“Every family has a secret.” This tagline tops the poster for master Director Francis Ford Coppola’s new work. The poster, with its starkly beautiful black-and-white photography, is captivating and stunning. The film, with its starkly beautiful black-and-white photography, is not.
The opening shot, a surreal image of flies buzzing on a blindingly white light bulb watched by the troubled eyes of Tetro (Vincent Gallo), sets the tone for what is to come: not the surreal tale of a family’s cyclical descents into self-destruction, but countless shots of angst-ridden eyes staring mysteriously into the distance. And Tetro is not alone – his estranged brother Bennie (newcomer Alden Ehrenreich) does it, as do his lover Miranda (Maribel Verdú) and his über-famous composer father, Carlo (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Their eyes are the windows to this film’s soul. Open those windows, however, and you’ll see just how much soul lies within: Not much.
This is a story of good intentions gone wrong. Bennie thinks his surprise visit to Buenos Aires to see Tetro will be seen as a family reunion, not a rude interruption. Tetro, locked away in self-imposed exile, retells his terrible past in an unfinished play that he protects by writing backwards and in military code, so that his tragedies remain his own. Coppola expects his stunning visuals, sexy actors, and sensual settings to divert our attention away from his lackluster story. All three men are wrong. Uneven in tone and unsure in its direction, the story meanders along and stumbles into Local Flavor potholes full of drag shows, mandolins, and subtitles. Coppola, working from his own script, puts far less heart into his characters and their words, compared to the energy expended to make pretty, metaphoric images. Make no mistake – you won’t see a film as visually striking as Tetro this year. Coppola and Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. subscribe to Orson Welles’ theory that the best performances are in black-and-white. Story deficiencies aside, the trio of lead performances, never burdened by the distractions of color, are stellar, especially Ehrenreich. Young, virile, and teeming with that almost-over-the-edge energy, he reminds me of some magic mix of James Dean, Emile Hirsch, and James Franco. Where the acting falters, ironically, is in color flashback interludes that depict the family’s slow, melodramatic demise. Welles, like every other of his opinions on cinema, was right.
That Coppola was able to coax his actors to breathe any kind of life into his empty script is a true testament to his skills as a Director. What happened between The Conversation and Tetro, I’m not sure. The former is a nuanced, claustrophobic character piece, while the latter is a few drafts from a complete film. The metaphors and thematic arcs are all present, but the means – dialogue, scenes, plot points – of getting there aren’t yet fully fleshed-out. With a few rewrites, I’m sure this could’ve been one of the year’s best. Without it, Coppola has made a flawed, seemingly personal story that falls flat, but does so more spectacularly and more assuredly than any film in recent memory.
And that’s just it – like Tetro or Bennie, transfixed by the tumultuous memories brought about by the glare of a white-hot light, I absolutely could not look away from the screen, no matter how tepid, distant or unbelievable the story became. Coppola recovers from his screenwriting debacles with droves of directorial confidence and visual flair. The tipping point for your reaction to this film comes near its conclusion, when the family’s secret is finally revealed. You’ll either gasp in awe, amazed at how subtly Coppola layered hints into our cinematic subconscious, or you’ll gasp in awe, amazed at how out-of-left-field and illogical it is. I, card-carrying member of the latter group, am convinced that Coppola tacked his ending onto the film in a manner as haphazard as Bennie’s rushed decision to co-opt Tetro’s play as his own and produce it. The finished play, “Wander Lust,” makes it into a prestigious festival, but leaves without an award, thanks to the egos of its creators. Tetro and all its pretension had no chance for an award at Cannes because Coppola moved it into the non-competition Directors’ Fortnight. Notice the connection?
Clarence Hammond
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009