Reality (Garrone, 2012): Italy | France

Reviewed by Samuel Ek. Viewed on November 4th at AFI Filmfest

 

Reality is an Italian drama by Matteo Garrone who previously directed the masterpiece Gomorrah. In Reality he used much of the same crew as he did in Gomorrah but unfortunately Reality doesn’t come close to the same standard as Gomorrah. It felt as if the movie tried to hard to be deep and emotional, but in the end it had the same emotional depth equivalent of a Taylor Swift song.  I watched this movie at the AFI film festival in LA and they told us an interesting fact before the screening. They said that the main actor was supposed to be in prison but was released for the duration of the shooting in order to play the role. when they told us this I kept unconsciously thinking that he was a criminal in the movie as well which resulted in me having a skewed perception of the characters relationship in the movie. Despite this I felt that the movie was way too long and the story would have made a much better short film since the idea of the movie was easy to grasp and it shouldn’t have to take two hours to explain it. Make the movie drag on forever only put the viewers to sleep.

The story is about a struggling middle class Italian man named Luciano who his entire life has been some what of a showman and his friends perception of him is that he’s a really funny guy so he decides to try out for the Italian version of Big Brother. He’s absolutely sure that he’s going to be accepted so everything around him becomes of lesser importance. As time goes by and the premier of the show is drawing closer he gets more and more paranoid and believe the production company is following him. At some points it feel like they are mocking the Italians by portraying a skewed stereotype Italian society with big families talking fast and always arguing.

I’ve always been a fan of film grain because I feel it adds a beautiful look of texture. But this movie was suffering from way to much film grain and overall strange camera work. The cinematography isn’t by any means bad it’s just that it feels as if the main character Luciano is trying too hard and it creates an awkward sensation when watching the movie. In addition to the camera work I have to say that there were some really great shots, there was a long tracking shot taking place after Luciano has sold his fish mongering business that is just gorgeous.

On the other hand what Garrone manages to do in this movie is to be one of the first directors to really show how massive power the media has over todays society and it’s citizen with Big Brother and other shows. But despite that fact I still consider this a weak movie and would not recommend it.

 


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