It is difficult for Nourou (Jean-Christophe Folly) to tell the truth about how he feels about the cinematic adaptation of “Medea” he stars in in “Gavagai,” sharing in a private conversation with his co-star Maja (Maren Eggert) shortly before the premiere that he found it “too cerebral,” suspecting after her own poor experience on the project she won’t be too generous with her own feelings, while assuring the film’s director Caroline (Nathalie Richard) that it’s very good when he knows it’ll calm her nerves. His opinion holds considerable weight for reasons that remain slightly bewildering to him, understanding that being born in Senegal where the production occurred lends a certain credibility to the radical reimagining of the Euripides classic that its white German director needs to promote it, yet now a European citizen himself who belongs to the art world more than any geographic location, this position is increasingly untenable, try as he does to appease others.
Many things don’t align in a convenient way in Ulrich Köhler’s sly satire, but the writer/director’s aim is precise as the fictional mounting of the Greek tragedy exposes a number of modern maladies in a cultural climate where empty provocation is plentiful and actual confrontation is avoided at all costs. It isn’t only the play Nourou and Maja are reinterpreting that’s as old as time, but the relationship they fall into as they play the doomed lovers Jason and Medea when Maja’s in the process of separating from her husband and finds comfort with her co-star during a tumultuous shoot where she’s frequently butting heads with Caroline. Nourou would be forgiven for thinking there was something more there than an on-set fling when the two reunite for the film’s premiere in Berlin, but he also has to be a little suspicious that Maja, who appears to be a bit of a method actor, was interested in him while inhabiting her role and she wouldn’t be the only one to take advantage when he finds himself dragged to the film’s press conference to defend the movie when its predominantly white creative team have to worry about what the response would be.
Nourou isn’t offended so much by what’s asked of him as he feels patronized, not enjoying at all Maja’s insistence that a security guard at the hotel they stay at be reprimanded for an incident with overblown racial overtones and realizing that for all his experience in building a career outside of Senegal, that remains how he’s seen by those with the best intentions around him. Scenes from the self-serious “Medea” are interspersed not exactly for parody, but a glimpse at the lavishly produced and lifeless drama that can’t hold a candle to the mundane reality off-screen where everyone’s motives are far more complicated and to observe what they’re hiding from one another to protect their self-interests seems as if it has higher stakes than the histrionics of a drama as severe as one involving a mother who kills her own children.
After Köhler previously wondered about how the most dire circumstances would change a person’s behavior in the 2018 apocalyptic comedy “In My Room” and considered the ongoing effects of colonialism in Cameroon in his 2011 drama “Sleeping Sickness,” his latest seems to have formed a natural intersection of long running threads and while characters often struggle with being put on the spot, weighing what they know is socially acceptable versus what they truly believe, the filmmaker’s clearly put the time in to see how such cultural conversations are polluted with disingenuous framing, both on the part of the individuals involved and society as a whole. Köhler wisely refrains from suggesting he has any grand solutions, but as he gets plenty of uncomfortable humor out of one awkward encounter after another between the crew of the fictional film that’s all ideally would be on the same page, he does ease audiences into acknowledging the impossibility of a constructive dialogue when people are too polite to assert the real differences in opinion they should stand up for and can hold onto too much to make any talk of the future seem as if it’s reaffirmation of the past with a new coat of paint. When Nourou’s initial assessment of Caroline’s “Medea” couldn’t come across as any more withering in being overly intellectual, it could sound like a backhanded compliment that “Gavagai” sends the mind racing, but the ideas here are never dull.
“Gavagai” will screen again at the New York Film Festival at the Francesca Beale Theater on September 28th at 1 pm and October 2nd at 4 pm.