Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (La Chimera, Happy as Lazzaro) collaborates with French photographer and street artist JR (Faces, Places) to deliver a stunning short film named An Urban Allegory. Now available to watch on Mubi, this 21-minute short film takes inspiration from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and also stars celebrated French director Leos Carax (Holy Motors, The Lovers on the Bridge). (Also read: Dahomey review: Mati Diop’s probing documentary on restitution of stolen artefacts makes for essential viewing)
Is Leos Carax the allegory himself?
An Urban Allegory strikes a beautiful balance between the two directors’ creative styles, similar in the sense that both of these artists look at the world embedded upon a layer hidden from plain sight. The inclusion of Leos Carax here works in a crucial way: he is the messenger as well the message, a secret as well as its keeper. In a roundtable interaction that Hindustan Times attended, Alice Rohrwacher and JR gushed about working with Leos Carax and described as a ‘real surprise’.
Alice says, “We had to decide who is that character, one who puts the seed of a thought in the child. We know some of these characters because we have met such people in our lives. In that case it might be voluntary, but it might be also involuntary, but they help you to think about something that you were not thinking before. So who are those people? They are the fugitives, all those people that help you to think. They are the fugitive from the cave! They are the one that Plato tells us, of the ones who escaped from the cave and went back to talk to the other prisoners.”
She went on to add, “So who is that fugitive for us? There are many directors, many artists who are fugitives for us. One that came to our mind was Leos Carax, as an example of such a fugitive from the cave! Someone who escaped from the cave! So we asked him if he wanted to be a part of the project and he accepted. We were very happy because he is such a great presence and actor of course, but also for us he was a symbol of something else.”
‘He came ready as an actor to jump into the process’
JR adds how surprised he was to find Leos Carax on set, and the way he responded to the material. He adds, “When Alice brought that idea, I was like… wow, I know him more as a director than as an actor and so I was trying to imagine and she was like, ‘It doesn’t matter how he conveys the message, he embodies it!’ It is true and he was a real surprise on set. He was there, sharp on time, ready. He came ready as an actor to jump into the process. The way he embodied the urban allegory and shared it to the audience was actually his own way and it could not have been better. Like Alice says, he embodied it in life. That is who he is! It could not have been a better person to do that.”
“We feel very honoured and humbled to have those memories with him on set. We were pinching ourselves with Alice, and were like ‘Oh my god! We have Leos, right here! Go say something!’ We had a beautiful day, specially in the theatre we shot in Paris, a beautiful theatre that also embodies that same idea. We were realizing the chance we had while we were shooting it also!” he remarked.
An Urban Allegory is now streaming on Mubi.
