Abel Ferrara

New Directors/New Films Review: ARÁBIA

Jon Hogan
Arábia

Arábia. 2017. Brazil. Directed by Affonso Uchôa and João Dumans. Courtesy of Katasia Films.

The city of Ouro Preto is an historic site known throughout Brazil for its decadence. A gold boom in the 18th century bolstered its initial growth, which led to several famously ornate churches dotting the horizon. During my year on a Fulbright Fellowship in the country, many Brazilian Millennials fondly remembered the city as the site for class trips admiring gilded Baroque architecture. João Dumans and Affonso Uchoa’s “Arábia” steers the Ouro Preto narrative away from the city’s opulence, drawing to the forefront the tough lives of laborers in the state of Minas Gerais.

Dumans and Uchoa begin their film with teenaged Andre’s struggles caring for a sick brother in place of absentee parents. Early in the film, he discovers the journal of laborer Cristiano. When Andre opens the book and the title card appears 20 minutes into the film, we start following Cristiano as he bounces from job to job. The framing device is largely unnecessary; we could have gained just as much insight on Cristiano’s experiences in the working class from his narration without ever introducing the Andre character. Considering the fact that Andre’s one reappearance after the narrative device begins is fleeting, basing the film in Andre’s discovery distracts the viewer more than it gives the viewer a point of entry to Cristiano’s life. Read more →

NYFF52: Due Maestri Italiani

Herbert Gambill

NYFFFilmwax Radio blogger Herbert Gambill’s 3rd dispatch from the New York Film Festival press & industry screenings. The Festival runs from Friday, September 26th through Sunday, October 12th.

The plot of Eugène Green’s “La Sapienza” brings to mind Rossellini’s “Voyage to Italy.” In that 1954 film an estranged couple’s visit to Pompeii provided something of a rekindling of their love. In Green’s film a successful middle-aged French architect, Alexandre (played by Fabrizio Rongione, who also stars in the Dardenne brothers’ “Two Days, One Night,” another film in this year’s NYFF main slate), depressed by changes ordered by a client, travels with his wife Alienor (Christelle Prot Landman) to view the works of one of his heroes, the Roman Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. The couple, whose relationship has been running cold for many years, first visits Borromini’s birthplace, Ticino, in the Italian-speaking southern part of Switzerland, by Lake Maggiore, where they meet two teenage siblings who make a huge impression on them. Goffredo (Ludovico Succio) wants to study architecture himself; his sister Lavinia (Arianna Nastro) suffers from dizzy spells perhaps induced by her fear of being separated from her brother. Though Alexandre gives Goffredo a chilly initial reception, his wife talks him into proceeding to Rome with him, leaving her to tend to an ailing Lavinia. Read more →