“Theoretically, an even much more paranoid conspiratorial phone call”: Thrilling Exasperating Tension Through Film Form In A Peruvian Science Fiction/Espionage Movie directed by Jorge Villacorta.

Casa Museo Leonidas Zegarra Presents: Theoretically, an even much more paranoid conspiratorial phone call (2021). Written and directed by: Jorge Villacorta

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3141255193

Style is for Jorge Villacorta a main concern when dealing with the feature film materiality. Unrelentingly, the hyphenated writer-director-editor-actor-producer designs his movies for the already initiated connoisseur who, habituated to practicing the aesthetic distance, can point out the formal original traits with whom he replenishes his artwork once and again. That he has a bet on an almost mute film composed of one 84 minutes 37 seconds shot, unquestionably characterizes a demiurge obsessed with fulfilling his own dreams and, at the same time, a knowledgeable art scholar who theoretically understands the social tensions that define the art field, reminding us of Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Luis Buñuel, etc., makers  whose cultural backgrounds guided them to initiate provocative wanderings along the frontiers that limited their fields of cultural production at their times.

Theoretically, an even much more paranoid conspiratorial phone call saliently shows a technique that Jorge Villacorta has applied In the previous two feature films he directed: Theoretically, a paranoid conspiratorial phone call (August 8, 2020) and Theoretically, an even more paranoid conspiratorial phone call (May 13, 2021.) It can be conceptualized as the underexposed idea. The popular aesthetic states that a captivating movie should (must) depict as much material details as possible to facilitate identification with the story told. Jorge Villacorta, who looks at the movies as art, provides an appealing storyline, and a few or several strong images without bending his knee to pretended film language rules used by the mainstream media. He prefers the ten minute shot or, as in his last movie, the continuous shot. And not a virtuous continuous shot, but a static one with a subject (himself impersonating The Boss) who hardly moves. So, the underexposed idea is created by what seem to be subemployed film techniques, including their “inadequate employment”, “unemployment”, and “underemployment.” Such disregard for what the analogy suggests should be ideal working conditions for the film techniques is his trademark! His filmmaking tessitura is made of this minimal use, perfectly recognizable as a director’s will forcing the medium to express his intention. As observers we have paradigms, and this style appropriates a localized area in the space of potential alternatives emanating from hypothetical film techniques combinations.

For those of us who value these movies and their formal characteristics, their consumption requires our participation in ways totally different from those feature films that follow the industrial model. An account of such practice may be the subject of another article. Let’s finish underlining that Theoretically, an even much more paranoid conspiratorial phone call delivers strong emotions to a specialized market.

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14791474/