The Protagonists
Dir: Luca Guadagnino
1999
***
Luca Guadagnino's The Protagonists is like an odd mix of docu-drama and student portfolio Luca Guadagnino seems to be showing us (producers, studios?) what he can do, his range, his diversity. The switch from fly on the wall documentary, straight to camera narrative and theatrical acting is the sort of thing I thought I would hate but I didn't. I thought it was very impressive. There is bias in my enjoyment though, as the long and silent shots of 1998's London was pure nostalgic indulgence for me. It's a little hard to get into and a lot of it was tedious and verging on pretentious but the idea was clever and should be praised accordingly. I still can't tell whether it was all real or not though, which I guess is also to its credit. A must for Tilda Swinton fans also.