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The Embalmer |
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9:45 pm
Jackie Gleason Theater
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Directed by Matteo Garrone |
No movie in this year's festival quite rivals The Embalmer for sheer dream-like intensity. A vision of the psychological extremes that unrequited erotic obsessions can create, The Embalmer" has a deceptively placid surface.
Peppino, a dwarfish, homely-looking taxidermist with horrible teeth, takes an interest in Valerio, a gorgeous young man who is biding his time unproductively as a waiter. Peppino takes Valerio on as assistant, even though he can't really afford it, and Valerio is overwhelmed with gratitude for the mentorship. But Peppino's attitude soon begins to take on uncomfortably sexual possessive overtones, that everyone except Valerio sees - at first.
The Embalmer, which premiered in the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Director's Fortnight series last year, has an opaque atmosphere of unease. Like "The Vanishing", much of it is shot in cheerful, sunny daylight, and there is plenty of light-hearted humor. Like "Monsieur Hire", you can't be sure if what seems creepy is your own prejudice or a genuine malice. Director Matteo Garrone builds the erotic tension to an almost unbearable intensity by suppressing all sexual expression between the two men for nearly the entire length of the film.
This is an audacious film that plays with perception and memory; we can never be sure if what we are seeing is really happening, or occurring only in Peppino's twisted fantasies, or in Valerio's bewildered daydreams. Reality and fantasy blur. The feverish, spellbinding The Embalmer pushes the very concept of "gay film" to the edge. In Italian with English subtitles.
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