Skip to main content

Freaks Out


When I read the blurb about Freaks Out in the Revelation Film Festival programme I earmarked it as the one to watch for this year. Usually, this kind of anticipation results in disappointment but it wasn't to be here. This is a blast. You might think a film with a bunch of circus freaks and Nazis (both with super-powers), as well as a gang of amputee partisans might be a bit ironic, with a nudge and a wink to the audience. But Freaks Out plays it very straight, very sincere, almost in the vein of a neo-realist war film. The gist is that four Italian circus performers, seemingly left in the lurch by their ringleader, decide to join the Zircus Berlin, which is headlined by the erratically psychotic Franz, (Franz Rogowski). Our special quad are Fulvio (Claudio Santamaria), a grumpy, super-strong Chewbacca who can bend metal; Cencio (Pietro Castellitto), a weedy insect overlord; Mario (Giancarlo Martini), a magnetic, masturbating dwarf; and the heart of the film, Matilde (Aurora Giovinazzo), a young orphan who can command electricity. 


The film starts by cleverly showing us each performer's act under a small big top on the outskirts of Rome, just before their workplace is demolished by (presumably) Allied bombs. As the troupe move towards the city, their kindly leader, Israel (Giorgio Tirabassi), convinces them to give him 300 Lira each so he can go into Rome to pay for their passage to the USA. When he doesn't return, Fulvio, Cencio and Mario, assuming he's done a runner with their dosh, head for the famous Nazi circus to find work. Matilde believes in Israel and suspects he's been snatched due to his Jewish heritage, so she goes her own way to look for him. There's a fantastic scene around this time where the crew stumble upon a round-up of Jews and the three guys are thrown into the trucks. It doesn't work out too well for the Germans and ultimately, this is a satisfyingly violent example of how their powers can be put to good use, but the scene also depicts the fucked up fervour of Italy's supposed ally. Can't hurt to be reminded.


It's an odd balancing act that second time director, Gabriele Mainetti pulls off here. There's the fantasy element, combined with some crude humour and ludicrous stunts (human cannonball, anyone?), sharing the screen with the horrors of WWII and Nazism, replete with torture, medical experimentation (à la Josef Mengele) and 'deportations'. Yet Mainetti and co-writer Nicola Guaglianone keep all the plates spinning just about right, with the only misstep perhaps the number of new characters introduced in the disabled partisan group. The cast are uniformly top-notch, even if Rogowski milks his six-fingered soothsayer role for all it's worth. Of course, the honkingly obvious symbolism of freaks representing the Jews (and other minorities) of Europe doesn't require much cognisance, and the tone of the film is slightly cloying but the audacity and style of the filmmakers help to make Freaks Out a gratifying watch.

[There's one more screening for Rev at the Luna on Fri July 15th at 8:50pm]

See also:

The first X-Men (2000), directed by Bryan Singer, is responsible for a lot of the themes in Freaks Out, and any chance to get a Marx Brothers film in, try At The Circus (1939), directed by Edward Buzzell.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nosferatu

The best looking film of the year, this has a gorgeous array of visuals that elicited a number of quiet 'wows' and intakes of breath from yours truly. Big praise to cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, production designer Craig Lathrop, art director Robert Cowper, set decorator Beatrice Brentnerova, and of course, director Robert Eggers for getting this crew together - he seems to use a lot of the same folk for his films, and fair enough, when this is the final product. Eggers has adapted the script from Henrik Galeen's original for F. W. Murnau's 1922 film, itself none too subtly ripped off from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula . This is Eggers' fourth feature after The Witch , The Lighthouse , and The Northman and while I haven't yet seen the first two, I didn't care much for The Northman , typically wondrous images aside. He flirts with the pomposity that affected his previous film but here it matches the gothic tones and source text, that is until Aaron Tayl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Best of 2024 - End of Year Report

Ho ho, yo yos. Here's my rundown of films in 2024. By my best count I saw 124 films last year, 115 of them new watches (though not necessarily made or released in 2024), and 61 of them at the cinema. Of those cinema trips, 28 were at Luna Leederville , 14 at Palace Raine Square and 10 at the Backlot Perth , with 6 other cinemas making up the numbers. So here are my 10 favourite films from 2024, with a top 5 pod down the bottom... [Click on the titles for links to full reviews] 10. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) George Miller's follow-up to Fury Road tells us the story of how Furiosa got to where that film started. I reckon this was the best blockbuster of the year, certainly the most entertaining, with one epic action sequence and a couple of fine performances from Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. Great fun. 9. The Taste of Things (2023) Don't go in hungry! This is a foodie's shan-grill-ah, the high culinary masterwork of the last decade or more. Juliette Binoch...
1 comment
Read more

Anora

Sean Baker has been making low budget, grungy-looking films for a while now, so it was probably a bit of a surprise when he won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Anora . The first third of this stripper/sex worker story pings along at a nice pace. It begins to go slightly baggy in the middle third but recomposes itself for the home straight. Mikey Madison plays Anora (or Ani), an erotic dancer in a club where it looks like the majority of the dosh comes from private lap-dances - she has issues with her boss not paying health insurance and holiday benefits. Madison is a natural in this medium (my notes for this say "Is she an actual stripper? Check.") One night, Ani is requested to translate and maybe dance for, a young Russian guy, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), who immediately takes a shine to her and invites her to come to his place the next day. Ani realises she's hit pay dirt when she arrives at his mansion, and his goofy, sweet nature endears him to her even more. Post-sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Audrey

