En route to the annual G7 summit, the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies get lost in the woods and face increasing peril while attempting to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis.
Cate Blanchett
Hilda Orlmann
Roy Dupuis
Maxime Laplace
Nikki Amuka-Bird
Cardosa Dewindt
Charles Dance
Edison Wolcott
Takehiro Hira
Tatsuro Iwasaki
Denis Ménochet
Sylvain Broulez
Rolando Ravello
Antonio Lamorle
Zlatko Burić
Jonas Glob
Alicia Vikander
Celestine Sproul
Alexa Kennedy
Hilda's Aide
Ralph Berkin
Anthropologist
Tomi Kosynus
Middle-Aged German Man
Ádám Bot
Bog People Dancer
Viktória Dányi
Bog People Dancer
Vivien Ferencz
Bog People Dancer
Dorina Mayer
Bog People Dancer
Zsófia Temesvári
Bog People Dancer
Director, Screenplay, Story
Evan Johnson
Director, Story
Guy Maddin
Director, Story
Galen Johnson
October 19, 2024
3
Truly good satire needs a razor-sharp edge to succeed, but this latest effort from director Guy Maddin (in collaboration with filmmaking partners Evan and Galen Johnson) falls stunningly flat, resulting in a rambling, unfocused slog that somehow manages to mix messages and symbology that are simultaneously both cryptically understated and patently obvious. Set at a G7 summit in Germany, world leaders from the host country and their American, Canadian, British, French, Italian and Japanese counterparts (along with delegates from the European Union) hold their annual gathering to discuss the state of the world and pat themselves on the back for a self-congratulatory job well done (despite not possessing the requisite skills to accomplish anything meaningful or of substantive consequence other than keeping their nations’ respective seats warm). They smile their hollow smiles and make empty though allegedly profound observations about a variety of subjects, all while attempting to craft one of their famous joint statements (position papers that the American president openly admits no one ever reads). In this case, the communique is meant to address some kind of undefined global crisis, but it appears to be one with apocalyptic overtones. But, in the course of their “work” – an undertaking for which they’re far from qualified – they quickly find themselves in over their heads when the infrastructure around them begins to crumble, a circumstance made more ominous by the appearance of inexplicable apparitions and zombie-like bog creatures straight out of classic folklore and middle European fairy tales. One might think that this would make for an interesting premise in telling a surrealistically satirical fable about the state of contemporary world politics, but the execution here is so poorly carried off that it ends up amounting to little more than oh so much intellectual and symbolic masturbation (depicted here a little too literally and repetitively at that). To complicate matters, the narrative incorporates countless developments that go wholly unexplained, some of which presumably have to do with the symbolic emasculation of a prevailing patriarchal world in favor of an emerging female-directed paradigm, but others of which are just so enigmatically absurd that they defy description, explanation or purpose (there’s more of that masturbation again, only this time reflected in the nature of the picture’s screenplay elements). The overall result is a mess of a movie that, despite its gifted ensemble cast and atmospheric cinematography and production design, just doesn’t work, especially since the insights it’s trying to impart aren’t particularly new, revelatory or funny. We’re well aware of how inept many of the world’s supposedly astute leaders are these days, including the fact that they’re cluelessly engaged in little more than what amounts to unconscious acts of that aforementioned “self-love” (and self-aggrandizing ones at that), but do we really need a movie to remind us of that (especially one as shabbily made as this)? No thanks. If I were you, I’d duck out of this one and see what else is playing at the multiplex (or, better yet, skip it altogether).
Status:
Released
Original Language:
English
Budget:
$0.00
Revenue:
$450,517.00