Funny Face
Saul (Cosmo Jarvis) and Zama (Dela Meskienyar’s name in the film) are a couple of young people at odds with life: he wears a mask that the Joker might wear to an Anonymous protest; she wears a modest honey-colored hijab. The theft of some peanuts at a corner store brings them together before they set off on a romantic urban odyssey. Impressive, whimsical, jumping from plotline to plotline, Sutton’s film is an elegy to the death of old Brooklyn, a hymn to a journey without a goal, and an evocative portrayal of youthful anger inspired by James Dean. Saul, who adores Dean, is a rebel who definitely has a cause: the grandparents he lives with are chased out of their home by a developer. It’s this aggressive gentrification, personified by a stiff in a suit, that is the villain in Funny Face. But Zama also hides her reasons under decent clothes: mourning her father, she’s a runaway from the oppressive, conservative home of her uncle. Orphaned, disinherited by capitalism and patriarchy, the two young people join forces to take their revenge, drawing energy from their true predecessors: the flaneurs from the films of Korine, Jarmusch, and Claire Denis.
Tim Sutton
Tim Sutton is an independent director and screenwriter. His second feature film, the acclaimed Memphis, premiered at the Venice Film Festival as part of the Biennale College-Cinema section and was also screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Dark Night, winner of the Laterna Magica Prize, was also shown there. Sutton is known for his perfect technique and free-flowing narrative style in which he shows his protagonists closely linked to the architecture and the landscapes that surround them. He is also a lecturer at the New School in New York.
Filmography
2012 Pavilion
2013 Memphis
2016 Dark Night
2020 Funny Face
Cast & Crew
