Weekend films

"Joker: folie à deux", Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga dance in a swinging sequel

The highly anticipated sequel to the 2019 blockbuster arrives in Italian cinemas. Also among the novelties is 'Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries'.

4 October 2024

3' min read

It had stunned (almost) everyone "Joker", the 2019 film with which director Todd Phillips completely abandoned the comedy tones of his most famous works - from "Starsky & Hutch" to the "The Hangover" trilogy - to plunge into a dark and disturbing origin-story with Batman's historical enemy at its centre.

In addition to its excellent technical and narrative performance, 'The Joker' received an extraordinary reception at the box office (it topped $1 billion in total takings) and an equally incredible run at the awards: after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, it went on to win two Golden Globes and two Oscars, also becoming the first film based on a DC Comics character to compete for the Best Picture statuette at the Academy Awards.

Simply impressive numbers that would have been almost impossible to bet on before the presentation in Venice. For all these reasons, expectations for the sequel, the absolute star of the weekend in theatres, could only be sky-high.

The plot naturally follows the events of the first chapter: after terrorising Gotham, Arthur Fleck, known as the Joker, is imprisoned in Arkham following his arrest. One of his jailers takes him to join a choir where he meets a girl who could change his life by making him feel loved at last.

It is a feature film that plays with duplicity, 'Joker: folie à deux', a film that thrives on the same bipolarity as its protagonist, where romanticism mixes with brutality, musicals and social drama go hand in hand, with references ranging from the past to contemporary America today.

If the previous 'Joker' looked at Martin Scorsese's cinema explicitly (from 'Taxi Driver' to 'King for a Night'), the references here are to the musical cinema of the 1950s and there are numerous sung moments within the narrative.

“Joker: folie à deux” e gli altri film della settimana
Photogallery4 foto

Good premises not entirely fulfilled

Given the references to the history of cinema and the courage, however, shown in not slavishly following the structure and tone of its predecessor, 'Joker: folie à deux' starts off on an excellent premise, succeeding in creating an unconventional structure that leaves interesting food for thought.

It is a pity, then, that this feature film turns out to be rather sluggish, especially in a central part that struggles to get going, ending up being tiring and redundant.

The pace is not up to the mark and the film has continual moments of fatigue, both in various musical numbers and in introspective and psychological sequences that fail to engage as they should.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga do their duty without being memorable, and the ending is incisive, but it is not enough to make a success of an operation that lacks the political force of the previous film and in which even the charisma of the character is lacking compared to how we knew him.

Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries and Reverberation

Among the films of the week, an important mention goes to 'Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries', an 'encyclopaedia' documentary, divided into three acts, each dealing with a single subject: animals, plants, stones.

Directed by Massimo D'Anolfi and Martina Parenti, the film is a homage to those 'unknown' and in some ways truly alien worlds, made up of animals, plants and minerals, that we often take for granted. The acts of the film draw a unique dramaturgical development through three different staging devices. "Bestiari" is a found-footage on how and why cinema has obsessively represented animals; "Erbari", on the other hand, a poetic documentary of observation from inside the Botanical Garden of Padua; "Lapidari", finally, an industrial and emotional film on the transformation of stone into collective memory.

Entered out of competition at the last Venice Film Festival, 'Bestiaries, Herbariums, Lapidaries' confirms the two directors' already well-known skills in dealing with archive material and their great creative capacity: the authors, who had already shown their prowess in films such as 'Dark Matter' and 'War and Peace', give life to an impressive audiovisual experience, remaining faithful to their style and managing to propose important reflections.

The duration of 206 minutes can be frightening, but with the right attitude and a little patience, one can witness something essentially unique in the contemporary landscape.

Another Italian title effective in playing with experimentation and a strong idea of cinema is 'Riverbero', a new feature film by Enrico Iannaccone.

Shot in nine days with an iPhone 14 Pro and a skeleton crew, the film tells the story of the chance encounter of two drifting figures who move around the perimeters of a Naples of muted hues. For those in search of an unconventional, courageous and audiovisually stimulating product, it may be the most interesting choice of the weekend at the cinema.