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Spaces Between: Green’s Controlled, Heavily Stylized Metaphor

Eugène Green is an American born filmmaker who has been steadily making foreign films over the past decade or so, more often than not in French. With his fifth feature, La Sapienza (Italian for ‘the wisdom’), Green provides a playful experiment of heavily stylized tone, focusing intently on specific, purposeful compositions that lends the film a rather off-putting dramatic pallor, especially for those seeking to emotionally engage with the material. Even as it explores certain ideas pertaining to the relationships between people, their past and present, and the distance between time, memory, and themselves, the film’s rigid artificiality often works staunchly against its overall effectiveness.

Frustrated architect Alexandre (Fabrizio Rongione) decides to take his wife Alienor (Christelle Prot) on a trip with him to Italy where he plans to research 17th century architect Francesco Borromini. It’s apparent that their relationship has become a stagnant union,...

Style-Over-Substance in a Fancy Baroque Package

French “artiste” Eugène Green’s latest work is further evidence that his overriding career trajectory of indulgent reminiscence, has a deliberately staged, minimalist, ultimately alienating style that reflects only the most superficial aspects of the values and artistic sensibilities it emulates. La Sapienza is a testament to the male ego—a vanity piece—that idealizes the past and eschews the present to justify a projected ideology that purports the value of chasing dreams and attempting to recreate the past as a way of coping with the fear of death and ideas of legacy.

The premise is simple. Alexandre Schmid (Fabrizio Borromini), an aging architect aiding urban sprawl by designing box city housing complexes that serve commerce over culture, decides to embark on a research expedition to Tinico, Switzerland, the birthplace of Francesco Borromini, a renowned 17th Century architect. His quest, as defined by the...

La Sapienza Kino Lorber Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B+ Director: Eugène Green Screenwriter: Eugène Green Cast: Fabrizio Rongione, Christelle Prot, Ludovico Succio, Arianna Nastro, Hervé Compagne, Sabine Ponte Screened at: Dolby88, NYC, 3/11/15 Opens: March 20, 2015 In Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” George and Martha entertain a much younger couple, Nick and Honey. In discussing their merits and their appeal to women, George states “I have history on my side,” while Nick counters with “I have biology.” Reductive as this may be, a similar theme is on display in Eugène Green’s “La Sapienza,” or “Sapience.” Green, not well known [ Read More ]

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Opening Night – World Premiere

Gone Girl

David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m

David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...

The world-renowned vocalist and musician scores director Saverio Cotanzo's latest horror drama, and offers an update on his own ever-growing slate of projects

Though The Solitude of Prime Numbers is not readily available in the States, as it has not been released theatrically or on DVD, the soundtrack for both the movie, and the book upon which it is based, will be available in stores and for download starting today, Tuesday, November 1st. It may seem odd that the soundtrack to a film that isn't slated for a Us release would be something of interest, until you learn that it was scored by world renown musician and vocalist Mike Patton, who has decided to release the album as a stand-alone solo record; a companion piece to both the movie and Paolo Giordano's Italian novel upon which it is based.

This is Mike Patton's third time scoring a film project,...

Mike Patton, moved by the Paolo Giordano novel The Solitude of Prime Numbers and having contributed music to the movie of the same name, has created a 16-track release that boasts some of the most contemplative and stirring music of his multi-faceted career with Mike Patton describing the release as a personal "sonic departure." The album, titled Music From The Film and Inspired By the Book The Solitude of Prime Numbers (La Solitudine Dei Numeri Primi), has been set for a 11-1-11 release via Ipecac Recordings.

Where Mike Patton's projects (Fant&#244mas, Mondo Cane, Tomahawk) often thrive on abrupt transitions and multi-layered instrumentation, The Solitude of Prime Numbers collection boasts a cinematic feel that allows instruments an individual voice, emphasizes isolated notes and subtly transitions from piece to piece, acutely capturing the introspective and reflective feel of the novel. The album's intricate packaging further conveys this dramatic and minimalistic approach,...