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The Tale Of King Crab reviewed The Tale Of King Crab
Posted by Robin Menken
The Tale of King Crab is the Feature debut of documentarians Alessio Rigo
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival Directors’ Fortnight, 2021 it also won many awards including the Viennale 2021-FIPRESCI Feature Prize, the Annecy Cinema Italien (2021) Best Film, the Thessaloniki Film Festival Film Critics Feature Award (2021), and the Grand Prix at Dolce Cinema - Les Rencontres du Cinéma Italien à Grenoble 2021
This hybridized Western, marked with intertitle chapter headings, mixes the obsessional vigor of Herzog’s “Aguirre”, the austere beauty of Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama”, and the cynicism of Huston’s “Treasure of The Sierra Madre”, but is entirely original and compelling.
Like their two earlier documentaries, it uses "unreliable witnesses" to question the nature of story telling.
In their 2013 award-winning short documentary "Belva nera" Ercole, and a group of elder local hunters in a hunting lodge, tell of a 'mythical' black panther in a mixture of confessions and folktales.
An off-camera story about a local misanthrope lead to the team's 2015 feature documentary "Il Solengo". Set in the tiny laziale-speaking village of Pratolungo ,"Il Solengo" summoned the presence of a legendary hermit, mostly through memories and tall tales from village locals.
Again, an off-screen story they heard in the same hunting lodge led to The Tale Of King Crab.
It was said local drunkard and anti-monarchist Luciano, warred with the local Prince. A tragic occurrence forced him to flee for his life to Argentina's wild Tierra del Fuego. Local research confirmed his escape from Italy.
Following the trail to Argentina, the filmmakers discovered records of a likely ‘Luciano’ who reached Buenos Aires at the right time. They wove their story around local newspaper accounts, mixing in Magical Realism elements.
DP Simone D’Arcangelo's poetic lensing- alternating extreme closeups and wide-shots of characters, dwarfed by the sere Patagonian wilderness, recalls early Taviani Brothers films and the dynamic intensity of Baroque landscapes.
The film is bookended with a minimalist image of a man finding a golden amulet in a virgin lake so clear he can see it on the bottom. By the end, the image has taken on layers of meaning.
The story folds in on itself, switching from present day scenes in the hunting lodge to scenes in
turn of the century Vejano and Patagonia.
Part one “The Saint Orsio Misdeed” plays in Italian.
It's non pro cast is splendid. Hirsute contemporary artist Gabriele Silli, with his powerful gaze and baritone rumble, is a riveting protagonist. A friend of the filmmakers, Silli learned Spanish, grew the distinctive beard he wears in part one, and moved to one of the film’s location to prepare.
Maria Alexandra Lungu plays Emma, Luciano's eternal love. Lungi, a child in Alice Rohrwacher’s “The Wonders”, returns to the screen as a striking peasant Ofelia.
Other than Lungu, the cast in part one are non pros, (Ugo Farnetti played himself in "Il solengo" and Alessandro Cicoria played himself in "Belva nera".)
Local folksongs and Vittorio Giampietro’s score of peasant flute and drums underpin the story’s elliptical journey.
Hopeless alcoholic Luciano, back home after a ‘cure‘ in a Roman institution, doesn’t fit it. The son of the local doctor, he’s poised between the impoverished local peasants and the lone land-owning Prince (Enzo Cucchi).
His father's position protects him, but his rage, both personal and political, makes him throw away his money and privilege.
Handing a coin to the Tavern keeper he says "Here’s a coin, it’s worthless to me. I want to live as I please.”
His name “Luciano” mean light in Latin languages. He’s a fallen angel like Lucifer (“light-bringer”). The locals fear and misunderstand him, describing him as “a pauper, a nobleman, a saint, a drunkard”. Cloaked in his hermit's beard, he sleeps in the grass, bathes naked in a waterhole and seemingly offends everyone.
He spends his days drinking and lazily courting Emma, the soulful daughter of tradition-bound goat farmer Severino (Severino Sperandio), who plans to pander her to the Prince. Feudalism still holds sway two decades after Unification.
Childhood friends, Luciano and Emma's romance seems more fraternal than passionate, but Emma, who isn't cowed by the nobles explains," I know who I am and what I’m worth”, and Luciano might be her way out.
