Pesaro FF: Cyrus Frisch, the narcissist
Open, as its name indicates, to experimental and novel approaches, the Pesaro International 'New Films' Festival reasserts its vocation by exploring the universe of mobile phone videos. In collaboration with the Pocket Film Festival in Paris and the Cortofonino Festival in Terni, the programme offers a good overview of the pioneers of this "new frontier" of the industry and also allows the Pesaro public to meet an old acquaintance, Alain Fleischer, who is presenting his latest work, Chinese Tracks. However, the most awaited title in this section is Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me It Would Become This Bad in Afghanistan by Cyrus Frisch, promoted as a "first feature-length cell phone film presented in a big festival" (Rotterdam) by a catalogue which seems to forget the precedent set by Jean-Charles Fitoussi, whose Nocturnes pour le roi de Rome was selected for the Cannes Critics' Week in 2006.
At 39, Dutch director Frisch has a bad reputation of being a narcissist that has built up over 15 years of career. In Why Didn’t…, he seems to deserve it, although this time, it is the chosen format that forced him to do everything: write, direct, edit and star as a soldier who comes back from Afghanistan chased by the ghosts of war.
Still, the lack of awareness shown in the movie is fascinating, like a pioneer who discovers the impossibility of handling the angle offered by his mobile phone and always shoots at a slant, but without expressionistic ambitions. As for us, we also become pioneers before these new visions and experience a grain so rough that it is closer to waterpaint (or even to Cézanne) than to digital images. When all is said and done, Why Didn’t… still raises some doubts and questions about the future of the new Super 8: light on the verge lacking substance, this new media may make Cesare Zavattini's dream come true, but it also threatens to bring about the worst nightmare of many other people.
This film, shot in Rotterdam and in Namibia (for all the Afghani scenes, shot in digital technology), was produced by Frisch through his company, Stichting Filmkracht.
(Translated from Italian)
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