Tetro | Francis Ford Coppola, 2009
The word Tetro, in Francis Ford Coppola’s non-native Italian, means dark, bleak, sombre. Words that are reflected, perhaps somewhat unintentionally, in the director’s new titular character: the long-faced Angelo “Tetro” Tetrocini, played by Vincent Gallo. Both as an original script – Coppola’s first since 1974’s celebrated The Conversation – and as a character, Tetro’s reputation precedes itself. For the director, this must only exist as a reminder of tougher times, but times when the film world held its breath whenever he entered the room. Things have gotten easier in recent decades for the portly Detroit native, who has carved out quite a comfortable position for himself producing movies under his own American Zoetrope banner, and without the oppressive studio involvement that so plagued some of his more famous titles. The difference being that these days there seem to be fewer people left in the room who are willing to give him the time of day. For Vincent Gallo, on the other hand, Tetro’s towering reputation conjured up by Coppola’s writing seems only to work as a stimulant, inspiring him to the kind of glint-in-the-eye performance we’ve seen before in Buffalo ‘66. Indeed, Tetro is one cagey and confused individual, though less feral than Gallo’s memorable Billy Brown character, despite producing the same trademark New York whine. His whine here helps give the impression of a lost rich kid, or alternatively, as his long-suffering partner Miranda (Maribel Verdú) puts it: “like a genius, but without enough accomplishments…” The highlight of Tetro, however, comes not in its titular character, nor in the aged pen that brought him to the screen, but in a newcomer called Alden Ehrenreich whose infectious performance as Bennie, Tetro’s younger brother and the film’s protagonist, is quite wonderful. He is an actor who was apparently discovered by Steven Spielberg, and one who I expect to see a lot more of in the future.
Tetro is a story of two estranged brothers who know little of one another but who share a certain common hatred towards their family – more importantly their father – and perhaps, on top of that, some kind of common artistic gift. This main premise helps evoke strong memories of Coppola’s Rumble Fish, which not only centered on a story between two brothers but also helped unearth no small amount of young acting talent in the likes of Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Nicolas Cage. As with Rumble Fish, Tetro is shot in sumptuous black and white with a dash of consciously placed colour, in this case to signify those scenes in the film that depict the past – just as we view our own memories in colour, whether they be in the form of photographs or home videos. The other colour comes in the form of a handful of over-exuberant fringe characters, who manage, along with the film’s theatrical encounters, heightened emotional drama, and underlying humour, to give Tetro the sense of a stage play or theatre piece. That is without mentioning the abundance of spot-lights in the film, a motif of sorts: those that Tetro runs every week at the local theatre club, and those that eventually come to symbolise the car headlights of his pained past. While a neater effort than Coppola’s last film, Tetro suffers once again from the director trying to do too much. Not only does he not know when to stop, but Coppola also manages to take a warm, humble idea – a gentle stroll through downtown Buenos Aires – and turns it into a work of grand scale that lacks all kinds of foundation. An epic family drama that almost immediately spins out of the director’s control, resulting in a deeply flawed third act that does nothing but drag. While it’s easy enough to appreciate Coppola’s ambition here, I don’t imagine Tetro will receive much fanfare when it’s released stateside in the near future, and is more likely simply to be remembered as the film that introduced us to a fresh-faced future star.
Our Rating:
