Following a spiritual retirement and a withdrawal from the studio system he once reigned (though never loved), Francis Ford Coppola made a return a few years back, determined to make a return to the kind of personal, wayfaring dramas of his youth, before The Godfather propelled him to mastering big-scale storytelling.
Tetro, unlike his first try from 2007, the enigmatic and relatively experimental Youth Without Youth, is a more straightforward affair. A tale of a troubled dynasty that pits a tortured soul, his estranged brother, and memories of a malevolent genius of a father. It takes the kind of heightened melodrama Coppola was fond of in his earlier films (Rain People comes to mind) and the brooding brotherhood of Rumble Fish (not to mention the black-and-white presentation) and creates this vaguely personal story about living under your father's shadow.
In the slightly seedy, stubbornly artsy world of Buenos Aires' theater world, two Italian-American brothers reunite with a mix of love and hostility, partly born out of deep resentment for the family patriarch, a genius composer with a mean streak, whose lack of support for his sons is matched only by his condescension for their happiness. His response to his own son's talent is a cold "there's room for only one genius in this family."
Vincent Gallo, the controversial filmmaker of his own volition, has cast a rep for himself that makes him a suitable face to play these rough-edged, unpleasant characters-—the kind Coppola cooked up to be his protagonist, the eponymous Tetro. It may be the film's most apparent failure, and Coppola's biggest miscalculation, to think that Tetro can float above his obnoxious behavior by the strength of Gallo's charisma. Gallo plays angry and smarmy well enough, but those traits end up dominating his character rather than complimenting the sympathy his unhappy past and torturous existence are meant to evoke.
The fact that Tetro is a writer and his father is a musician brings to mind Coppola and his own father, The Godfather composer Carmine Coppola. Whether or not their relationship was as jaundiced as it is in the film, whose to say, but it's not a wild conclusion to make since the project as a whole feels intensely intimate, like a cloaked confession of some sort. It's also a lone Coppola original screenplay, something we hadn't seen since The Conversation.
Tetro is unconsciously haunted by an unfinished manuscript he's disowned and hides from everyone: a painful account of his strenuous and bitter relationship with his father. His estranged teenage brother Bennie, meanwhile, whose knowledge of his family is minimal, learns Tetro's story after "accidentally" stumbling into his writing. Bennie is played by Alden Ehrenreich, who makes his feature film debut and comes in on a very impressive start, commanding attention in all of his scenes without the help from a lot of dialogue. It helps that he's always photographed in fantastic shots. HD, apparently, looks best when it's emulating the 16mm indies of yesteryears. And of course, it looks great on Blu-ray, with a sharpness that really pops.
What happens in the film is one revelation after another of their family's tragedies and backstabbing. Coppola formats the flashback scenes in color, but more effective is how they're processed with grain and shrunk to a smaller screen ratio, looking like some kind of omniscient home movie. What better way is there to look into a family's past events?
Tetro's problem is that it's a collection of well-acted and believable scenes that revolve around the same conflict over and over, all pointing to Tetro's inability to reconcile his differences with his father. Unlike Youth Without Youth, which was borderline nonsensical narratively but full of inventive, exciting and emotive sequences, Tetro's highlight sequences tend to involve Vincent Gallo flipping out. Still, despite the stretched script and abrupt dramatic shifts, there's something undeniably transfixing about the film, especially in the way Coppola experiments with inserting flashbacks, stock footage and wildly operatic excerpts from the play-within-the-movie at seemingly random points in the main narrative. This is a filmmaker who's clearly grown weary of linear storytelling and wants to play around with his beloved artform, to see how differently he can tell this story without losing his way. It's almost surprising that he mostly succeeds.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
To know more about the film, a director's commentary is included. Coppola is like a jovial, knowledgeable uncle when he speaks, so it's always warm to listen to him talk about the process. He's also joined by the film's breakout star Alden Ehrenreich, though they recorded their commentary separately.
The film is a technical wonder, so of course there are features dedicated to them—namely the cinematography and music; two elements that made Tetro much more watchable than it probably could've been.
For those interested in the theater aspect depicted, there is a feature on the dance choreographies invented for it, and also a video of the full "Fausta" play that's featured in the film. Most incendiary (and that's what people like to see behind-the-scenes, right?) is the "Rehearsal" feature, where we see Vincent Gallo and Francis Ford Coppola argue about the the merits of rehearsing versus improvising. Gallo, not surprisingly, insists on spontaneity, and isn't shy on letting Coppola know it.
"Tetro" is on sale May 4, 2010 and is rated R. Drama. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Maribel Verdú, Vincent Gallo.
