Two Gun Shots: two shots… into nothingness
- Eclectic Argentinian director Martin Rejtman returns to the competition in Locarno with an attempt to merge the styles of his artistic passions
“Seduction is like writing a beautiful song, it’s all about technique and rhythm, technique and rhythm.” (Paolo Sorrentino, Everybody’s Right). A belief also held by Argentinian director Martin Rejtman: “the dialogues in my movies have a precise rhythm, the words should flow like music to the ears of the viewer”. In his fifth feature film, Two Gun Shots [+see also:
trailer
film profile], in competition at the 67th Locarno Film Festival, Rejtman wraps up a symphony of reality in which words, music and sound alternate in defining the narrative passagges of the film, starting with two gun shots...
One early morning sixteen-year-old Mariano returns home, dives into his swimming pool and does a few lengths timing himself. He gets out of the water and sets about mowing the lawn, but he accidentally cuts the power chord of the lawn mower. Determined to fix it, he goes in search of tools, but finds a gun instead, he carries it to his room and fires two gunshots, one to his head and one to his stomach. He survives, but a bullet must have remained inside him, he thinks, even though the doctors haven’t found it, with the result that a mysterious double note can be heard when he plays the flute with his friends, and he can no longer go through a metal detector without making it beep.
Mariano’s suicide attempt triggers the film’s plot which develops by following the reactions of his mother and brother: between modern attempts to control her son, by mobile phone, hiding sharp objects that are present in the house, and surreal holiday stays.
With no precise artistic objective, as Rejtman explains on various occasions, the film is defined by lulled characters, who interact with each other without showing any sort of emotion, their dialogues are disturbingly monotone… Is that simply down to the pace chosen by the director?
The movie is produced by Pandora Filmproduktion (Germany), Waterland Film & TV (Netherlands), Ruda Cine (Argentina) and Jirafa Films (Chile).
(Translated from Italian)
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