“‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ is not the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays,” the poet and critic W.H. Auden remarked in a lecture on Shakespeare in 1946, “but it is one of the most perfect.”The same could be said for Matías Piñeiro’s “The Princess of France,” which opens at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on June 26. The third chapter in the director’s ongoing series of riffs on the comedies of Shakespeare, his latest — the least enigmatic of the three — begins with a group of young actors in Buenos Aires who are reconnecting in order to record a radio production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” (“Viola,” from 2012, revolves around an all-female production of “Twelfth Night,” while 2011’s “Rosalinda” uses parts from “As You Like It.”) Working with many of the same actors that populate his previous films, Piñeiro is less concerned with contemporary adaptation than thematic transmutation — of shifting identities, repetition, and comedic misunderstanding.All of Piñeiro’s films are relatively short, but “Princess of France” manages to pack double the amount information into the same running time. Following an opening that introduces the first movement of Robert Schumann’s “Symphony No. 1” (alternately known as his “Spring Symphony”) over a black screen, a voice tells us that what we’re hearing is dedicated to a woman named Lorena. Suddenly the film cuts to a woman standing on a roof at nighttime, looking over the city. The camera holds on her briefly, before tilting down to a small concrete field between two buildings, where a group of children are playing soccer under the glow of streetlights.At first, the scene is confounding. Why are we watching a soccer game? But as the plot progresses, the opening of the film begins to emerge with some clarity. In the constant movement of bodies kicking the ball, a puzzle that keeps rearranging into new formations as witnessed by the camera from above, Piñeiro recognizes a visual representation of the film we’re about to watch. Backed by the first movement of Schumann’s symphony — reportedly written as a musical love letter to his wife, Clara — the prologue acts as a version of the film we’re about to see in miniature.Moments later, we’re backstage at a production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” All the main characters are here, including Lorena (Laura Paredes), who finds herself surprisingly thrust into a role in the play, and Victor (Julián Larquier Tellarini), another actor, who’s girlfriend Paula (Augustina Muñoz), we learn, is not following him on a future trip to Mexico, where he will spend the year.We pick up again when Victor returns. He visits a local museum with Jimena (Gabriela Saidon) and the pregnant Ana (Maria Villar), with whom he begun a secret long-distance affair during his absence. They discuss the new version of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” that he wants to produce for the radio, acting as director, and proposed changes to the cast. One of the cast members who has been cut is Natalia (Romina Paula), an ex-girlfriend of Victor; her replacement is Carla (Elisa Carricajo), who Victor makes moves on when he begins to feel his affair with Ana slipping away.At the same time, Victor is attempting to get back together with Paula. When they exit the museum, the find Guillermo (Pablo Sigal), another member of the cast who has taken over the role Victor originally played in the production. What Victor knows, but doesn’t say, is that Guillermo has been shacking up with Paula while he was away.As you’ve probably noticed, the twists and turns of “Princess of France” are not easy to follow. Like Shakespeare’s comedies, the film moves at a brisk pace, and the distance between what people know and what they say is not always clear. But the breathless approach to the narrative, refusing to halt the action to explain what is happening, means you have to completely give yourself over to the film’s narrative. It’s not going to hold your hand through the maze it creates, but if you allow yourself to follow, you’ll make it out the end with an understanding less explained than felt.This is best exemplified in a scene toward the end. The cast has finally come together to record the play, and Piñeiro films the scene as a series of close-ups, the camera moving gradually from one face to the next. What we’re hearing is the narrative of the play, spoken by the actors. What we’re seeing is something different, the narrative of the characters’ lives, played out in a series of looks exchanged — shifting eyes, sideways glances. It’s in this this scene of doubling, of two narratives running side by side, one concealed by the other, where “Princess of France” truly separates itself from Shakespeare, moving from the theatrical to the cinematic.
↧