OFFICIAL COMPETITION
****
Directors: Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat
Screenplay: Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat and Andrés Duprat
Principal cast:
Penélope Cruz
Antonio Banderas
Oscar Martínez
José Luis Gómez
Irene Escolar
Manolo Solo
Country: Spain/Argentina
Classification: M
Runtime: 115 mins.
Australian release date: 21 July 2022.
A hit at this year’s Spanish Film Festival, Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Official Competition is likely to be just as popular at the box office when it opens nationally this week. It’s a caustically humorous comedy/drama that brings together a fabulous cast of first-class Spanish and Argentinean actors who totally let their hair down as they satirise the world they inhabit, namely, the realm of film and theatre and the art of performance. These brave thespians are not afraid to make themselves and their craft look foolish!
When aging billionaire Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez) decides that he isn’t leaving a sufficiently weighty legacy behind him, he decides to back a prestigious movie and buys the rights to a Nobel Prize-winning novel. He then approaches the renowned and eccentric filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz, resplendent with a mop of frizzy hair) to direct this planned masterpiece. The book relates the story of a man unable to forgive his brother for killing their parents in a drink-driving accident, so Lola recruits Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas), a famous Hollywood leading man, and Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez), an acclaimed theatre actor, to portray the warring siblings. They’re highly talented performers, considered legends in their respective mediums, who both have massive egos and they immediately loathe one another - perfect for the proposed film, Rivals. Félix rocks up to the first rehearsal in an orange Lamborghini accompanied by an attractive young woman; he’s full of himself, convinced of his own importance. Iván, on the other hand, is more mature and takes a more serious approach to his craft but he’s just as egocentric as Félix. These polar opposites set the mood for the fractured scenes and volatile rhetoric that ensues as Lola puts the two actors through their paces, setting difficult and unconventional scenarios for them to workshop, which increases the two actors’ mutual antagonism and their contempt for each other to the point where something’s got to give.
The robust dialogue and fabulous performances make this movie a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience… if you’re not in the acting trade, that is. The three principal players revel in their roles as they belittle one another and the rehearsal process and, by doing so, lampoon their art form. So convincing are they that, at times, you wonder if they’re revealing what they really think about their chosen profession because their characters so completely mock it. Or maybe it’s showing us what the two Argentinean writer/directors, Cohn and Duprat, think about actors? They wouldn’t be the first directors to show contempt for them. Alfred Hitchcock famously stated that, “It has been said that I called actors cattle. I would never say such a rude, insulting thing. What I probably said was that all actors should be treated like cattle.” Regardless of who thinks what about those who ‘tread the boards’, in this instance at least, Cruz, Banderas and Martínez are all magnificent and it’s a pleasure to watch them bring these arrogant, flawed individuals to life. And very funny, too.
Official Competition is beautifully realised: Arnau Valls Colomer’s camera often catches the action via reflections in mirrors and windows (a comment on the lack of reflection in the protagonists’ lives?) and Alberto del Campo’s editing matches the pace of the corrosive dialogue. Much of the movie is filmed in a very modern, almost brutalist, concrete mansion, which gives Lola the space and freedom to push Félix and Iván to the limit as she dreams up her increasingly complex mind-games. Although at times verging on the overwrought (it’s a very Latin film), Official Competition is thoroughly engaging and muy divertido.
Screenplay: Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat and Andrés Duprat
Principal cast:
Penélope Cruz
Antonio Banderas
Oscar Martínez
José Luis Gómez
Irene Escolar
Manolo Solo
Country: Spain/Argentina
Classification: M
Runtime: 115 mins.
Australian release date: 21 July 2022.
A hit at this year’s Spanish Film Festival, Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Official Competition is likely to be just as popular at the box office when it opens nationally this week. It’s a caustically humorous comedy/drama that brings together a fabulous cast of first-class Spanish and Argentinean actors who totally let their hair down as they satirise the world they inhabit, namely, the realm of film and theatre and the art of performance. These brave thespians are not afraid to make themselves and their craft look foolish!
When aging billionaire Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez) decides that he isn’t leaving a sufficiently weighty legacy behind him, he decides to back a prestigious movie and buys the rights to a Nobel Prize-winning novel. He then approaches the renowned and eccentric filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz, resplendent with a mop of frizzy hair) to direct this planned masterpiece. The book relates the story of a man unable to forgive his brother for killing their parents in a drink-driving accident, so Lola recruits Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas), a famous Hollywood leading man, and Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez), an acclaimed theatre actor, to portray the warring siblings. They’re highly talented performers, considered legends in their respective mediums, who both have massive egos and they immediately loathe one another - perfect for the proposed film, Rivals. Félix rocks up to the first rehearsal in an orange Lamborghini accompanied by an attractive young woman; he’s full of himself, convinced of his own importance. Iván, on the other hand, is more mature and takes a more serious approach to his craft but he’s just as egocentric as Félix. These polar opposites set the mood for the fractured scenes and volatile rhetoric that ensues as Lola puts the two actors through their paces, setting difficult and unconventional scenarios for them to workshop, which increases the two actors’ mutual antagonism and their contempt for each other to the point where something’s got to give.
The robust dialogue and fabulous performances make this movie a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience… if you’re not in the acting trade, that is. The three principal players revel in their roles as they belittle one another and the rehearsal process and, by doing so, lampoon their art form. So convincing are they that, at times, you wonder if they’re revealing what they really think about their chosen profession because their characters so completely mock it. Or maybe it’s showing us what the two Argentinean writer/directors, Cohn and Duprat, think about actors? They wouldn’t be the first directors to show contempt for them. Alfred Hitchcock famously stated that, “It has been said that I called actors cattle. I would never say such a rude, insulting thing. What I probably said was that all actors should be treated like cattle.” Regardless of who thinks what about those who ‘tread the boards’, in this instance at least, Cruz, Banderas and Martínez are all magnificent and it’s a pleasure to watch them bring these arrogant, flawed individuals to life. And very funny, too.
Official Competition is beautifully realised: Arnau Valls Colomer’s camera often catches the action via reflections in mirrors and windows (a comment on the lack of reflection in the protagonists’ lives?) and Alberto del Campo’s editing matches the pace of the corrosive dialogue. Much of the movie is filmed in a very modern, almost brutalist, concrete mansion, which gives Lola the space and freedom to push Félix and Iván to the limit as she dreams up her increasingly complex mind-games. Although at times verging on the overwrought (it’s a very Latin film), Official Competition is thoroughly engaging and muy divertido.