The Tale of King Crab (2021)

Italy, today. Some elderly hunters reminisce about the local tale of Luciano. Luciano lives as a wandering drunkard in a remote village of the region called Tuscia. Spiteful actions ensue between him and the prince of the region over the right of passage through an ancient gateway. Fueled by passions and jealousy, these actions result in a horrible misdeed. Now an unfortunate criminal, Luciano is exiled to the distant Tierra del Fuego where, with the help of ruthless gold-diggers, he searches for a mythical treasure, paving his way towards redemption. However, in these barren lands, only greed and insanity can prevail. —JakkepoesDespite being heavily indebted to Herzog, Leone and Pasolini, “Re Granchio” (The tale of King Crab) never falls into citationism as an end in itself, but carries on a solid and mature vision of what cinema is in its essence: the poetry of storytelling through images is capable to trasform simple stories into works that arouse wonder. The film fulfills this purpose by playing with genres without exceeding, unraveling through an editing, a cinematography and a soundtrack of rare beauty, giving the actors that homegrown breath that too often gets lost behind the forcedly refined and cloying scripts of so much Italian cinema committed to chasing, with the usual petty rhetoric, easy emotions and the consensus of most people. Here the two directors drag the viewer into a surreal yet tangible world, and as before with the D’innocenzo Bros.’ “Favolacce” (Bad Tales), they touch the peaks of Italian cinema as too rarely happens, but perhaps it is precisely their being pearls in the lake – like the crab’s treasure – what makes these films memorable and consecrates them to the history of the seventh art.