{"id":6777,"date":"2017-03-22T10:30:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=6777"},"modified":"2017-03-22T12:06:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T11:06:26","slug":"rey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2017\/03\/22\/rey\/","title":{"rendered":"Rey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rey\"<\/a>
Rey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nSeen at IFFR, Rotterdam (Netherlands)<\/a>

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nDirector:<\/B> Niles Atallah

\nWriter:<\/B> Niles Atallah

\nCast:<\/B> Claudio Riveros, Rodrigo Lisboa

\nChile, France, Netherlands, Germany, Qatar 2016

\n90 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Rey<\/I> is to be admired for the vision, commitment and sheer determination of the filmmaker.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Perhaps the sheer eclecticism of the producers behind Rey<\/I> \u2013 from Chile, France, Netherlands, Germany and Qatar \u2013 somehow echos the sheer eclecticism of the film itself. This wildly ambitious, experimental piece, which had its World Premiere at IFFR as part of the Hivos Tiger Competition, transcends many of the criticisms made of the previous films while at the same time ironically embracing many of those same critiques. It\u2019s visionary, brave, memorable, but it also occasionally slips off of that aesthetic and intellectual tightrope of pretension\/non-pretension, with little chance of this particular dialectic finding (or even seeking) resolution. <\/p>\n

The PR claims that the director, Niles Atallah, shot segments of the film as early as 2011 and \u2018buried the 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm film in his back garden\u2019 for later inclusion in Rey<\/I> as narrative devices to illustrate \u2018deteriorating memories\u2019, wild visions of the protagonist\u2019s developing madness, and to raise \u2018problems of history and memory\u2019 by including these degraded visual and aural images into the final film. Atallah also developed his story with plotting devices such as puppets, masks and stop-motion animation, in addition to the scratched and disfigured celluloid exhumations. These devices and more are brought to bear on a story about a real-life but largely forgotten19th-century French lawyer and adventurer named Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, who travelled to Patagonia bearing a written constitution \u2013 composed by himself \u2013 and declared himself King. He travelled a difficult journey through untrammeled wilderness before reaching his destination and meeting with the local Mapuche tribes, who he undertook to rule over but also protect. He later minted coins, designed a flag and appointed ministers to his \u2018kingdom\u2019, which was not endorsed by French or Chilean authorities. Considered to be mad, he pressed on with his plans for the rest of his life, and after legal proceedings and deportation, finally died back in France. <\/p>\n

The film recounts the story using experimental cinematic methods that culminate in a theatrical experience where Norman McLaren meets Terry Gilliam meets Herzog\u2019s Aguirre, the Wrath of God<\/I><\/a>, mixed with Fitzcarraldo<\/I><\/a>. And even this description of some of the DNA that can be discerned in Atallah\u2019s film doesn\u2019t quite do it justice. Rey<\/I> is a singular work and is to be admired for the vision, commitment and sheer determination of the filmmaker. The film is successful in many ways, but does occasionally slip into self-conscious affectation and slightly pretentious artifice. In the days of Midnight Movies \u2013 aided and abetted by certain psychotropic \u2018refreshments\u2019 \u2013 where the likes of El Topo<\/I><\/a>, 2001: a Space Odyssey<\/I> and Eraserhead<\/I><\/a> triumphed, I think Rey<\/I> would have found a theatrical home.<\/p>\n

James B. Evans<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Niles Atallah’s film is to be admired for the vision, commitment and sheer determination of the filmmaker.
\nReview by James B. Evans<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[1403],"class_list":["post-6777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-festivals","tag-iffr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/surUP-rey","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4904,"url":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/09\/22\/the-editor\/","url_meta":{"origin":6777,"position":0},"title":"The Editor","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"September 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have done the impossible by creating a film that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time. 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