In a time where tabloid over-exposure has overtaken rarefied mystique, Berger knows his catalogue of silver screen shockers is ripe for exploitation. Maybe a book. Maybe a film. Maybe just spilling his guts to another director. Whatever the plan, even in his mentally and physically deteriorated state he knows it is the only capital he has left. Ain't no renaissance going to happen here.
So Horvath's film becomes an exercise in decrepit restraint. Restraint in what Berger gives over in his increasingly more frenetic interviews (which is to say, nothing). Decrepit in what he offers in its place: sexual bartering, extended masturbation scenes and a downright frightening money shot.
Basically, he is the modern expression of the dirt he claims to have on the industry of yesterday.
In the place of exposé, Horvath makes the most of the material he has on offer, pumping up its grotesquerie with macabre music, bleak shots of the Alps and an cleaning bucket take on Berger's life thanks to his less-than-circumspect cleaning woman.
The whole process raises questions not just of the morality of the act of indulging the subject (Berger doesn't appear to have his faculties intact) but whether the film is a piece of performance in itself. Neither question can be considered in isolation, nor can the latter be sufficiently disentangled from a life lived under a fawning spotlight. All life in the public eye is a form of prostitution. Berger has more than evidently come to terms with that.
We're "lucky" enough to share in the spoils.
★★★☆
Trailer:
Helmut Berger, Actor screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.
You can check out other films from the festival here.
You can check out other films from the festival here.
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