Talking Shorts: Helplessly free by Daria Sienkiewicz

The text was created as part of the Talking Shorts workshop during Ale Kino! Pro at the 43rd Ale Kino! Festival.

Daria Sienkiewicz reviews „Majonezë”

I would never have imagined that the thick white substance of mayonnaise could be a symbol of liberation or regaining control over one’s life. Yet Giulia Grandinetti, the director of the short film Majonezë, screened at the 43rd Ale Kino! Festival in Poznań, proves it possible. Thanks to the clever use of homophony – “majonezë” in Albanian echoes “ma jep zë”, which literally means “give me a voice” – her short film surprises with its layered treatment of emancipation and dreamlike scenario. This black-and-white tale of suffocating obedience to paternal oppression will likely resonate with any teenager longing to break free from the strict and often senseless rules imposed by adults. As Grandinetti shows, running away without a plan may be reckless, but in extreme circumstances, it can be the right thing to do.

In the small, mountain-ringed town of Ersekë, life drifts along. Young people live under the thumb of elders, dreaming of escaping this gray, desolate dump of a village. Over one of the shepherd families presides a harsh patriarch without a name whose weathered face, always with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, reveals nothing but emptiness, indifference, and an outsized ego. Amusingly and somewhat paradoxically, Julian Jaashar, who plays him, bears a striking resemblance to Old Hollywood heartthrob James Dean, if he spent 20 years in the southeastern Albanian wilderness. The true rebel in this story, however, is his daughter, Elyria (Caterina Bagnulo), who visibly has every reason to push back against her dad.

Grandinetti isn’t afraid to hit the high notes of teenage-girl-dramatism. The script’s excessive sentimentality and overt drama are evident from the opening scene, in which Elyria dreams of her own funeral while wearing a wedding dress. That’s how badly this girl wants to regain control of her life. Forced to marry some old creep, she constantly hears her father barking orders at her: how she should live her life: what to wear, what to eat, and whom she should be having sex with. The fear and contempt visible in the so-called sheep girl’s eyes strike so forcefully that it’s hard not to imagine the violence buried in their relationship. In Majonezë, small gestures, like spitting into a bowl of soup during a family dinner, turn into the boldest acts of emancipation. While a deafening silence fills the visually raw frames, holding a certain inexpressible blend of sadness and beauty, the audience feels the rage simmering within the characters.

The loose and playful visual style signals the sudden escalation of events. When an absurdly cocky immigrant shows up – Alessandro Egger giving us a great parody of the pop-culture bad boy – both Elyria and the director finally find a way to express their imagination and real desires. The tattooed admirer with a bad temper brings a burst of wild energy, suddenly making the film feel almost like a rock music video. Although not all of the narrative threads fully hold together the filmmaker cannot be denied her boldness and ability to bring a sense of order to the chaos in the end. The drifting camera, moving like a racing car, hits campy notes and gives the story the pace it needs. The Italian filmmaker plays with western and road-movie genre conventions, making it hard to label her film as another piece of bleak social realism. And maybe that’s why, after the screening, it feels so tempting to grab the wheel, hit the gas, and drive out of this system for good.