HOME, along with its previous incarnation ‘Cornerhouse’, has played host to the Viva Festival for 25 years and it has become a behemoth due to its excellent programming and loyal patrons. The festival of film and theatre runs for 23 days across March and April and I urge you to check the calendar of events still running at homemcr.org/viva-2019. This year, Viva is celebrating ‘Serious Fun’, which HOME describes as “following the Spanish and Latin American cultural tradition of esperpento, which uses satire, the grotesque and dark humour to skewer the foibles of contemporary society.”
The festival’s packed and diverse calendar has so much to offer and I have plumped for about four films in the coming weeks, the first of which is Louis Garcia Berlango’s ‘El Verdugo’ (The Executioner), which HOME claims is ‘frequently cited as one of the best and most influential films of all time’. The film was introduced by HOME’s visiting curator Professor Andy Willis from The University of Salford. I have seen Professor Willis introduce screenings at HOME before and have also attended his lectures, so his presence prior to this screening was most welcome. Willis is a deceptively laid-back speaker, but one who pitches his knowledge and research expertly to frame the film which we are due to watch in a manner that ensures we get more from it than if we were to arrive at the film cold.
El Verdugo is the story of Jose Louis, an irresponsible, immature undertaker who is harangued into marrying the daughter of an executioner after getting caught sleeping with her. Through a series of complications he finds himself employed as the state executioner in order to keep possession of his new family’s apartment. In 1963 the film was Spain’s entry for The Venice Film Festival, much to the chagrin of the Spanish government who tried to supress it for fear that it was a direct critique of its capital punishment policies in a period in which the state had just executed 3 political prisoners (See?! I told you that Professor Willis’s introductions were useful.). This film certainly arrives at its satirical point directly and clearly, but has very little else to offer.
The protagonist is played by Italian star Nino Manfredi who mopes petulantly through his role with all the comic energy of a teenager doing their maths homework, whilst his sparring partner, the elderly Jose Isbert plays his role with barely any expression and one struggles to find anything humorous in their characterisation. Manfredi is saddled with that tired comic trope of the put-upon everyman who lacks any agency or even the willpower to rail against his increasingly deteriorating situation, but this is most egregiously displayed when his character Jose Louis attempts to hide from his pregnant girlfriend. It is such a cold and cowardly move that he remains unsympathetic for the remainder of the film. The poor characterisation and performances are cemented by some diabolical ADR, [automated dialogue replacement], which grates on the ears and is often so badly synced that one wonders what language they were originally speaking (to clarify; this was a subtitled film, the sound was from the original Spanish language release, so the dubbing was inexcusable).
Berlango’s directing style, which we were informed by Andy Willis was discernible through deep focus photography and long takes, was merely functional and had little to offer stylistically. Berlango’s choice of elliptical editing was often very jarring, leaving the audience to catch up on where we were in the lives of these characters during the scene rather than feeling like we had made logical leaps. When reviewing comedies I am often aware of the audience’s response to gauge the effectiveness of the gags, and the tone of laughter in HOME’s large and busy Cinema 1 was markedly different; rather than shared laughter, there were only isolated, forced affirmations that really struck me as ‘getting into the spirit of things’ rather than a spontaneous, natural reaction. Not that there were any more than just a handful of identifiable gags, or wit on offer. I am aware that black comedy and satire do not need broad strokes or overt comic punchlines to be effective, but the social commentary was hardly pointed either. The film lacks the technical or comedic sophistication of many of its contemporaries, whilst also lacking much by way of biting satire, that is until it’s final five minutes. As Jose Louis finds himself trapped, reluctantly having to carry out his new role, there is a static wide shot of a prison courtyard which expertly reverses the role of executioner and condemned prisoner. A moment of brilliant satire that says so much about the state and its complicit agents, one wonders why Berlango is not capable of more maturity and humanism in the rest of this film.
The Viva Festival runs until Saturday 13th April and features 28 different films, and I bet that I picked the only dud amongst them. I return on Thursday for another offering and have no doubt that it will be a good one.
Reviewer - Ben Hassouna-Smith
on - 26/3/19
No comments:
Post a Comment