Director: Amalia Ulman
Stars: Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff, Amalia Ulman
Fresh from a brief theatrical run in which it mostly got buried in favour of half-term friendly Hollywood fare, Amalia Ulman’s Magic Farm arrives to stream on MUBI. Ulman’s rough’n’ready, run’n’gun approach is given face here by American indie mascot Chloë Sevigny, who stars as online network presenter Edna, on the hunt for trendsetting content in rural Argentina with her crew.
Background chatter about shitting and vaping clues us in to the shabby, vulgar influencer types backing Edna up, including Alex Wolff’s sensitive fuckboy Jeff and Simon Rex’s quaffed producer Dave, who flees the team (far too soon) to save his reputation in the midst of a social media scandal back home. Ulman herself makes up part of the team as camerawoman Elena, who has confided that she’s in the early days of a pregnancy to Justin (Joe Apollonio).
Together they’re all on the trail of musician Super Carlitos, whose quirky videos have gone viral, but his exact whereabouts prove tricky to identify. As difficult are the group’s comedically frustrated attempts to replicate the creature comforts of home. Charging vapes is as fraught with problems as understanding how the local currency works. Justin’s “I ♥ NY” shirt comes to feel like a paean for home from characters loathe to admit that they’ve strayed too far from their comfort zone.
Coming up short on their goal, the idea is floated to ‘fake’ a trend to report instead. So Magic Farm satirises the frantic and often foolish search for fashionable ‘content’, the reduction of artists and their livelihoods to kooky clickbait, jabbing good-naturedly at online publications chasing after the hipster’s taciturn attention via the exploitation of exoticism. Ulman’s effort is an attempt, conceivably, to apologise for such US abrasiveness on foreign soil, even drafting in local TikTok talents like Mateo Vaquer Ruiz de los Llanos to up her inclusive credibility.
Simon Rex’s appearance here keys into his career second wind established in Sean Baker’s fantastic Red Rocket. Ulman’s lo-fi approach seems in-keeping with that of Baker’s hustle as he came up over the past 20 years. But the deeper Rex cut to investigate as a comparison/companion piece to Magic Farm is Sean Price Williams’ shaggy dog tale The Sweet East, which so charmed last year with its misanthropic observations of American behaviours. There’s a sense from the off that we’re accepting our own culpability in being taken for a ride by Ulman’s straight-faced road to nowhere. Ulman catapults Williams’ studies overseas, picking at tensions exacerbated by various cultural barriers (language, economics, etc.).
The cast are a hoot and incredibly game. Apollonio might prove to be the movie’s comedic breakout, while Wolff delights equally. His Jeff is all floppy postures, lost in lust for young local Manchi (Camila del Campo), both overthinking and oblivious. Sevigny, meanwhile, comes across like a tired matriarch, shepherding the new generation when she’d much rather be at home. This may be one wild goose chase too far for Edna. One journalistic compromise over the line. “You should stop taking so much ketamine; you’re not a pony” is an example of the acerbic shade Edna spits out as her patience wears thin.
Argentina’s an inspired choice here, in the sense that there’s a verdant new wave of cinema emerging in the country right now (or at least, it’s breaking through in western art house circles). Its also a pragmatic one (it’s a co-production). Ulman’s movie might be seen as a kind of puckish overture for further cross-pollination. A spicy proposition.
Doggy-cams, horse dicks and the luridly popping colours of verdant grasslands beneath plastic blue skies further an overripe aesthetic, as do bright wardrobe and furnishing choices. Like it’s hopeful hipsters, Magic Farm is enjoyably garish and rancid. It glows. With an appreciably deft touch when it comes to acknowledging Argentina’s struggles as a developing nation, this slyly substantive effort strengthens Ulman’s credentials as a witty voice interested in the ethics of how we approach the fringe, the foreign and the unknown. For Ulman – as for Edna and her team – the absurd is in the eye of the beholder. And even as it verges on snark, there’s a tenderness here that’s valuable indeed.
The Lost Highway Hotel 