Venezia Roundup: Michael Mann's 'Ferrari' and Stefanie Kolk's 'Melk'

Grief, the the lost child: a driving force

One thing that struck me coming out from Michael Mann’s uneven but compelling Ferrari today was what ended up captivating me the most, wasn’t what really drew me in to begin with. Did not expect to find a night at the opera or a scene of letter writing to engage me as much as the racing scenes. Which isn’t to say the technical elements of those sequences didn’t live up to expectation; I’d say those were all pretty well done. And I could go into some detail about some of the weaker elements, like some of the weird editing of subplots together and some supporting players getting the short shrift.

What’s stayed with me most is the soap operatic swings it takes in Il Commendatore’s (Adam Driver) lifestyle, where it seems like he’s constantly waging a war within and outside with friend, foe and a little bit of both. It can be a bit unwieldy at points (Penelope Cruz has some knockout moments in a performance that is unfortunately also undercut by some repetitive writing) and its relentlessly downbeat execution of this style. I found how miserable this film really is in so many regards quite compelling - every moment of glory, every prestige beat, is undercut by some kind of bad shit happening.

But I liked it. And thus making it striking how the most potent element of the film for me, is how its respites and most tender moments are sort of when it goes ‘First Mann’, so to speak. When reflecting on Enzo’s sense of loss in the deceased son Alfredo, and trying to find ways to bring his other son Pierro with Lina Mardi (Shailene Woodley), a spark of life comes into Driver’s meticulously compartmentalised businessman, expertly unravelling a more broken but warmer side to him. There’s a scene where Enzo enthusiastically goes into detail to his son about racecar logistics that soon segues into racing as a passion that hasn’t left my mind since seeing it, and I may have shed a little tear.

The same can be said of Dutch director Stefanie Kolk’s Melk. I film I have no either what the general response to it is (nor Ferrari to be perfectly honest, I’m in a bit of a film watching daze today), but I found affected me in a strangely similar way to the near 100 M blockbuster racing film in its examination of grief. I went into Melk expecting something a bit more odd and offbeat. By the time I finished watching it, I was a bit annoyed at myself for thinking that. Because what’s odd about the conceit of a woman deciding to donate breastmilk she’s been producing for a stillborn child? I must admit it’s a topic and way of looking at the loss of a child I’ve never quite seen before in cinema.

Melk is led by Frieda Barnhard’s engaging turn which has something of a Paula Beer quality to it. There’s something so enigmatic yet worldly about the way she carries her Robin onscreen, that makes every step of her journey so vividly real. Because the film immediately puts us into Robin’s situation, where the bad news has already been given and the delivery of the stillborn child is already in the process. The film goes about this in such an unfussy fashion, not shying away by how mundane and tiresome it can be, down to the breast pumping of breast milk as this routine reminder to Robin about what she has lost, and the way grief surfaces between her and her husband (Aleksej Ovsiannikov) comes out in almost random intervals.

And so when Robin decides to go on this seemingly strange, yet in many ways also completely sensible, direction of wanting to use her excess of breast milk for a greater good to help others, what ensues is essentially a way of manifesting a loss as a gain, for herself, and for others. I won’t spoil too much of Melk, which in some ways can be frustrating to an audience (there’s a recurring bit in it involving a silent hiking group which I liked and felt had purpose but others might have less patience for), but it finds something rather wonderful and beautiful in how determined Robin becomes in her pursuit, its quite mundane humanity.