Velvet Buzzsaw looks like Robert Altman's final destination

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief detailed reviews of festival films, virtual reality previews and other special event publications. This criticism comes from the Sundance Film Festival 2019.

Horror movies often feature awful characters in their compositions, to protect the audience from too much empathy when these characters get crushed one by one. Viewers might find the horror a little less cathartic and a little more depressing if they like each victim eviscerated on the screen and take root unnecessarily, then watch them lose their lives ignominiously. So, in horror movies with a significant number of bodies (unlike something like get out or Visit, which focus on one or two desperate and sympathetic protagonists), it has become quite commonplace to make sure that the flesh of the cannon is made up of people who have declared themselves worthy of death by selfish, reckless or completely idiotic behavior.

The Netflix thriller Velvet Buzzsaw, written and directed by Dan Gilroy (nominated for Best Screenplay for his debut as a director, Somnambulist), is not at all a standard horror movie. But he relies heavily on this horror dynamic. It begins to look like a smiling satire of the fine arts world, with complacent gallerists, an arrogant critic, various insightful artists and many other comical and unpleasant stereotypes that all revolve around each other. , looking for the next fad or in another way. to advance in the business while stroking their own egos. Then one of these scammers gets their hands on an artistic gold mine, and the rush for profit begins. Unfortunately for all involved, her discovery is accompanied by a fatal curse of awesome power that begins to punish anyone she can reach.

What is the genre?

It begins with a satire of the art world, inspired by the ensemble, of the kind to give to a crowded and top-down scene a scene that Christopher Guest has tackled through improvised comedy in such films as Waiting for Guffman and A powerful wind, and that Robert Altman treated a little more seriously (although still with a satirical touch) in the films of Nashville at A mate of the prairies. Like these movies, Velvet Buzzsaw is full of acidic figures, too big, that defend particular parts of their island creative world to make fun of. Unlike these films, Velvet Buzzsaw makes a sudden descent into the arena of supernatural horror.

What is it about?

René Russo is portrayed by Rhodora Haze, a Los Angeles gallerist predator who represents some of the city's hottest talents and is constantly searching for them. Among his current stables are the well-established but troubled painter Piers (John Malkovich) and the up-and-coming creator Damrish (Daveed Diggs), who has abandoned the collective of his former artists for big profits and an international exhibition. . Employees of Rhodora include Coco (Natalia Dyer), ex-Pat of Michigan, and Bryson (Billy Magnussen), a scruffy handyman. An badistant who moves after learning that her artist boyfriend is cheating on her. The competing gallerist, Jon Dondon (Tom Sturridge), who tries to poach Piers de Rhodora, and Gretchen (Toni Collette), an incredibly friendly and ruthless museum curator, abandons his work and becomes an art. hunter for rich people looking to buy works of art for prestige and investment.

And Jake Gyllenhaal plays Morf Vandewalt, a critic whose work commands enough weight for people to scramble around him, trying to win his favor, drawing his attention to his customers, or simply getting a hint that his next criticism might look like, in case there is a way to take advantage of that. Morf is obsessed with Josephina and takes a look at the second where she seems to be available, but she is quickly distracted by the death of her neighbor on the upper floor. His apartment is filled with spectacular works of art that pierce all those who watch him. In the absence of any legal heir, Josephina, Morf and Rhodora are all ready to lie about how they have acquired his work and to take full advantage of his instant popularity. But the artist wanted his work to be destroyed at his death, and when he begins to appear in gallery and museum exhibitions, the situation becomes bloody.

Photo: Claudette Barius / Netflix

What is it? really sure?

Who really owns art, and how does it differ from the one who benefits at a given moment. The deceased artist, Vetril Dease, seems to have been inspired directly by the famous outsider artist Henry Darger, who himself also died alone, without heirs, in an apartment filled with hundreds of works of art and art. thousands of pages of his writings. Like Darger, the fictional Dease had a troubled and traumatic past and lived alone while holding a blue-collar job. Unlike Darger, however, Dease apparently possesses the mystical means of preventing people from turning his personal work into a nurturing frenzy.

Dan Gilroy's first director project, 2014 acclaimed Somnambulist, took a similar tactic in a much darker way. In this film, Gyllenhaal plays the role of an independent photojournalist who pursues violent events around Los Angeles, competing to be first on the scene and get the most graphic and exciting shots, even if that means break the law. Where this movie was dark and dirty, Velvet Buzzsaw fills the screen with sunlight and bright colors. But the two films are still stories of the underground world of LA, about the extremes that people are willing to go to gain power and money thanks to the rush that they have chosen.

