Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee
In spite of the seeming stylistic mimesis and the narrative adherence to more conventional products, the autoschediastic adventure of Shane Meadows and Paddy Considine is animated by a subtly critical form of cultural ventriloquism that informs as much as it entertains its audience. Devised to sabotage the farraginous logics of showbiz through a fulminous attack on both form and content, ‘Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee’ conjures up the sacrilegious signs of a subverted signified in the form of a farcical deridocumentary.
The colloquial prose and the stripped aesthetics transmogrify vulgarity into poetry regaling the spectator with a calibrated mix of satire and grotesque romanticism. The way improvisation meets poetical sagaciousness represents perhaps the most striking feature of a film whose – only apparent – superficiality becomes the programmatic cipher of a courageous project trying to undermine the productive regime in which creativity is insipidly channeled.
Considine’s performance is superb; he disguises dramaturgic mindfulness behind Le Donk’s churlis moves constantly articulating multiple interpretative levels feeding a meta-cinematographic scope where the ‘eternal reality show’ is harshly questioned and its degenerate consequences brought back to earthly considerations. The tiny van transcends into a symbol of touching humility where scenes of oneiric evocativeness take place traversed by cracking situations of human imperfection.
Stardom is anti-didactically deconstructed via the exposure of its pompous magniloquence and ultimate soullessness, in the romantic cloddish diversions of Le Donk and his pupil lies the essence of an exhilarating back-to-basic, where silliness begs critical appreciation.
The film is being released on the 9th of October, DVD released 26th of October.
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