The film, directed by Mariano Cohn and Gaston Dupra, misses no alternatives to skewer showbiz quirks
Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas rip into their very own trade with abandon in their new film Official Competition, which left critics in stitches Saturday on the Venice Film Festival.
The film, directed by the Argentine duo of Mariano Cohn and Gaston Dupra, misses no alternatives to skewer showbiz quirks and excesses.
From actors with fragile egos and petty rivalries, to administrators who use unconventional strategies to prod their actors — like making them rehearse beneath a 5-tonne rock to extend dramatic stress — the satire is the final word insider’s information to the worst of film-making.
“It was really liberating, really fun,” Cruz advised journalists in Venice.
She performs an eccentric, bohemian director in search of to impose her imaginative and prescient on her two main males, whose gigantic egos instantly conflict.
Banderas brilliantly lampoons himself as a high Latin film star who has made it massive in Hollywood, whereas Oscar Martinez performs a revered theatre actor who thinks himself too severe for trashy blockbusters.
“Art, that’s the theme,” mentioned Banderas. “To be able to ridicule the excesses that in some way are used to arrive at art.”
Martinez confessed the solid had a tough time protecting a straight face throughout filming: “We had so much fun sometimes we had to stop the sequence.”
Provoking performances
Cruz’s character, who has a mane of frizzy purple hair, places her actors by way of hell in rehearsals.
In one scene, because the mutual animosity of the 2 wildly contrasting actors is at its apex, she actually encases them collectively in plastic wrap to extend their interdependence and bond.
In one other rehearsal, the 2 actors hurl more and more over-the-high expletives at one another to faucet into their rage.
“There were so many bad words, insults, cursing that I think at some point we had to write them down,” Banderas advised reporters.
“I think some of them were really unbelievable, there are things I heard on the streets of Malaga and started throwing them out — there was a little bit of improvisation.”
Cruz was cautious to warning that the solid and administrators of “Official Competition” weren’t out to offend the trade in which they work.
“It’s a tribute to our profession. At no time is it a parody, nor is it disrespectful to the actor,” mentioned Cruz.
Banderas, in the meantime, hastened to set one factor straight in regards to the narcissistic character he performs.
“Some writers might hint at it. But he in the film is not me.”