And both films explore the question of ownership – Somnambulist asks whether there is a difference between criminals and the media who benefit from it, but also who owns the information and whether any amount of public good or a thirst for scandal justifies the unethical behavior of journalists. With Velvet BuzzsawGilroy also asks if the thirst for new arts, new faces and good investments justifies going against the wishes of the artist. Dease wanted her work destroyed when she died, but for Josephina and her accomplices, her wishes are unimportant. The complex question at the heart of the film is thus the following: if an artist wants to keep his creations that upset the world even after his departure, does he have the right?

Photo: Claudette Barius / Netflix

Is it good?

Velvet Buzzsaw is a messy movie, and not just in the sense that Gilroy ends up painting a room with blood at some point. Or Somnambulist felt viciously propulsive and focused on Gyllenhaal, his escalation of crimes and his interest in power, Buzzsaw spreads, without a clear focal point at the beginning, and a focal point too obvious once Dease's overpowering vengeance is launched and the bodies start piling up. As in so many other supernatural horror movies, the story gets pretty programmatic as soon as it becomes clear that there is no real counter for a murderous and deadly murderous recluse, and that Gilroy is primarily interested in long decorations where selfish people die for a long time, ironically art-inflected manners.

But the movie Final destination the elements – the overwhelming inevitability of the dead, the arch-comic tone that surrounds them, the aesthetic "no pity, no escape" – are far less interesting than what Gilroy did in the beginning, in the establishment of a bitter world where creation is a reality. commodity. Movies often scoff at critics as pretentious (as in Mr. Night Shyamalan's film Lady in the water), inhumanly harsh and judgmental (Brad Bird's Ratatouille) and power hungry (Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman), but Gilroy finds a little of all of the above in Morf, while leaving him with the impression of deeply immersing himself in the art he criticizes. He is proud and self-centered and the way he gets rid of his lover when he sees Josephina as available might require a more narrative review, or even a consequence or two. But Gyllenhaal makes him a powerful and convincing character, even if he's not friendly. Morf knows what he wants and pursues him unscrupulously, but he is still much lighter than his equivalent in Somnambulist.

But most of the other superheroes who are hardened and obsessed by the surface of the film appear as informal caricatures, with little to communicate about the world of art or the work that drives it. Collette is a pleasant on-screen presence as she promises to legislate with her former museum employees and new clients, brandishing the promise of buying works of art from her family. Worth millions of dollars, in the manner of a club at peaks. Ashton is a pretty likeable figure as she tries to shake off her boss's stiletto heel. But most of the main characters are naughty from a seemingly lifeless note, aside from abusing employees and racking up sales.

That's why their reaction to Dease's art is so fascinating. Everyone who watches his paintings instantly recognizes their artistic value before turning to their financial worth. His paintings move them emotionally, but Gilroy does not spend enough time researching why and how their engagement in his work changes history. A disposable scene reveals that Dease used his own blood in his paintings, which may serve as an excuse for his posthumous bond with them, but can also explain their magical power over people. Or maybe it was only an inspiring talent. If Gilroy knows the difference, he does not put it on the screen.

And that's where you miss the opportunity to usefully comment on it and make Velvet Buzzsaw as memorable and powerful as Somnambulist. Gilroy does not seem to have a coherent direction for his questions about the rights of artists, and the fact that art can be so creative and moving that the right of people to see it overrides the right of the artist. Artist to destroy it. He suggests that practically everyone in the art is corrupt, venal and superficial – but when they come face to face with something real, he does not examine what it means, he kills them for having it coveted. Like Dease, he built a fascinating world only to destroy it. It may be his right, but we have the feeling that Velvet Buzzsaw could have been so much more than a slightly comical moral tale and a horror of haunted object where bad people are having bad ends. The frame created by Gilroy here is much more captivating than he did with it.

What should be noted?

At least one PG-13, for badual situations and bloody ruckus. The MPAA may well be at maximum speed, given the most grotesque images, but it is a little difficult to take seriously even the bloodiest death, given the deliberately comical elements of the film.

How can I actually watch it?

In the USA, Velvet Buzzsaw hits Netflix on February 1st.