Highlights of the Rome Film Festival: From Eric Cantona to Indian Music Madness

The 10th edition of the Rome International Film Festival concluded on Saturday, October 24, aiming to compete with the oldest film festival in the world, Venice, but now it seeks to remain a cinematic "celebration" without competition in the beautiful and historic city of Rome, often referred to as the city of cinema. A new film from French cinema titled "Kings of the World" by Laurent Lafargue attempts to attract viewers by showcasing a different side of Eric Cantona (a footballer who has acted in many films). The film tells the story of a man's mad love for a girl named Chantal, played by Cantona, in a village in France, which ultimately leads to tragedy. The film has an engaging start but quickly descends into horrific and shocking violence that seems unnecessary. To understand the abnormal state of the character Janou, there is no need to display violence in such detail, while Chantal's character as a theater director is not convincingly portrayed: a young and beautiful girl who falls in love with two rough and coarse men (one a drunkard who ends up in prison due to violence and the other a butcher who resembles the drunkard and displays layers of the same violence in his behavior), and we see no clear reason for all these emotions. As a result, despite good performances, the film fails to connect with the audience. "Eva Doesn’t Sleep" by Pablo Aguero from Argentina narrates the story of the corpse of Eva Perón, known as Evita, a beloved president of Argentina, which subsequent leaders bizarrely try to hide so that her tomb does not become a symbol of struggle. After Alan Parker's film featuring Madonna as Evita, more people became familiar with this fighting woman, and a broader myth around her was formed. However, this small Argentine film attempts to narrate a different atmosphere that forms alongside her corpse. Although the film insists on introducing the main character, who is no longer among us, through news documentaries in the middle of the film, it ultimately presents several somewhat unrelated scenes from different years without being able to escape the pit of slogans. The most captivating part of the film is when a colonel and a young soldier are transporting the corpse to an unknown location. Beautiful and calculated images add to the appeal of some sequences, but the lack of a coherent structure throughout the film fundamentally undermines it. Among the wonders of the world, perhaps a Chinese musical film is also trying to find its way into global festivals and markets: "Office" by Johnny To. The film attempts to defamiliarize typical clichés: a young girl and boy are hired in the office of a very large commercial company, and it soon becomes clear that the girl is the daughter of the CEO of this company, working without revealing her identity. From the beginning, it can be inferred that a romance will develop between this ordinary employee and the CEO's daughter, but the film uses the story merely as an excuse for carefully crafted images and a satirical expression influenced by the musicals of the 1940s and 50s in Hollywood, and in fact, the film aims to pay homage to and recreate that fantasy world. As a result, the clichéd nature of the story and characters does not detract from the film, and we are faced with an entertaining film that is enjoyable and even awakens nostalgia in viewers about films that were attractive and promised a more colorful and beautiful world. Paul Thomas Anderson, the acclaimed creator of films like Magnolia, has this time made a compact and small documentary about an Indian music group called Madness. His small camera is not even bound by the composition of scenes and the creation of beautiful shots; instead, we encounter an improvised film that tries to capture a group playing in the style of Qawwali and shares them with the audience without any specific order. Although at first glance the film may seem very straightforward, the appeal of the music that is central to the film—where everything is sacrificed for it—strangely engages the viewer and provides enjoyment.