•
Rating:
There are films so radical and extreme that expressing a judgment on their aesthetic value necessarily implies a preliminary clarification of one’s theoretical positions and requires delving deeply into the thicket of reflection on the general status of art. However, not having the presumption to resolve issues of irreducible complexity, the subject of mental contortions for centuries, if not millennia of philosophical thought, I will simply limit myself to highlighting their cardinal importance, especially if the work in question is as uncompromising as Amer, the first feature film by the Franco-Belgian duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani.
The film deals with the theme of the emotional and psychosexual maturation of a young woman, dividing the narrative of the respective stages of the protagonist's growth into three distinct and separate sections with wide ellipses. In the first part of the film, we are introduced in medias res to a child disturbed yet simultaneously attracted by the first manifestations of the deep impulses of her Id, which externalize themselves through the recurring use of a symbolism constantly suspended between eros and thanatos, in one of the most effective representations ever seen in cinema of the anxieties and monsters that inhabit childhood (already characterized in the Freudian sense by an immature but overwhelming libido). The second act, however, centers on adolescence, where the protagonist becomes self-aware and starts directing her attention to the opposite sex, but without alleviating her turmoil, which is consistently fueled by the superegoic reproaches from her mother. Finally, the third and last section shows us a mature but evidently frustrated woman, ready to be captured by unrestrained erotic fantasies and who seems not to have overcome her preadolescent complexes at all: the ending will clearly showcase her psychological instability and disturbed personality without leaving room for any doubt.
These, therefore, are the subjects touched upon by the film, but in Amer, what truly matters, in the final analysis, is not so much the what, but the how. Despite the strong and impactful themes, what inevitably imposes itself on the viewer's attention, even the least keen observer, is the purely stylistic-formal level of the film, its macroscopic and aggressive language, the only aspect that seems to really matter to the two young directors. And here we come to the issue mentioned earlier: how to judge a work of art where form and content present themselves in absolutely unbalanced proportions, where the power of the signifier does not match an equally powerful signified? Because the incisiveness and stylistic depth of Amer seem beyond doubt to me, it is more about the meaning contained in such formal perfection that I have some reservations.
Let it be clear that I am not accusing the film of presenting itself as an exercise in style for its own sake, pure exteriority devoid of any meaningful intent or capacity: on the contrary, Amer makes substantial and not at all decorative use of the formal plane, style is conceived and treated as a structure infused with meaning, a necessary semantic function, and not as a mere superficial ornament. Every technical and directorial choice made by Cattet and Forzani is motivated and subordinate to a precise will of meaning: photography, frame composition, editing, soundtrack cooperate perfectly in delineating the protagonist Ana's anguished eroticized phobias and repressed morbid desires, serving as a mirror and objectification of the emotional storms that shake her deepest psychic recesses. What seems to be lacking in Amer is precisely the content to which this meticulously and surprisingly semantic formal structure refers, as if the effort to functionally justify such a number of exquisite and ingenious stylistic choices actually clings to a vacuous and shallow matter, which certainly cannot withstand the comparison with the way it is shaped and served. In other words, the film's form continually points to a substance, and it does so in the smartest way possible, but that substance ultimately reveals itself as thin and simplistic.
Having said that, the most fruitful dialogue a viewer can have with such a film will therefore be of a predominantly aesthetic and visual nature, not interpretative. Amer should be treated for what it is, which is primarily an experimental exploration of the language of images and a brilliant exploration of the yet-to-be-investigated potentialities of the cinematic medium. It should be considered akin to a symphony by Viking Eggeling or Walter Ruttmann, a Entr'acte 2.0 in psychedelic and dreamy sauce, without trying too hard to question its psychosexual sense, which is fundamental as it permeates everything concerning the film's form, but risks disappointing expectations if taken individually.
