Avant Garde film is not for everyone. Lacking a narrative or sometimes a clear purpose can definitely alienate your casual movie goer. It’s likely, that Avant Garde filmmakers want to do exactly that. Manifesto is an interesting film, that originated as an art piece that was then edited into a feature to be entered into the Festival circuit.
Manifesto is definitely interesting to see
The film features Cate Blanchett playing over a dozen characters. Majority of the narration or dialogue is Blanchett reading manifestos from a variety of places. It feels nearly impossible to remember all, or really any, of the spoken words in the film. Nevertheless, a clear theme emerged as the characters come on and off-screen that all of the manifestos mention art.
Blanchett is amazing and transforms into almost unrecognizable characters. Each one is distinctive and set in their own world. The worlds that are created by Julian Rosefeldt to house Blanchett’s performance are visually stunning and often hilarious. One of the scenes has Blanchett saying grace before lunch with her family and is hilarious as the manifesto being used as grace is interesting.
It’s a film that will likely not be seen by large audiences, but it is intriguing. Rosefeldt seems to be pushing the idea of the importance of art by using these manifestos as evidence. Why have so many impactful manifestos included the subject if it was something to be dismissed as nothing more than a pastime. As a film critic, teacher, and writer this concept was enough to make the film important. Add in a tremendous showcase of Blanchett with stunning visuals and this is a film worth watching. Manifesto gets the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
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