This Perth Fest entry is a very black comedy with a large splosh of Muriel's Wedding about it. Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie Van Beek) has high hopes for her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) to succeed as an actress. Ronnie had some of her own fame years before in Australian TV and is now stage-mothering Audrey to within an inch of her life. But Audrey is a proper arsehole to everyone, including her sister with cerebral palsy, Norah (Hannah Diviney), and her romantically conflicted father, Cormack (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), so when Audrey's melodramatic antics see her slide off the roof of the house and into a coma, the family have mixed feelings about the situation. Ronnie incongruously decides to pose as Audrey in order to be accepted onto the acting course she had her signed up for. Nobody seems to notice, Norah begins to be more accepted by Audrey's friends (and boyfriend), and Cormack turns his meekness around, reinvigorating his sex life with Ronnie. The family feel guilty...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Monk and the Gun

This Bhutanese comedy drama is part of the Perth Festival and it follows the country's attempts to move from a monarchy to a democracy in 2006. In the small town of Ura, a novice monk, Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk) is tasked with finding two guns for his Lama, played by real life monk Kelsang Choejay. He's not told why but he gets on with the job. At the same time, a 'fixer/tour guide' from Thimphu, Benji (Tandim Sonam) gets a gig driving a newly arrived American, Ronald (Harry Einhorn) around the country in search of a particularly valuable US Civil War rifle. You might be able to see where this is going... This is satire in deep cover. It might even be satire adjacent, such is its mildness. This is not a bad thing. At times I felt like I was experiencing an old Ealing comedy, or maybe a low-key Ken Loach. The government sends officers around the country to run a mock election to show people how to vote, and one of them, Tshering Yangden (Pema Zangmo Sherpa) wanders through...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wolves Always Come at Night

My first taste of the Perth Festival schedule for the coming season was a 'hybrid' film called The Wolves Always Come at Night , directed by Gabrielle Brady. The term 'hybrid' really just seems to mean tweaking the traditional methods of documentary production, in this case, adding some clearly set-up shots and situations, but also, calling on the subjects to help in the writing process. This film is about a family of goat farmers in Mongolia whose difficult existence is made even harder by an unforeseen event that forces them to relocate to the city. The family are led by mother, Zaya Dashzeveg and father, Davaa Dagvasuren, and Brady made the film with their input in mind. She says; Our intention was that Davaa and Zaya have agency within the making of their own story. So, in working together as co-writers, we were able to shape the story together. They would share ideas for what could be filmed and I would translate this into the cinematic language for the film. It...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Cat Anzu (Me & Kid)

Here's a nice surprise. I find Japanese anime to be hit and miss, and the first look at this boof-headed feline didn't promise too much, but Ghost Cat Anzu knocked the bails off. It riffs on the Ghibli theme of children being forced to grow up quicker than they should, with 11 year-old Karin (Noa Gotô) as our focus. Her dad's a bit of a scally and he does a runner while visiting his father at his temple home in a sleepy town, leaving Karin alone with kindly grandad and huge, anthropomorphic cat, Anzu, voiced by Mirai Moriyama. Karin wanders the town, waiting for dad to return and meeting various locals, while being casually monitored by Anzu. The pace is a little pedestrian but the shenanigans make up for this. Anzu is pulled over by the police and told he needs a license to ride a scooter, though he protests that he's not actually a human, so surely these rules don't apply. He works as a masseur but also takes a gig to scare birds away from the river, roping Karin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bird

This is such a fine film and going in blind might just be the best way to see it. It's not that it's a twisty, spoilery mystery, just that sometimes knowing nowt about a film is the best way to appreciate it. Zero expectations and all. So if you want the same groundwork that I had, read no more. . . . . Ok. If you're still reading, let's kick off. This is Andrea Arnold's sixth feature and I really have to see more of her work. It's set in the Kent town of Gravesend, and boy, is that a suitable name for this place. Not far from London, on the river Thames, seems like it's wall to wall chavs out there.  Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and half-brother, Hunter (Jason Buda) in a graffiti covered squat. Pissed off that Bug wants to get married to newish girlfriend, Kayleigh (Frankie Box), Bailey rebels and follows her brother and his mates on a small-time vigilante mission. Things get messy, she does a runner and ends up sleeping in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merchant Ivory

Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically.  The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...
Post a Comment
Read more

Emilia Pérez

Jacques Audiard makes a feature film roughly every three or four years, and at the age of 72, at this rate, he may not have too many left. For me, this is one of the tragedies of modern cinema. This bloke can do almost no wrong (his first film, See How They Fall was his only misstep). So here he is with his tenth (!) feature, Emilia Pérez . It's a pretty bonkers story about a Mexican drug cartel boss who hires a young, marginalised lawyer to help him transition to a woman.  The film tackles some important themes - the transitioning element, but also racism and the disappeared population of Mexico. The twist is that it's all performed as a musical, and the balance between fantastic and ludicrous is stretched throughout. Most musicals live or die by the music and luckily, there are some great numbers in this (one of them, El Mal , just took out best song at the Golden Globbies). On the other end of the scale is a song about the details of transition surgery, where a doctor warbl...
Post a Comment
Read more