Programme

The Mountain

Rick Alverson, USA 2018, 106’
Polish premiere
Her Smell To Dust

Set in rural America in the 1950s, Alverson's film takes us on a journey into a Hopperian world, as cold as a hospital ward and as sad as a motel room abandoned in a hurry. Lobotomies performed by Dr. Fiennes (Goldblum), grim psychiatrists, violent demonstrations of power and melancholy acts of copulation: The Mountain is a fundamental critique of patriarchal masculinity and emotionally inaccessible fathers, where every manifestation of feelings is treated like a disease. But Alverson's film is so much more: it's also a portrait of America caught in the gaze of charismatic charlatans, a story about guru figures. This is the sort of figure played on-screen by Goldblum, but so is the skating coach (Udo Kier) and the quack (the scenes with Denis Lavant have the power of electroconvulsive therapy). The director proves, however, that even in this love-deprived world, tenderness can bloom. The Mountain was screened as part of the Venice Festival competition, and its screenplay was co-written by one of the guests of the American Film Festival, Dustin Guy Defa. The festival regularly screens the works of Rick Alverson, one of America's most interesting independent filmmakers.

Małgorzata Sadowska

Rick Alverson

He was born in 1971 and lives in Richmond. In his extensive musical career, he has made numerous records with the bands Drunk and Spokane. As a filmmaker, he has directed videos for Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen and Benjamin Booker.  The Builder is his feature-length debut. His films often deal with existential crises. He was a guest of the 3rd American Film Festival in 2012 when his film The Comedy screened in competition in the Spectrum section. The next Alverson's film Entertainment was screened in Wroclaw in 2015.

Filmography

2010 The Builder

2011 New Jerusalem

2012 Komedia / The Comedy

2013 The Sixth Year (co-dir.)

2015 Rozrywka / Entertainment

2018 Góra / The Mountain

Cast & Crew

director Rick Alverson
screenplay Rick Alverson, Dustin Guy Defa, Colm O’Leary
cinematography Lorenzo Hagerman
editing Rick Alverson, Michael Taylor
music Robert Donne
cast Tye Sheridan, Jeff Goldblum, Hannah Gross, Udo Kier, Denis Lavant
producer Allison Rose Carter, Eddy Moretti, Sara Murphy, Ryan Zacarias
production Made Bed/Remergence
sales The Match Factory
language English
coloration colour
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