Tag: South Tyrol

Other Cannibals (Altri Cannibali)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

The gorgeous north Italian province of South Tirol is turned into a nefarious, ominous place in Other Cannibals, a black comedy that uses its strange premise to force an unusual sense of empathy from its characters. Genuinely unpredictable with a great sense of spontaneity and unforced performances, it keeps you guessing right until the final, deliciously absurd finale.

Other Cannibals starts in a factory, close-ups of machines — coupled with the name of the film itself — suggesting we are in for a straight-up horror experience, the first of many bait-and-switches throughout its runtime. Fausto (Walter Giroldini) finishes his shift then stops by his mother’s house, asking for the keys to his late father’s house. Then he drives to the train station and picks up the mysterious Ivan (Diego Pagotto). At first it looks like a hookup. Or perhaps Ivan wants to rent a room. It’s only when he makes a reference to tranquillisers and sleeping pills that we realise something strange is going to happen.

I refuse to ruin anymore of the plot, because this is one of those movies where you want to experience what’s happening along with the characters. Scenes stretch out beyond the bounds of conventional wisdom, often caught in long takes while using a Dogme-style approach to editing, keeping us in the dark as to what could happen next. The black-and-white photography seems to be more of a ploy to keep the film simple rather than a fully thought-through stylistic choice. And while it’s a bit of a shame not to see the Dolomites in their full glory, it does help to stress the film’s unadorned approach.

As the title suggests, Fausto wants to do something really odd, but along the way we discover that he cannot truly commit to anything in his life. When asked about his factory job, he says that it’s temporary, despite working there since 1998. He has been paying off his car loan forever. There are no women in sight. You start rooting for him without even knowing what he might do next. It’s the magic of cinema that we can feel for people with such perversions. In one brilliant moment, Fausto describes the elation he felt when Italy won the 1982 world cup, besting Maradona’s Argentina, the greatest ever Brazil team and even the Germans. Almost every man has a story like this, making Fausto just like us. Right?

There is a touch of Ben Wheatley here, both in the handheld camerawork and the adherence to naturalism while something more sinister is lurking beneath the surface. The landscape plays a strange role, showing off the unique nature of South Tirol, mixing Austrian and Italian cultures while maintaining a strong independent streak and individual customs. It feels like a landscape stuck in time, especially when the local men, wearing their funny hats with feathers in them, sing a gorgeous multi-harmony ode to mountain life. It’s a beautiful moment in a bizarre film, which blends disparate tones and moods with ease. Never has cannibalism seemed so endearing.

Other Cannibals plays in the First Feature section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 12-28th November.

Why Not You (Hochwald)

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

The village of Hochwald is high up in the alps, only accessible by cable car or long, winding car journeys. In a German-speaking and conservative part of South Tyrol, this is a place firmly stuck in its ways. It’s definitely not a great place to be gay. For Mario (Thomas Prenn), who dreams of being a dancer on the television channel Rai 1, the atmosphere in the village — filled with lederhosen and oompah music — stifles his ambition.

It doesn’t help that his best friend Lenz (Noah Saavedra) is more interesting, more handsome, more intelligent and more liked than Mario. Much to Mario’s sadness, he is heading off to Rome, where he has been offered a scholarship. But Mario also sees this as an opportunity: perhaps he can also follow Lenz — with whom he shares a certain sexual tension — and finally realise his dream…

Not in Why Not You. It takes a severely dramatic left-field turn when the two men meet up in a gay club. Inspired by the Bataclan attacks, they are crashed and shot at by a group of fundamental Islamic terrorists. This introduces a third culture clash — not only Italian style versus Austrian conservatism, but both of those things combined against pure terrorist homophobia. Lenz is killed, leaving Mario alone to pick up the pieces and make sense of his life.

Post-traumatic stress disorder manifests itself in a variety of messy ways. It’s up to the creators of a film to try and corral those contradictory feelings into riveting drama. But here, Mario is more or less the same both before and after the accident, making him somewhat of a flat character. His random changes in behaviour, dress and temperament seem to be ways to make the film interesting and create a sense of contrast with his surrounding world, yet they never really manages to get us inside Mario’s head and sympathise with his plight.

The film is about so many different things — class, race, religion, drug addiction and sexual orientation. In trying to combine them all together, it ends up saying little of interest about any of these key conflicts. It’s a shame because there is so much potential in some of these intersecting ideas — especially when Mario takes a sudden interest in the lessons of Islam — but they aren’t picked up and developed in any meaningful way. While its heart seems to be in the right place, especially in its condemnation of hatred, and its nuanced portrayal of Islam, the sheer amount of different conflicts makes the film difficult to get into.

A large part of Why Not You’s ambition rests upon the shoulders of Thomas Prenn, a young actor who doesn’t seem to have the immense range that such a complicated and nuanced role needs. Even if a character’s actions don’t make sense, we at least need them to have a believable screen presence. Mario — who isn’t even a good dancer — never quite pops off the screen; giving this Alpine drama far more valleys than peaks.

Why Not You plays out of competition at the first feature strand of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.