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THE TALE OF KING CRAB
Directors: Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis Cast: Gabriele Silli, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Ercole Colnago, Bruno di Giovanni, Severino Sperandio, Mariano Arce, Jorge Prado, Darío Levy, Daniel Tur MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:46 Release Date: 4/15/22 (limited); 4/29/22 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 28, 2022 A group of men in a small Italian village sit around to tell the story of a local legend. That story only came to be because other groups of people sat around to tell the same story, which happens to include a contemporary group of men sitting around to talk about the living man who will one day become a legend. The story within The Tale of King Crab matters, but just as important to co-writers/co-directors Alessio Rigo de Rigghi and Matteo Zoppis' film is the sense of that story evolving over time and in front of our eyes. The modern-day group of storytellers notes that there isn't much to this local legend. A man, who lived in Vejano in the late 19th century or early 20th century, was of aristocratic birth, became a drunkard, and committed a crime that forced him to leave Italy, resulting in an unknown fate. During one of the sparse interludes of this tale from the past, one of the modern tellers points out that the original story likely started with about ten words. Over the years, those ten became 15 or 50, as generations invented details to expand it. Who knows what, if any, of the story is actually true anymore? Does the legitimate truth of what happened to Luciano (Gabriele Silli) even matter, if the legend has persisted "to entertain and educate"—as the purpose of another legend within this legend is described—for more than a century? The tale itself, which revolves around Luciano's battle of wills with the local prince and his star-crossed romance with the daughter (played by Maria Alexandra Lungu) of a shepherd (played by Severino Sperandio), is fairly straightforward, but the relaxed pace gives us time to take in those details. One of the intriguing elements here is how certain information almost seems to change on the fly: A singing bartender instantly moves from sitting with Luciano to standing behind the bar, and a solider lets Luciano go free with a threat, only for another to fulfill it on the spot. It's almost as if the men in the present-day are adapting the telling as it unfolds. The film's second chapter, which moves from Italy to Tierra del Fuego, is more to the point and more involving. It features a treasure hunt for hidden gold, with Luciano taking a new name and occupation (or pretending to), while a group of pirates enlist him to help their search for long-missing riches. This part of Luciano's story is stranger than the first (the matter of the title animal, for example) but also contains a potent fight between the unpredictable (None of our storytellers knows what happened) and the inevitable (After all, the storytellers not knowing the ending to our protagonist's story means a definitive end for him). The Tale of King Crab is a thoughtfully self-aware appreciation, not only of a specific legend, but also of why legends matter in the first place. Copyright © 2022 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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