With the Covid restrictions continuing to impact the Netherlands, the International Film Festival in Rotterdam is once again hosting this year’s festival as an online experience. This has meant that they had to readjust their programme slightly, but it is still packed with quality, and some surprising features. One of those is Freaks Out from director Gabriele Mainetti, bringing us a bizarre tale of circus freaks and Nazis.
Initially this opens with quite a traditional period piece set in a German occupied Rome during World War Two, although at first the war is definitely at arm’s length. This soon changes though, and reality comes crashing into the foreground, altering the course of our main characters lives forever.
The story here focuses mainly on four characters: Fulvio (Claudio Santamaria) – a strong wolf-man, Cencio (Pietro Castellitto) – who is able to control insects, Mario (Giancarlo Martini) – a magnetic dwarf clown, and Mathilde (Aurora Giovinazzo) – who controls electricity. Alongside them is their father figure Israel (Giorgio Tirabassi) who runs the circus, but who doesn’t appear to have any special powers himself. After the circus is destroyed during a bombing raid the group find themselves at a crossroads as Israel disappears and the group splits up. Mathilde is determined to find Israel, while the rest decide to travel across country to join the Zirkus Berlin, run by Franz (Franz Rogowski).
While Franz is also a freak and able to play the piano remarkably well, having six fingers on each hand, what they don’t know is that he can also see into the future through abusing ether, and is a delusional, homicidal maniac. This fanatical Nazi officer is determined to find the four mysterious figures he sees in his visions, as he knows they could turn the tide of the war. This search brings the two groups’ journeys colliding head on.
Through this tale, there are targets the narrative is trying to explore, such as finding ones power, tolerance, having proper agency, and in some cases the desperate need to prove oneself. Some of this is achieved, while other parts are less developed. It would have been interesting to know more about their individual histories for instance, beyond the small details we are given. What we do have though is a film that stands in two camps. On one hand it’s about the individual, and on the other it makes statements on a grander scale.
None of this is obviously particularly innovative and we’ve seen many times before where films have tried to mix whimsy, comedy, and the horrors of war. In some ways this is a mix between Tarantino, Terry Gilliam and Guillermo Del Toro, but also has the spirit of films such as Iron Sky and Life is Beautiful. It would be a stretch to say Freaks Out is completely aiming to have the emotional depth of some of the films it references, but it is also very aware of what it is doing and what it is trying to deliver. You definitely have to enter this experience ready to embrace the world it creates and engage it in the right spirit.
Throughout the film, Mainetti and his cinematographer Michele D’Attanasio reference familiar cinema styles giving this a rich visual look and many parts seem very much inspired by the work of Jeunet & Caro, in the best way possible. They are also not shy in peppering the whole film with pop culture references from the obvious such as Wizard of Oz and Charlie Chaplin, to the MCU, Mel Brooks or 90s rock.
At its core, amongst the quality visuals you have actors who have relished the roles they’ve taken on, with Rogowski and Giovinazzo especially shining with their committed performances. On one hand Rogowski embodies the preposterous caricature of Franz, while Giovinazzo supplies much of the heart. These two are definitely at the centre of the film and though at the beginning it seems like it will be fully an ensemble piece, it definitely ends up more focused on that pair.
It would be easy to dismiss this film as a distasteful and strange mish-mash, but that would mean missing out on what could be described as an enjoyable and very odd cinematic experience. For the audience that like the strange, this will definitely have its cult following and many genre fans will recognise the value here. Whether this will ever gain a broader audience than that has yet to be seen, but if you take it on its own terms there is much to enjoy here.
