Joel ed Ethan Coen
Ave, Cesare!

Not bad the new film by the Coen brothers, but all things considered nothing exceptional, especially when compared to the average level of their works. It certainly contains an interesting message about the film industry/art, but I found its narrative pieces not very engaging. The portrait of Hollywood that emerges is detailed, full of polemical insights, with some ironic edge but also a few nostalgic touches. However, the stories that are told to allow the overall vision to emerge are really quite insignificant: not very interesting, not very entertaining, almost sketches just barely outlined, only functional to highlight this or that aspect of the film industry in its golden age. The characters, with the exception of Mannix, are real comedy masks. Well-characterized, vivid, but after the first 5 minutes progressively less interesting.

The aesthetic effort is remarkable, no doubt: the reconstruction of the 1950s cinematic style is very good and forms a separate section of the film, the one in which we see clips of various films, finished or still in progress. A secondary diegetic component that can be fascinating, but does not develop a particularly rich discourse. Indeed, it almost touches on exhibitionism of culture and mimetic technique. Of course, there is irony; reading these long parts as a caustic homage to that Hollywood is probably the only feasible approach, but frankly the quantity of clips of this type suggests more a near-fetishistic taste than a dry discourse of homage and critique. Or rather: the initial critical spark is somewhat lost in the taste for deformed citationism.

The message is there and it is clear; the execution is a bit sprawling. The events of the various characters are quite thin, and so the Coens have to fill the film with many embellishments. Almost every filmmaker in the world would want to be able to make embellishments of this quality. The writing is, as always, happy and witty: it gives its best when it bends to bizarre stories like that of the communist screenwriters. So the Coens confirm themselves as first-rate authors and directors, but if the subject itself is good and the ultimate message also, what seems most lacking is the structure of the narrative. So much so that in some parts the directors attempt to hide the lack of flavor of the plots with alternating and frenetic editing.

The critique of this Hollywood industrial system works because it doesn't represent a condemnation: if on one hand it can lead to bizarre outcomes like the cowboy in a dramatic film, on the other hand, it still serves to complete many films that make ordinary people, those living detestable lives, dream. The role of Mannix, like that of his peers, is an essential contribution to humanity. This dichotomy is the best thing about the film, which proves conceptually important for the Coens, but formally remains a decidedly minor work.