Manifesto

— This is Cate Blanchett showing off her acting chops and, I'm sure, a lot more but my knowledge of 20th century art just isn't up to fully understanding what's going on. She plays 13 characters, including a school teacher, factory worker, funeral orator, choreographer, punk, anchorwoman, CEO, scientist, puppeteer, widow, and a homeless man. Each character embodies a different “art manifesto”—things like Pop Art, Situationism, Stridentism, Suprematism, Futurism, Dadaism, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Fluxus Art, and Dogma 95. The dialogue is a mix of musings from philosophers, painters, filmmakers, and artists, wrapped into 13 personas that sometimes seem antithetical or placed in surprising situations. It has humor and passion, but I couldn’t help but wish I’d known more about the various manifestos before seeing the film. People who were at the screening with me seemed to either love or hate the film—no one escaped without a reaction. It was originally presented as a Berlin and New York art installation with 13 screens, one for each character, and more recently packaged as a film. (Shown at True/False Film Fest 2017.)

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[2016. 94 min. Written and directed by Julian Rosefeldt. Starring Cate Blanchett.]
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/manifesto-review-967077/