Madonna´s directorial debut, “Filth and Wisdom,” premiered this week at the Berlin Film Festival, and the early verdict?
The international superstar doesn’t embarrass herself.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett sort of compliments the film and sort of slams it, writing, “Ragged, uneven and potholed with some dire dialogue and performances, the film’s cockeyed optimism and likable leads conspire to bring a smile by the time it’s done. Barely feature length at 81 minutes, it will likely appeal to Madonna’s fans for its echoes of various threads of her own life story and the grunge style of ‘Desperately Seeking Susan.’ To many, however, it will remain an oddity.”
Sheila Johnston in the Telegraph also has mixed feelings. Her review reads, “Madonna describes ‘Filth and Wisdom’ as ‘essentially my way of putting myself through film school,’ and it is an extremely canny assessment. The movie is — disappointingly, perhaps — not an outright embarrassment; there are even a couple of intentional laughs in it. It’s not an entirely unpromising first effort. But the director would do well to hang on to her day job.”
And the trend continues over at the London Times, which ultimately recommends the film. The paper’s review concludes, “despite its many shortcomings and an ending so mushy and neat it would embarrass Richard Curtis, Madonna has done herself proud. Her film has an artistic ambition that has simply bypassed her husband, the film director Guy Ritchie. She captures that wonderfully accidental nature of luck when people’s lives intersect for a whole swathe of unlikely but cherishable reasons.”
At the very least, the film stands to bring more attention to the music of the eight-piece Gogol Bordello. Lead singer Eugene Hutz plays the narrator/main character in “Filth and Wisdom,” a wannabe musician who ends up trafficking in the bondage trade, and falls for his neighbor, a wannabe ballerina-turned-stripper.
The music of Hutz and Gogol Bordello supposedly dots the film, and the band’s gypsy punk is a bit removed from the music associated with Madonna. Gogol Bordello mixes songs of politics, religion, sex and booze with an Eastern European flair and a rebel’s attitude, and the act’s “Super Taranta” is the place to start.
Source: The Envelope