symbol of harmony in nature, of an idealized "good" natural order. It is kept by an old Chinese man who knows how to deal with it, his stereotypical ancient eastern wisdom and his sense of responsibility rule his conduct, not like the other absent minded American characters that act irresponsibly and are therefore capable of unleashing the destructive force that hides in that formerly good nature.

The first to act irresponsibly is his grandson, selling the Mogwai for money, and then Randall that buys it because he simply really loves his son and wants the best gift for him. Both characters act morally wrong for selfish reasons. At the end of the movie, the old Chinese man comes back and says "you do with Mogwai what your society has done with all nature's gifts" and that "you are not ready" but then he tells Billy that some day he may be ready and Mogwai will be waiting. There is hope for a better more responsible future, but why could Billy one day make it, who is he and what does he represent in the plot?

Billy has a job he doesn't like in a bank, he clearly doesn't belong there. His colleague instead embodies fully the ruthless and superficial muscular values of 80s yuppie society: there is only career and money in his life. Billy's father is a positive character and a dreamer like his son, but at the same time he embodies another downside of contemporary society: the never ending creation of new devices that have less and less reasons to exist. His inventions are useless and in a way one could argue that our lives in the wealthy world are and were actually filled with such things. Looking back, certain "innovative" devices of the past have quickly gone out of fashion.

The "evil" Mogwais and then the Gremlins could be interpreted as the corruption of that original harmonic nature. They act like unruly teenagers without any moral restrain, they simply want to have constant fun. I would argue that they themselves are a grotesque and extreme metaphor of contemporary hedonistic society in which individuals are all about seeking pleasures and disregard the wider society.

And all of the horror takes place during Christmas, that is the perfect moment to stress the contradiction between the good values that society supposedly promotes and the actual lack of them in the way many characters and the gremlins (if you follow me in considering them a metaphor of our society) behave. The reason why Kate hates Christmas points to the big gap between the good childish image of Christmas and the very real contradictions and sorrows of the world hidden under Christmas decorations and carols. The story she tells about the death of her father dressed up like Santa is also the death of that Child's dream, because Santa doesn't exist and so his moral goodness is a mirage.

I would say that overall this is an interesting attempt to do something new and creative.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of an ancient prehistorical world, in which superstition is everything and all actions have to be interpreted. Also, the concept of "war of all against all", is well represented. Until there is no unitary power, individuals and tribes will endlessly live in fear and fight each other for supremacy, making use of all available psychological and practical means to oppress each other.

What I want to focus on, is the political side of the movie. Being Italian myself, I know that for an Italian director can be a bit troubling to do a movie on the mythical foundation of Rome, you don't want it to sound too celebratory of Roman power, because then it would stink of fascism (celebrating ancient Rome was an important part of fascist propaganda).

So, how does this "issue" develop in the script?

Let's start by saying that the movie is loosely based on the actual myth.

Remus is a kind of Machiavellian authoritarian ruler, disregards religion and tradition and simply wants to take advantage of it to make others do what he wants.

Whereas, Romulus is a pious, good hearted person that we can foretell will be a righteous and fair king loved by its people.

Alba Longa, the first rival of Rome, is portrayed as a tyrannical power oppressing villages in the area. Therefore, the birth of Rome is a reaction against Alba Longa, oppressor of the humble and lost peoples of Latium and against a ruthless nihilist amoral Remus, then it is a kind of democratic anti-authoritarian birth!

I think that this turn is a very creative way not to make it look like the birth of a mighty oppressive imperial power (that Rome indeed was to be) but a subtle way of pretending it was a mythical foundation of a democratic power.

This is a clear example of what I dislike about a certain tendency in contemporary art (not just cinema, high brow institutional art at large), that is, the idea that being crude and brutal, rubbing salt in the wound, can already be considered a form of creativity (if you want an example, search Cattelan's hanged children puppets). I personally don't think so, unconscious darkness and the horror of existence are by now something trivial, we live in a desacralised visual world in which they have become ordinary, part of pop culture, and it's been so for some time too (think of the series Andy Warhol on car accident, that by the way, was exactly pointing to the trivialisation of violence). In Climax you will experience exactly this empty visualisation of a descent into amorality and darkness, as if going down into a hell where no hope was left. There is some symbolism, here and there, given randomly away, like the huge french flag behind the stage (are we looking at the darkness hidden behind the good appearances of a country? If so, it is a vague and populist stance). I've read that in an interview that the director wanted to portray the fear and rage people experience when someone imposes them something (in this movie, a psychedelic trip). Well, I personally don't find the idea itself that compelling and I don't even think that many viewers would get it. Instead, I know that many people like it because it's a raw and rough experience, my point is, it's shallow and it's hard for me not to think that it works simply because it draws the viewers' attention with something strong and dark (let me call it a pornography of darkness and violence). Just to clarify, I'm fine with films that don't have a strong meaning, but I expect them to be truly creative and to bring me to another "level of consciousness", think of David Lynch, his movies are not meant to make "sense", they can be random and obscure but their eerie atmospheres and distortion of reality are worthwhile watching. I personally don't find that in climax.

