Many genres in a single film: This is how “The Mysteries of the Bar Étoile” can be summed up, a curious film that is being shown in our cinemas this week.
The first sequence is enough to illustrate the numerous stylistic changes in this feature film: On a rainy night, the former activist Boris works as a bartender The shooting star when one of his victims shows up at the club seeking revenge. His plan doesn’t end well, but Boris has to understand how he can save himself from the next attacks. The appearance of a doppelganger, the depressed and lonely Dom, seems to provide the bartender, his brilliant companion Kayoko and her loyal friend Tim with a perfect escape plan. However, they didn’t expect the intrusion of Dom’s ex-wife, a suspicious and downright bizarre detective.
Chosen as the opening title of the Locarno Film Festival, “The Secrets of the Étoile Bar” is framed by the typical tones of noir, but in between comic passages alternate with tragic and surreal ones. Behind the camera are Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, directors and actors who use their real names for the characters they play, returned behind the camera seven years after Barefoot Paris. Undoubtedly, “The Mysteries of Bar Étoile” is a special audiovisual experience. Victim of ups and downs, but still able to arouse interest due to its truly unconventional structure.
References to silent films
The special features of the film also include numerous gags that refer directly to cinema: the game of mix-ups leads to a number of references to the cinema of the past, starting with the famous “Fake Mirror” sequence by the great Max Linder in 1921 in “ Seven Years of Trouble” and then taken up by Groucho Marx in “Blitzkrieg of the Marx Brothers” in 1933. There’s no shortage of surprising moments, especially as the conclusion approaches, but there are just as many predictable passages that make you know too much of what you’ve already seen, ultimately limiting effective engagement. Although the aforementioned “Barefoot Paris” had a lighter and more carefree basis, in this case too the two authors do not forego humor, coupled with a bitterness and melancholy that, despite the shortcomings, manage to convey to the audience an overall fascinating atmosphere Absolutely positive mention goes to the excellent soundtrack, which is full of music that allows viewers to better empathize with the surreal story being told.
Gloria!
The new releases of the week also include “Gloria!”, the debut work by Margherita Vicario, a singer-songwriter and actress who has decided to take the plunge and position herself behind the camera, presented in the Berlin Film competition Festival, “Gloria!” is set in a girls’ boarding school in Venice in the early 19th century. A lonely, seemingly mute girl named Teresa lives here and is endowed with an extraordinary musical talent that no one knows about. The young woman even manages to perceive the harmony of the universe through music, as the remarkable opening sequence shows. While everyone at the Institute is busy with the upcoming visit of the new Pope, who has just been elected. While trying to create a new composition for the Pope, Teresa discovers a new invention, a piano, in a secret room. As she begins to practice in secret, four girls from the boarding school join her to form a kind of musical group, enthusiastic about deeply modern tones and moving away from the old ideas present in the place where they live to find oneself.
“Gloria!” is dedicated to the many female composers who have disappeared from the pages of history. It is a film that focuses on the story of “sisterhood” and shows the support that the girls give each other, and in particular the help given to one of the group who will go through a moment of great difficulty, and full of interesting psychological nuances , the film unfortunately falls sharply in the distance and ends with shortness of breath and a final sequence that is not on the level of the very good things seen before. The elegant staging and photography are striking for their extremely suggestive chiaroscuro effects, but give hope for the future of a debutant who, although still a little immature, is already capable of good talent and remarkable aesthetic sensitivity to show.
