It was the Whispers That Killed Me occurs in a universe which relates with the foreign only through an image politics. Arthur Tuoto’s new feature film narrates the story of an actress (Ingrid Savoy) who is on the verge of debuting on a reality show amidst a social turmoil caused by anarchist groups and her own fans. It is set in one location only: the hotel, unnamed and transitory, where the main character spends her time with her therapist (Carla Rodrigues) and her director (Otavio Linhares). The film lives between this interior space we never leave and an aggressive exterior that seems to choke characters.
This coldly clinical approach can already be seen in Tuoto’s performances: his actors interpret their texts in an almost minimalistic fashion that sometimes reminds us of French filmmaker Robert Bresson’s style, when he has his actors recite dialogue as directly as possible without trying to add any emotion to it, simply letting its rhythms flow through them like during oral recitation. This goes along with a stage construction intentionally theatricalized, where actors’ movements are constantly marked within their restricted spaces of movement.
The central question asked is how to survive in a world whose last political form is making images; artificial iconography, that is, and this takes the shape of Ingrid Savoy as an actress who exists necessarily as an object for contemplation a light capable of attracting both paparazzi flashes and anarchist organizations’ rage. And performance seems important because performance becomes a tool for self-narratives modulation under power here since acting, in this case, capitalism as process where all relations with outside are constructed through imaginary iconographic commodities
David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (2012) could be remembered when it comes to this film’s clear-eyed cynicism towards the rot of that world; both are set in a world in crisis perceived through a place of privilege: Tuoto’s through an exclusive hotel, Cronenberg’s through the limousine. But it is here that Whispers That Killed Me shows its biggest weakness: if Cronenberg is a filmmaker who believes in things having substance, whether they be bodies or objects, then Tuto fails to create any visual logic that does justice to the intellectual concept of his text.
The problem lies with mise-en-scène itself being very weak; there is no sensuality or powerful physicality among these ruins as we find in some of Cronenbergs best works. The direction lacks any kind of visual dynamism which would have made us enter into this universe sensorially and it seems like there was not enough work put into creating frames and shots so that they end up looking like they could belong to any other movie ever made giving them an icy senselessness instead.
It is at least ironic that a film such as this one about the power images can have over entire masses should care so little for its own imagery. Most of the development takes place in shots and reverse shots which do not give that space, nor depth required for viewer to almost inhabit universe (as with Cronenberg but also say directors working with language based on near theatrical purification like filmmakers Straub Huillet). Instead we get only lukewarm pictures, almost composed in an amateurish and quick way, without necessary attention paid to their potential power.
However even though failing at these basics there still remains something extremely interesting which must be noted about film; especially within context Tiradentes exhibition: it’s hard liking this movie. In each character from Tuoto’s universe there is an underlying cynicism looking only for means to modulate power within image hierarchy, and destruction of environment always seen as opportunity for exploitation chance climb social ladder through vast cultural vacuum.
And in our world where images constantly inhabit imagination and relationship with external reality, such work manages poke an open sore quite effectively. It’s like intellectual text acting a kind manifesto but failing as cinema unfortunately.
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