'Eddington', confusion and great gimmicks in a film about today's America
Two highly anticipated titles are released in theatres: Ari Aster's latest feature film and Luca Guadagnino's 'After the Hunt'
Another ambitious and interesting film on contemporary America: while the extraordinary 'One Battle After Another' is still in theatres, this week sees the addition to the news at the cinema of Ari Aster's 'Eddington', a film that somehow manages to converse with Paul Thomas Anderson's masterpiece.
Set in May 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 'Eddington' tells of a clash between the sheriff and the mayor of a small New Mexico town, which soon becomes a metaphor for the United States of America.
Aster puts a lot (too much?) of meat on the fire to explain how his nation has returned to the arms of Donald Trump, starting from the divisions generated by the use of masks during the pandemic to the political manipulation through social networks, passing through the murder of George Floyd and movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo: the ingredients are many to give life to an overview that is at times indigestible, but also capable of stimulating numerous reflections and incorporating in the vision many insights that concern the whole of contemporary society.
If from the very beginning in the film there is a real challenge worthy of a Wild West duel, it is however in the concluding part that 'Eddington' grows a lot in this respect in a long, completely silent night sequence, where the talent of the director of titles such as 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar' emerges at its best.
