THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
Tyler Taormina, here’s a name to remember. All in sensations and sketches, the cinema of the young American director and independent producer, based in Los Angeles, installs the viewer in a sweet strangeness. Somewhere between Robert Altman’s naturalist kitsch (Nashville, 1975) and the soaring rhythm of David Lynch (Twin peaks, 1990), never in the cruelty of Larry Clark (Kids, 1995) nor in the sublime tragic by Sofia Coppola (Virgin Suicides, 1999). Unveiled in Locarno, in 2019, this first feature film, Ham on Rye, rhymes with false harmony and out of tune rhythms of youth, at the moment when it is about to pass into adulthood. This sumptuously photographed film revisits adolescent languor and boredom while remaining on the threshold, suspending the action as if to stick to the indecision of its protagonists.
The director himself grew up on Long Island, a suburb of “pizzerias, delicatessen and bagels”, sort of “third places” between home and work.
Almost nothing is identifiable in this clean suburb of the middle class American, except that there floats in the air a festive atmosphere which is slow to begin. There is this lighter that nobody manages to light, in this green park where children seem to be statuettes, waiting for something. In the houses, there are these young people who put on their “31” with a little apprehension, in a ballet of tangy colors and close-ups attached to accessories (hairstyle, bag, belt…). They are all getting ready to go to Monty, a local restaurant where delicious sandwiches await them (including one with ham, hence the title Ham on Rye).
The director himself grew up on Long Island, a suburb “Pizzerias, delicatessen and bagels” as he likes to say, sort of “Third places” between home and work. The idea came to him to imagine a rite of passage in a mythical space, the Monty, where adolescents would experience a decisive day, the time of a codified celebration. The thumbs up means acceptance to dance, to pass a course. A kiss, a life project maybe, anything (or nothing) can happen.
Herd idea
Twenty-seven minutes to set the scene, ogle faces and “faces”. Time stretches like a pastel marshmallow. Suits too big, shiny foreheads, overflowing varnish, a whirlwind start in the family station wagon for some, walking for others. Three graces in white and lace dresses prefer to walk, taking advantage of the space-time to confront their dreams and their desires, one of them satisfying the most urgent and ringing the door of a pretty house to go to the bathroom. They feel like queens, except for Haley (Haley Bodell), who pouted and looked like a sheep being led to the slaughterhouse.
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