Two approaches to reality

Without bothering the tutelary deities of cinema (Lumière invents the photographic reproduction of reality, Méliès uses it to create fantastic scenarios), cinema has always navigated a dichotomy between analysis and criticism of the world and its spectacular overcoming in an attempt to create a third synthesis, as in the case of the recent second episode of the DUNE saga where, behind the science fiction genre, an analysis of the contemporary world already present in Frank Herbert's book shines through.

In the next few weeks, two examples will arrive in theaters which are very different in style and approach, but which in some ways describe and anticipate our world in recent years.
«In an America on the brink of collapse, through desolate lands and cities destroyed by the explosion of a civil war, a group of reporters embarks on a journey in extreme conditions, risking their lives to tell the truth»: this is the synopsis of CIVIL WAR by Alex Garland, a (hopefully) dystopian film that imagines the USA torn apart by futuristic fratricidal tensions. At the moment these are still contained in a civil dialectic (such as that linked to tensions on the issue of immigration on the border between Texas and Mexico), but which, in a presidential election year, can emerge dramatically. A film that already before its release on the screens alarmed American public opinion, confirming its uncomfortable relevance.

Of a different style compared to Garland's film, the latest work by one of the historic French directors Robert Guediguian, AND THE PARTY GOES ON. The director is a "brother in art" by Ken Loach, two directors with a "great future behind them" and who have always been involved in work on the side of the least and the marginalized. The plot of the film is inspired by real events, reworked according to the director's personal gaze: the collapse of two buildings in his city, Marseille, which caused the death of eight people in 2018, and the choice of the activist Michèle Rubirola, elected mayor of Marseille in July 2020. From this starting point Guediguian starts to fictionalize a story that reported an attempt at bottom-up participatory democracy in one of the most populous French cities. The protagonist actress of the film Ariane Ascaride summarizes it well: this film «is also a passing of the baton for the new generations. There are many young people today who dedicate themselves with great passion to causes, such as that for the environment. Today maintaining hope is essential. The impression is that the world is sinking into terrible abysses. This is why it is important to show those people who are never talked about, who act together, to improve this reality".


Davide Bracco
NP April 2024