May 14, 2021 5:05 pm
During the long period of closure of the theaters, the lack of French cinema was felt, only partially compensated by some excursions on Mubi and by some films filtered on other streaming platforms. One of the films that we have missed is Glory of the world by Robert Guédiguian, presented in competition in Venice in 2019, which without a pandemic we would surely have seen in the spring of 2020.
Guédiguian, who has a loyal audience in Italy, has always dealt with social and political issues with calm, almost optimistic films, in which his characters troubled, but with joy and energy. Already in his previous film, The house by the sea, one warned that from the high hopes of Marius and Jeanette twenty years had passed. In Glory of the world it’s hard to find any trace of that optimism, even if the film opens with the birth of a baby girl, Gloria.
Its heroes, the usual ones, played by Ariane Ascaride (awarded with the Volpi Cup in Venice), Jean-Pierre Daroussin and Gérard Meylan, are in trouble. Daniel (Meylan), Gloria’s grandfather, gets out of jail after a long sentence and is welcomed by his ex-wife Sylvie (Ascaride) with her new husband Richard (Daroussin), who is perhaps the only one to continue, almost desperately, to believe in others, in friendship, in solidarity. The next generation, Mathilda (Anaïs Demoustier), Gloria’s mother, her husband, Gloria’s aunt with her hideous spouse, are faring no better. Even Marseille, the place of choice for Guédiguian’s cinema, “is unrecognizable: gray, cold and terribly contemporary”, writes Marcos Uzal in Libération. When everything goes down it will be Daniel’s turn to sacrifice himself for his family.
If you don’t laugh in Marseille, in Belgrade Stitches, Miroslav Terzić’s first feature film, things are not getting better. Ana (Snežana Bogdanović) is a seamstress obsessed with the idea that her eighteen-year-old son wasn’t born dead as she was told in the hospital. Her long and desperate search for the truth collides with a wall of indifference and almost annoyance on the part of the authorities and also puts her relations with her husband and eldest daughter in crisis. But Ana doesn’t stop. He delves into the maze of a disturbing bureaucracy and arrives at a shocking truth. Terzić, who for the film was inspired by a true story (or many true stories), leaves the viewer with the task of summing up the inhumanity that can be achieved in wild times and focuses on Ana who, on the contrary, is obstinate not to abandon his humanity.
Pure in Babyteeth, another debut (by the Australian Shannon Murphy), also presented in Venice in 2019, there is a family living in a dramatic situation. Milla (Eliza Scanlen) is 16 and has cancer. Her parents (Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis), who are already not understanding anything anymore, panic when Milla falls in love and brings home Moses (Toby Wallace), a much older, toxic boy, literally “an escaped home”. Yet Moses is the only one who can make life seem beautiful to Milla. The best advantage of Babyteeth (besides the cast, with Davis and Mendelsohn one more wonderful than the other) is the sincere and somewhat surreal tone. Maybe not everyone will find it suitable for a film that is ultimately about a little girl who is about to die. In any case, not trivial.
If you are dying to go back to the room, but you are still terrified by the idea of spending a couple of hours indoors with others, you may be tempted The human voice by Pedro Almodóvar with Tilda Swinton (also presented in Venice, out of competition, in 2020), freely taken from Human voice by Jean Cocteau. In fact it only lasts thirty minutes but, as Glenn Kenny writes in the New York Times, it gives all the satisfactions of Almódovar’s best feature films. Also thanks to the presence of Tilda Swinton. How could you not have thought about it before? Director and actress don’t seem made for each other (Kenny always talks about “a match made in heaven”)? Fantastic direction, luxurious production. For the New York newspaper the result is “sublime”.
Glory of the world
Di Robert Guédiguian. Con Ariane Ascaride, Gérard Meylan, Jean-Pierre Daroussin, Anaïs Demoustier, Robinson Stévenin, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. Francia 2019, 106 ‘. In sala.
Stitches
By Miroslav Terzic. Con Snezana Bogdanovic, Jovana Stojiljkovic, Marko Bacovic. Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2019, 98 ‘. In the room.
Babyteeth
Di Shannon Murphy. Con Eliza Scanlen, Essie Davis, Ben Mendelsohn, Toby Wallace. Australia 2019, 118’. In sala.
The human voice
By Pedro Almodóvar. With Tilda Swinton. Spain 2020, 30 ‘. In the hall.
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