In a delightful scramble of ego, pride, and privilege, Penélope Cruz enters the stage as a high-powered director who deviously plays on the tension between her lead actors, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez.
★★★★★
It takes no small amount of skill to deliver a film about the film industry in a way that inspires both admiration and incredulous hilarity in equal degrees. Official Competition achieves this balance as we watch eccentric, dominatrix arthouse director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) suspend a car-sized boulder — which she claims symbolises the pressure of the law — above her actors’ heads to elicit an authentic portrayal of mounting tension and fear (“Use it, use it!”). The actors huff, grumble, and shift uncomfortably as the crane creaks ominously above them, both believing that the activity is wholly unnecessary in the face of their formidable talent. The bizarre scene serves to shed light on and interrogate the process of filmmaking as remarkable, ridiculous, and inevitably a competition of vanity, where egos spark and collide.
Fittingly, Official Competition opens with one man’s vain quest for immortality; a celebrated public image that preserves forever his own brilliance. Brooding in an empty office after celebrating his 80th birthday, pharmaceuticals billionaire Humberto Suárez (José Luis Gómez) decides to reframe his legacy by financing a movie (he grapples for a while between this or building a large bridge). To ensure its greatness he buys the hefty rights to an award-winning book — which he has not even bothered to read — and employs eccentric, electric director Lola Cuevas and top actors Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) and Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas). However the completed film, documenting the tragic story of two estranged brothers, is never actually seen. Instead, the movie consists of a series of absurd cast rehearsals and exercises, where Lola deviously torments Félix and Iván in the name of artistic truth while they compete for her approval and recognition. In this way, directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn spin a fiercely intelligent and humorous satire of filmmaking, which increasingly builds tension between the three characters before culminating in an unexpected, crashing climax.
Official Competition manages to effectively strip down the lofty importance of cinema through its sublimely crafted and cast protagonists, who all reveal a different facet of ego in the film world and hilariously mix like oil and water. Félix is a vacuous global sensation who drives a flashy red convertible and propounds the use of menthol sticks for onscreen tears. His self-importance stems from his vast collection of awards, and status as veritable prince of the people. In contrast, Iván is a teacher who favors the craft of deep, immersive acting, pretentiously scorns artistic competition and recognition, and insists that he will never fly first class. As opposed to Félix, he is self-righteous in his commitment to serious art and abstinence from the mainstream. Naturally, the two take a palpable dislike to one another, and their strikingly different approaches to their craft alongside their shared egotism result in them clashing in increasingly amusing ways.
However, the real highlight here is Lola. With her flaming mane of red hair and glittering golden pants, she is the creative force that descends upon them both, fanning the flames of their rivalry and laying bare their self-importance before splintering it apart. In one particularly noteworthy scene, she mummifies both actors together in clingfilm and performs a decidedly wicked lesson in ego with an industrial metal shredder. Nevertheless, this is not to say that her character does not also ridicule the privilege and vanity of film. Staff silently clean up in the wake of her manic creative process and we are left wondering whether her art is perhaps just another narcissistic ego trip, which assumes paramount importance and unapologetically forgets the realities of the world.
The cinematic use of space serves to further build on and emphasise the film’s compelling satire. The main body of the film takes place within the Suárez foundation, a mammoth structure filled with glass-walled rooms, desolate lecture theatres, immaculately clean-cut stone courts, and smooth marble surfaces. Strikingly, apart from a few cleaners and assistants, it is entirely empty save for Lola, Félix, and Iván. This detached, remote set refracts the characters’ sense of ego and the alienated, insular nature of the filmmaking process. The characters are framed alone and apart from reality, in a massive sanctum of opulence and success where mirrors multiply their presence and allow them to further admire themselves.
Nevertheless, this is perhaps not a straightforward mockery of cinema. There remains room for genuine celebration of film as Duprat and Cohn make use of sound and form in inventive, thought-provoking, and beautiful ways. Lola’s creative and often absurdist process — including the creation of mismatched collage faces, a production notebook filled with hair and pieces of fabric, and uncomfortable experimentation with sound in a kissing rehearsal — cannot help but draw forth a kind of fascination. This is helped by the fact that Lola’s artistic methods evidently work; Félix and Iván do get better as she tests and pushes them towards the realms of ‘artistic suffering’.
Ultimately, Official Competition is a sharp and self-aware reflection on the ethics of art and the film industry. Its characters, all evenly matched in their own unique flavour and shape of narcissism, riotously come together to lay bare the bones of filmmaking as an over-stated competition of ego. However, what makes this film stand out as more than just another parody is its compelling and effective use of artistic devices, which realise the merit of what art is supposed to do: make you feel something. Simultaneously a mockery and celebration of the artistic process, this is a film that raises important questions about the authenticity and truth of filmmaking.
The Verdict
Official Competition brings together a critically acclaimed cast to execute a witty and self-aware reflection on the film world. The black humour and strange beauty of this film act as both satire and celebration, leaving audiences reflective and thoroughly entertained.
Words by Natasha Matsaert
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