Tetro is a film that no one would have made. And I am glad someone made it. Coppola did. Maybe only he can get away with material that young or even mature filmmakers wouldn't touch, or find plausible to even imagine.
Tetro is a movie about art, the making of art, and the struggle of those who pursue art. Every character in the film is an artist, either with words, music, lights, or love. Unfortunately the end product doesn't quite reach the level of art itself. It is artsy and even gutsy with its ambition to create art, and there are very successful moments, and there are some moments in which the melodrama could not hide itself more playfully. However, the moving force of the film comes from the visible effort with which the film is put together. Its experiments (black and white photography, its static placement of the camera, and the leisurely editing that allow an actor to perform and perform) are put together with pain and visible deliberation, and from this, I can see a director letting a film breathe and find its own life through the process of making it.
Other reviewers have called this film unashamedly theatrical. Maybe this is a technical comment, as surely most of the scenes are staged in small dimensioned spaces. Rooms are often spottily lit, shadows fall on the actors faces as if there are spotlights from above, cluttered interiors, and transitions are not accompanied by the usual cinematic devices nor exposition, but simply, by straight forward, chronological shifts that heed no telegraphing or foreshadowing. And from a story perspective...well I am not going to say much about the story, except that I find Tetro a film that beautifies choices but is not concerned with consequences. Similar to the filmmaker's sentiment, I assume. Things will happen inevitably. Maybe it is this inevitability of resolution that makes the film theatrical?
By now we all know about the films black and white photography, and in my eyes, the monochrome palette adds gives the film a novelistic, lore like effect. It dilutes the harshness of reality and everyday burden, and places the viewer in a part of the brain that only concerns itself with making art of memories. Quite fitting for a movie about making art.
Finally, I'm happy to see that the film has a very positive user response on IMDB.
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