Luciano gives her the Etruscan gold amulet and she tells him of her dream about their destiny.
Learning that the Prince has locked a shortcut traditionally used by the shepherds, enraged Luciano batters down the gate. Taking his sheep through, the shepherd warns Luciano that the Prince will expect restitution.
Luciano's father, appalled by his self-destruction, tells him Severino will never let him marry Emma and warns him not to go drinking in the Tavern.
Severino goads Luciano, telling him the Prince plans to marry her, and allows Emma to be dressed in ceremonial clothing as La Donna in the local Saint Orsio procession, celebrating the martyred patron saint of Vejana.
Luciano confronts Emma at the castle, then insults the Prince and his guests, stating they are no longer superior to anyone since Italy became a Republic.
Drunk on communion wine, Luciano eventually burns down part of the castle. Severino sets the Prince's thugs on Luciano. They shoot him in the belly, and his father arranges to have him exiled to avoid prison.
If part one is often a sunny paradisiacal background for
Luciano and Emma’s trysts, part two is a relative hell on earth… de Righi and Matteo Zoppis’s setting for Luciano’s surprising redemption.
Part two “The Arsehole Of The World“ plays in Spanish.
The hunters begin to narrate and then disappear from the film as we arrive at a remote island off the coast of Tierra del Fuego. A shipwrecked galleon dominates the shore. It’s a location as desolate and unforgiving as a Spaghetti Western.
We’re off shore from Bahía Aguirre (an un-ironic shout out to Herzog’s Aguirre.)
A group of piratical soldiers, in search of a mythical fortune, stagger onshore. They seek a treasure of gold from the Jacinto, shipwrecked on route to the Spanish King, and reputedly hidden by the crew before they died in this fearsome place.
They plan to ambush Father Antonio, a priest rumored to have a map to the buried treasure.
The pirates are a treacherous bunch, a few minutes in one has managed to poison his “master”. One less to share the riches. The traitorous band presses on.
Simone D’Arcangelo’s photography pans across the wilderness- the river, the barren tundra, the craggy mountains and lowering clouds-a detailed color corollary of Gabo Figueroa’s legendary black and white landscapes.
Vittorio Giampietro’s score of folk music (Lucino whistles a Tuscan song from part one) and war drums, increase the tension.
Another priest pick up the narration.
Banished to Argentina, we next see Luciano, dressed as priest, shorn of his immense beard but sporting a handle bar mustache. Luciano’s outraged innocence is transformed. Exile has made him a desperate shyster, sober to boot, and able to survive his dangerous captors.
Riding across a seaside bluff on horseback, he finds a priest (Father Antonio) riddled with arrows and dying. Luciano assumes his identity, taking on his cassock, cross and weather beaten breviary, and learns his secret.
“Follow the crab”.
The priest has a bucket containing the red King Crab of the film’s title. According to indigenous legend the King Crab is a compass which will lead one to the treasure, and Luciano is the living map.
Luciano, like generations of homesick immigrants to the Americas explains, “I saw an opportunity. After all, this is America” …where the streets are paved with gold.
The pirates capture Luciano and he’s forced to lead them to the treasure. Luciano, as crafty as his captors, is only interested in the treasure as a means to go home.
Posted by Robin Menken
Like Luciano, the crab (born in the remote lagoon where the Conquistador treasure is hidden) just wants to return home, and patiently scuttles across the rugged land despite all obstacles.
The team describe their film as a "sea- western" and soon American tropes emerge, culminating in a showdown gun battle, shot from overhead.
Simone D’Arcangelo’s closeups make the most of the surreal image of the fiery red Kind Crab walking across a toxic landscape (Tierra dl Fuego means land of fire), leading a parade of greedy men across the land that will be the end of them.
The transcendent ending reunites Lucino and dreamer Emma, giving a magical realist blessing to the circular art of storytelling, the oral tradition and the Hero’s Journey.
The cast of part 2, save Silli, who commands this vengeful story, have all worked in other films, including actor/DoP Mariano Arce (Jauja) actor/director Alessandro Cicoria (Belva nera), (Interview with Christo .
Darío Levy, Jorge Prado, Daniel Tur, Fernando Almirón and Enzo Cucchi all give gritty, convincing performances.
17.06.2022 | The Robin Menken Reviews's blog Cat. : FILM
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