Chloë Sevigny plays a perplexed producer of guerrilla style docos in Amalia Ulman’s absurdist comedy Magic Farm.
Yanks tank as a misguided American documentary crew working for a mini mogul media company led by Simon Rex’s character, Dave, travel to rural Argentina to profile a local musician but though a catastrophic communication breakdown end up in the wrong small town, in a different country entirely.
As they collude and collide with locals to fabricate a viral trend with the invention of a religious cult, unexpected connections blossom, the crew implodes, and a pernicious environmental crisis looms unacknowledged in the background.
Herbicide contamination, illness, and water toxicity in the farming region is the real story here, not some puerile Tik Tok phenomenon that the film unit has come to film.
With audiences wishing for more screen time from Chloë Sevigny and Simon Rex, there is compensation from Camila del Campo, riveting as a local woman who is a savvy social media entrepreneur, a free spirited female who is more than a match for the self absorbed crew member who takes a shine to her.
MAGIC FARM is a jagged little pill of a picture, with rambunctious performance improvisation and some wildly creative visual flair incorporating birds eye and fish eye lensing.
Writer director Amalia Ulman plays Elena, the translator stuck between cultures, and the film mirrors that predicament.
Shy of being magic realism, MAGIC FARM is not without its “out there” moments, with critter cam and outer space shots. Abstract as well as absurd, with a side serve of satire, it centres on America’s insatiable appetite for celebrity and the superficial, a hunger, alas, that has infected the magic farm of global media.
MAGIC FARM is now streaming on MUBI