At this point, it is necessary to describe the aesthetic horizon into which Cattet and Forzani's debut film daringly inserts itself. The operation conducted by the two directors aims at nothing less than the harmonious hybridization of two contiguous and congruent aesthetics, yet separated by a deep diastratic divide: that of the Italian giallo of the 70s, a popular genre par excellence, and that of the far more elitist and avant-garde surrealist cinema, with all its offshoots. From the split screen of the opening credits, resonating with enigmatic notes retrieved from a Bruno Nicolai soundtrack, Amer exhibits a systematic postmodern reuse of the distinctive stylistic features of 1970s Italian genre cinema (sweeping panoramas, abrupt zooms, extreme close-ups), along with precise references on the soundtrack (Morricone, Cipriani, Nicolai) and, especially in the concluding section, the faithful representation of the established topoi of Argento's giallo (the mysterious killer whose only visible parts are leather-gloved hands, the decaying villa hiding unspeakable childhood repressions behind its wallpaper, the key role of paintings, statues, and dolls), with particular reference to Profondo Rosso.
But Argento and Bava also constitute the trait d'union that allows the film to blend this nostalgic recovery of giallo with a typically surrealist sensitivity, a perfect aesthetic reflection of the Freudian themes addressed by the work. From this point of view, the film's unsurpassed peak is the first half-hour: a hallucinatory and traumatic journey into the restless psyche of a child haunted by inner monsters and primal fears, unfolding through visionary dreamlike imagery leading to moments of pure mental extrusion. Here the photography is tinged with primary and secondary colors, directly referencing the neon monochromes of Suspiria and I Tre Volti della Paura, juxtaposing flaming reds and electric blues, Raul Ruiz-style purples, and acidic greens in combinations that are a continuous delight for the retina. In this first part, controlled camera movements and drifting subjective shots dominate, reproducing the intrusive glances that the protagonist Ana feels spying on her intimacy. The main iconographic reference, in my opinion, should also be sought in Maya Deren's surrealist masterpiece from the 40s, Meshes of the Afternoon, presenting a similar oppressive use of spatiality (spiral staircases, closed doors, cramped rooms) and similar symbolic elements (arms descending from above, emblematic objects like the pendant and grains of salt here, and above all, an unsettling and elusive black-clad figure roaming from room to room).
Ana's adolescence is introduced by a preamble in which the girl's anguished psychophysical transformation corresponds to a deformation of image and sound. Right afterward, the memorable ant sequence paves the way for the pan-eroticism that will characterize the rest of the film: directors become even more discontinuous and fragmented, close-ups give way to shots detailed enough to fracture the image into a mosaic of anatomical tiles, bordering on abstraction, while the sound is saturated with sighs and panting breaths. The result is a representation imbued with deep and voracious sensuality, yet at the same time, it communicates a sense of oppressive claustrophobia, preventing the viewer from gaining access to the depicted world and keeping them within a few microns of the sweaty skin of the characters. Exemplary are the sequences of the gaze game in the shop and the chase after the ball, where the detail becomes moreover moving, overexposed, and out of focus, and the tight cross-editing, accompanied by the intertwining of labored breaths, unmistakably mimics a carnal relationship (the same goes for the encounter with the bikers and the taxi ride). But the editing assumes a fundamental sense-making function throughout the film, playing with directional matches to clash opposing elements or, on the contrary, confusing and amalgamating them with epileptic alternations, repeating the action multiple times to emphasize its meaning or, conversely, omitting key gestures but intuitive from the dialogue of the remaining shots.
In the film's finale, the protagonist's return to her childhood home coincides with the definitive awakening of all her repressed libido, once again objectifying itself in a mysterious persecutory threat that both frightens and morbidly attracts her. The unresolved eros and thanatos harbored since childhood violently reemerge, along with the water-related symbolism, a metaphor for libidinal energy, punctuating the film and appearing for the first time precisely in conjunction with the chromatic upheaval following the discovery of eros. The outcome will feature a crude, self-destructive grandguignol in a captivating night sequence that will not hesitate to repeatedly cite the surrealist manifesto Un Chien Andalou by Buñuel and Dalí, replacing the eye slit with the metaphorical one of a mouth with voluptuously clenched teeth. Voluptuousness that will not be quelled in the protagonist even post mortem.
In summary, Amer is a unique and inimitable aesthetic experience in which the experimentalism of form does not overpower but rather invigorates the content, and while the latter cannot be said to be well-developed, also due to the almost total absence of dialogues and the extreme brevity of the fabula encompassed by the narrative, a direction that never ceases to amaze with inventive originality and meaningfulness abundantly makes up for this inherent lack.
8
Loading comments slowly
