The Locarno Festival has entered its fourth day. Unlike other festivals, Locarno is home to experimental films and those films which expand the language of cinema. It highlights movies that pay more attention to moving borders. Holding nightly viewings in Piazza Grande, with its capacity of over a thousand people, Locarno Film Festival reminds the audience of the famous film Paradiso Cinema; the films are shown under a starlit sky and with the presence of a large crowd of people in a space that has a collective atmosphere. Piazza Grande is an urban square that transforms into a cinema during the Locarno Festival, where many films are screened.
The festival is held in a small Swiss town by a beautiful river in a completely touristy atmosphere; a city with shops reminiscent of Cannes and utterly European. The city is very attractive because of the favorable food, drink, and reception hall and its charming environment. Coming to this city, we can only marvel at its natural beauty as a quintessential Switzerland town. Unfortunately, poor weather somewhat marred the first two days of the festival; the opening ceremony was held in the rain, so many people were not able to participate in it, although some joined it from inside the hall. However, in the following days the sun emerged to provide perfectly pleasant viewing weather, a heavenly atmosphere that was neither hot nor cold. According to the organizers of the Locarno Festival, we can say “Cinema is Back” because a large number of cinema enthusiasts have gathered, the halls are full, and a good crowd is participating in this festival. In fact, it is a completely cinematic atmosphere.
The Locarno Festival has several important sections, the main section of which is known as International Cinema (or the World Cinema) while the other section is dedicated to the first and second films. The main part is under the supervision of Eliza Hittman, director of Never Rarely Sometimes Always.
Petite Solange
One of the stronger movies in the International Cinema section was Petite Solange, which follows a girl who struggles with her parents’ separation at the age of thirteen. Given that the issue of divorce is a global phenomenon and there are many children of divorce today, the film speaks to a diverse audience despite being French, and it crafts beautiful creative moments that engage the audience in a melodramatic and bitter story centred around the thirteen-year-old girl. The film is also reminiscent of films of Truffaut, Mouchette by Bresson, and films of Rossini so that it seems the director has been influenced by them. Petite Solange is an admirable film starring a teenager.
Beckett
Beckett was another film released at the opening of the festival. Reminiscent of Get Out, it is about a Black man who subconsciously enters into a racist incident while he himself remains unaware of why he was attacked. An accident occurs at the beginning of the film in which the man’s girlfriend dies, and during the accident, while the man is mourning, he is suddenly attacked by the police, who intend to kill him. This causes him to flee from the police everywhere. The film is about the problems of racism, especially those related to the far-right groups in Greece and their formation. The director has tried not to confine the film to portraying hostile characters as Greek, and this is why, for example, we see that the villain of the film works inside the US embassy. Starring John David Washington (Tenet), Beckett is a satisfying action movie with some nail-biting moments. However, the purpose of the film is not clear in parts of the story and is sometimes exaggerated in the actions. The style of the film is such that it wants to be close to a realistic style, but some of its action scenes do not match its atmosphere and structural style, creating a dichotomy. If the whole dominant atmosphere of the film was action, the viewer might be more connected to some of the scenes; however, sometimes it feels like the camera and the director are fooling the audience.