Ethan Hawke plays two brothers, a soldier and a revolutionary, in ‘Zeros and Ones’, the particular version of an action thriller from the director of ‘Corrupt Lieutenant’
It is always good news that Abel Ferrara, a cursed filmmaker where they exist, if such a label makes any sense today, premieres in the conventional circuit of movie theaters. ‘Zeros and Ones’ won the award for best direction at the Locarno Festival, and it is not for less if we understand the authorial gaze as something radical regardless of trends. This is the last work of the person in charge of ‘Corrupt Lieutenant’ and ‘The King of New York’, addicted to a darkness that is not lacking in the images of his new work, with clear references, including masks, to the confinement that we have lived a few ago months and a pandemic that is still bubbling and transmitting brutal insecurity to the population.
The creator of the great ‘The Funeral’ squeezes in his hands and squeezes in his meninges a material that could give rise to an action thriller to transmute it into something else, in a strange vision, at times perverse – that would be more! – of a world on the verge of apocalypse. It skips the rules of the trite genre, betting on a slow and disconcerting rhythm, harsh dialogues and uncomfortable situations, closer to reality. Ethan Hawke stars twice – he plays two brothers diametrically opposed ideologically – the story of an American soldier stationed in Rome who, supposedly, must unmask an international threat. On his journey he records some disturbing pictures, camera in hand, like a non-accidental voyeur, while trying to advance his purposes.
A picture of ‘Zeros and Ones’.
‘Zeros and Ones’ begins with a message to the audience recorded by Hawke himself, to put the viewer in a situation, and closes with another short video of his crop that gives the finishing touch, at the request of Ferrara himself. However, the film does not arrive at the hour and a half, which is to be appreciated today. More than enough time to reel off a story set in a kind of contained chaos, about to explode. Fear and paranoia rule a world in turmoil. The washed-out narrative helps convey a distinct sense of uncontrolled nightmare. The use of slow motion, zoom and some textures typical of the cinema of the 90s in some sequences of the montage underline the gloomy gaze of an author who does not want to see the light, nor give respite, in this sense, to an audience that You may feel lost to another hallucination filmed by the culprit of the riveting ‘The Addiction’. It is not suitable for any taste. It is advisable to burn the manual of the usual representation mode before viewing it. The script exists so that it does not exist.
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