This movie exemplifies the flourishing of 90s underground culture, irreverent, desacralising, anti-system, but at the same time fun, enjoyable and witty , like the comics that could be found in an underground zine of the time. The story is absolutely original, a modern version of don Quijote, in which the visionary knight role is taken by a priest that after years of studying is convinced that there are "clear" signs that something horrible is going to happen in Madrid on 1995 Christmas eve. By his side, he has a kind of Sancho Panza, a heavy metal fan, and a tv host of a occultism tv program. The whole experience is a psychedelic (the characters also literally do LSD) and extravagant one, from the beginning till the end one cannot predict where the plot will end up. The social critique points to the visionary and irrational nature of church belief, but also to the fake shallow new beliefs broadcasted by junk television, and with regards to that, the reason why the tv host and his producer are Italian is that Silvio Berlusconi, whose picture can be briefly seen while they enter the TV studios, had in the real world made investments in the Spanish Television, and in Italy like abroad his TV became associated with low brow junk entartainment. Along these fake beliefs, we see also the dystopian rising of a crypto-fascist group of men that kills homeless and migrants spraying the motto "limpia Madrid", clean Madrid. So, all in all, an alternative leftist funny and absurdist critique of the world of the 90s

This movie is indeed well shot and acted, brings us with success in a disturbing atmosphere of horror, the kind of horror linked to the depths of the unconscious. We sense that everything that happens is meant to be a metaphor of something from the very beginning, nothing is natural nor ordinary and everything is dramatic in a theatrical way. This island in which there is an old lighthouse keeper and a subordinated worker seems to represent a small world, in which the keeper becomes a godly authoritarian figure that doesn't allow man to get close to the light. Actually, without being precise about it in order to avoid spoilers, at the end there will be a clear reference to an ancient Greek myth that will give a clear reference to what I am talking about and clearly state what the plot is (partially) built around. Having said this, I think that giving it a metaphorical meaning was just an excuse to make a well crafted exercise of style that even if intense and interesting, can seem a bit pretentious in the end. Overall though, I confirm it is a good product, just that, well, making high brow references and obscure links to the human unconscious doesn't necessarily mean being deep in a meaningful way, I think it was meant to remind us of Bergman's quests into insanity but I don't think it gets anywhere close to that.

This is one of the movies I can easily watch over and over again. It is built around two opposite characters that represent two Italies living in the same country but viscerally antithetic. Vittorio Gassman is an entrepeneur with right wing leanings but overall interested in business and not really concerned about values and morality: smart, charming, friendly but in the end self centered and not interested in anything but himself, one of those that made fortune during the boom years because of their cunning and recklessness.

On the opposite side of the sprectrum, Ugo Tognazzi is a left-wing prosecutor, a man of principle always controlled, serious, stiff, bitter. He looks with contempt to the Italian ruling class responsible in his eyes of creating a monstrous immoral country in which the powerful could act freely for their own profit at the expenses of the greater good.

The action develops around a crime and the story turns are never obvious nor facile. Around the two main characters a diverse crowd portrays different classes and human kinds that could be found in those years.

The result is a bitter and cynical portrait of a society where there are no real good nor bad, as everyone is following his own agenda to which we can, to bigger or smaller degrees, relate. What I like about dino risi movies is that they don't provide, in highly politicised years, any easy populist target (that you can find for example in the period in Elio Petri's movies) and, even if we see the very evident damages engineer Santenocito (Gassmann) does with his activities, we cannot say that prosecutor Bonifazi (Tognazzi) is in the end that scrupulous and thorough good impartial judge. What is left is an incompatible moral and ideological clash without compromises.

p.s. As an Italian that grew up in the 90s in a left-wing family, to me this movie resonates incredibly well with the clash between supportes of Berlusconi (whose personality is extremely close to Santenocito's) and the, he claimed (with some truth) "red" judiciary and left-wing Italians. In general, until the first decade of the XXI century this reciprocal mistrust and ongoing accusation between left wing and right wing was very alive in Italy. We on the left believed to be morally superior people opposing a small-minded business-oriented hedonist hypocrite right and centre that ended up representing all the evil we perceived in "Italianness"(once more, exactly what this 70s movie is about). Today that partisan spirit is not as vibrant and alive, but this is another story