Video artists Nicolò Massazza and Jacopo Bedogni (MASBEDO) put me to work with their film that explores variations on the idea of “lacking”. What the hell is going on here? Am I smart enough to get it?
You know me; I love Italian movies. Me + a large Diet Coke + 3 or 4 movies = MY BEST DAY EVER. So give me something like The Lack and I have to hit the pause button for a second. Wait…what? This isn’t a movie, it’s art? So I should put down the popcorn and get serious while I watch it? Am I smart enough to even understand this? I usually don’t have to work so hard to appreciate a good film.
Since I’m interviewing MASBEDO this week, the duo (Nicolò Massazza and Jacopo Bedogni) who created The Lack along with Beatrice Bulgari and Mitra Divshali, and at first I thought, “Oh dear. I don’t even know how to talk to them about what I’ve just seen.” But after rewinding, pausing, fastforwarding, and becoming, in the end, obsessed with it, I have more questions for them than they’ll have time to answer.
The Lack plays out in four separate segments with six women from four different countries and four different situations, all on personal quests to find something that they need in their lives. In the first, Eve works through the first three stages of grief when she’s abandoned by her lover. She’s shocked, she can’t believe it’s happening, and then she gets extremely and violently pissed off.
In the second Xiu silently drags a heavy spot light onto a ferry and then to an abandoned island, the third, women manuever a stark and post apocalyptic-like environment and finally, Sarah experiences an extremely wigged-out psychoanalytic session.
Almost completely devoid of dialogue, The Lack is filmed in barren and punishing landscapes that tell as much of the story as the women themselves do. The Lack premiered at the Venice Film Festival and will be screened at this week’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema at New York City’s Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Get ready MASBEDO: I have some questions for you and you’ll probably need a drink after talking to me. Offro io.
I Love Italian Everything 