Simone Bozzelli’s feature debut Patagonia has much to recommend it: lensing by Leonardo Mirabilia that reflects the nervous energy of the protagonists, a couple of excellent leads skillfully negotiating the edgy tension of their characters, and an interesting take on power dynamics and questions of freedom. The problem is that the central relationship, though well-played, simply isn’t believable, and for all the discussions about freedom, the film itself, awash in guarded homoeroticism, doesn’t allow itself the liberty of depicting gay sex, which is implied but never shown. While the story of a young unformed guy becoming enthralled by a dominant drifter has a tangible fascination, it requires a greater degree of psychological credibility to make us feel invested. It’s easy to imagine the film playing at fests and Italian showcases, but wider distribution away from home will prove challenging.
Another issue is that Bozzelli overplays his hand with visual clues, including the opening and closing shots of fences and cages: yes, we get it, the whole film is about metaphorical cages, but just a few real ones will be enough to get the point across. Yuri (Andrea Fuorto) is 19, or perhaps 20, an orphan working the cash register at the family butcher shop and shuttled month-by-month between his three aunts, who house and feed him near the Abruzzi city of Teramo. He’s also developmentally delayed, barely able to do simple math and clearly socially backward. He’s teased by children and his aunt Anna (Marina Catia Lamperi) not only infantilizes but still bathes him.
At his younger cousin’s birthday party Yuri becomes fascinated by Agostino (Augusto Mario Russi), an itinerant birthday clown whose pierced lip and nipple and dyed hair, not to mention the sneer, mark him instantly as a bad boy. Agostino immediately senses that Yuri is slow and a target for the crueler kids, so he ropes him in as an assistant and then proceeds to humiliate him. For Yuri, it hurts but it’s also par for the course, and when Agostino teasingly calls him “empathetic,” a word Yuri needs to look up, the younger man decides to free himself from the family shackles, setting out at night to follow the caravan-living Svengali with the stuffed animal he gave him.
Agostino loves to give off the aura of a man with no ties, completely free in his caravan to go where he pleases and do what he wants. He burns what he doesn’t need and talks about going to Patagonia, an idea planted in his head by his father’s love for the José Larralde song “Patagonia.” He also likes to play power games, assuming a dominant-submissive relationship with Yuri that carries a palpable sexual vibe. His pansexuality is another manifestation (we’re meant to believe) of his free-spirited nature, though Yuri is slow to understand the dynamic, at first just happy to be in the thrall of this charismatic figure who lets him share his caravan and makes him his assistant.
They wind up parking among a community of ravers who stage a kind of pygmy Burning Man – it’s a world the boy from Teramo never imagined, exciting and confusing like all the stimuli he’s receiving. All of it would work much better if the script knew what it wanted to do with Yuri: at the start he’s clearly intellectually delayed (which doesn’t happen just by being infantilized by an aunt), yet later on he seems to be without issues until towards the end when they reappear. He has the emotional wherewithal to tell Agostino “I always feel like I’m being punished,” which requires some insight, only to once again fall into cluelessness.
Equally problematic is the way Bozzelli handles the sexual relations between the two. We’re shown their bodies close, we’re teased by the arrival of handsome blond animal-loving raver Morgan (Alexander Benigni), and we see Agostino and Yuri apparently naked holding each other in bed. Kissing? No. Sex? Who knows, and an explicit water sports scene is about power and humiliation, not sex. For a film that declares itself to be about freeing ourselves from cages, it remains hypocritically in a cage of its own, seemingly fearful to show same-sex couplings except in the coyest way.
Such script issues are especially galling because in other areas Patagonia works on multiple levels, starting with the spot-on casting. Though young, Fuorto (La prima regola) is a master of subtle facial changes, registering Yuri’s perplexities and hurt, making him a believable character. Russi, in an explosive debut, is all wired energy, manipulating kids at parties as well as vulnerable people like Yuri with a fascinating boundless fluidity that turns out to be less uninhibited than the aura he presents. In addition, Leonardo Mirabilia’s handsome camerawork keeps the restlessness under control, while Christian Marsiglia’s editing maintains the proper vitality and rhythm.
Director: Simone Bozzelli
Screenplay: Tommaso Favagrossa, Simone Bozzelli
Cast: Andrea Fuorto, Augusto Mario Russi, Elettra Dallimore Mallaby, Alexander Benigni, Lina Bartolozzi, Marina Catia Lamperini, Tiziana di Tonno, Sara Giusti, Manuela Derme
Producers: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Gangarossa
Executive producers: Ludovica Rapisarda, Saverio Guarascio, Mandella Quilici, Gianluca Mizzi
Cinematography: Leonardo Mirabilia
Production designer: Mauro Vanzati
Costume designer: Andrea Cavalletto
Editing: Christian Marsiglia
Music: Leone Ciocchetti, Daniele Guerrini
Sound: Filippo Porcari, Federica Ripani, Alessandro Feletti
Production companies: Wildside (Italy), Vision Distribution with Rai Cinema (Italy), in collaboration with Sky
Venue: Locarno Film Festival (International competition)
In Italian
110 minutes
