‘The Tale of King Crab’ (review)

In The Tale of King Crab, the new film by Italian duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, Gabrielle Silli stars as the singularly pathetic Luciano.

A hapless drunkard, Luciano is the son of a wealthy doctor in the region of Tuscia in 19^th century Italy. Haunted by unnamed woes, Luciano wanders the streets of his village, drunkenly accosting other townspeople to the distress of his elderly father. Luciano is disparaging of wealth, despite having it, and takes issue especially with a prince who has barred entry to a route used by local shepherds.

A black spot on the village and the reputation of his father, when not defacing the prince’s property or tussling with the authorities Luciano roams the fields and riverbanks with Emma (Maria Alexandra Lungu), the pretty daughter of a village goat herder. Emma’s father is displeased to uncover their relationship, and as tensions rise both with him and the local prince, Luciano commits a callous act of rebellion with tragic consequences.

Fearing that his son will be killed as a result, Luciano’s father exiles him as a missionary to Argentina where, through curious circumstance, he finds himself impersonating a murdered priest.

Set now on a quest for pirate treasure hidden high in a mountain lake, and led there by a crab seeking its home, he assists a small band of criminals in their search across the rocky and wooded expanse of Tierra del Fuego. While these criminals are host to their own petty squabbles, Luciano must navigate this real and figurative maze, and find a path towards the treasure and some kind of redemption.

The Tale of King Crab is a heavily indebted film, seeking to recreate the sometimes quiet, sometimes bombastic mystery of 70s cinema.

From its opening shot reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Solaris in which we glimpse verdant greenery beneath water, to the central premise of a vagabond exiled for love on a fool’s errand across the world, suggesting Herzog’s Cobra Verde, to the saturated colors, the scratchy audio, each moment is crafted to recall those giants of cinema’s yore. But it is difficult to begrudge pastiche when it is so well and lovingly executed. In King Crab’s hushed pace there is ample time for reflection on the small actions and gestures of each character, the natural beauty of each location, and despite the film’s patience it still clocks in at 105 minutes, briefer than most of today’s popcorn fare.

Luciano’s story is told through the framing device of a modern day group of Italian villagers (played by many of the same actors from the village of their tale) who render his legend through rambling chatter and song. Song itself recurs again and again throughout the film – songs telling other tales, to remind us that we are inside of a story. And while the film is reminiscent of its cinematic forebears, so too are its characters archetypal in more fundamental ways. In the first half of the film Luciano is abject, a drunk wretch in love, and though this baseness is achieved through different means it is difficult not to view him as a Christ-like character.

At the culmination of the film’s first chapter Luciano even undergoes a manner of resurrection, interposed with the villagers performing communion, whereupon Luciano drinks from the cup of perhaps his own transubstantiated blood. After this ego death, on the islands of Tierra del Fuego he is totally reborn, both physically and spiritually, this transformation recalling the caves of Jodorowsky’s El Topo. Luciano’s earlier childish lament to his father of “I am empty,” becomes the enlightened refrain, “we are nothing.” His yearn for home is mirrored in the titular crab’s journey to the lost lake where it was born, and the crab accompanies Luciano along his own transformation into a debased, messianic King. The journey is aided beautifully by a sparse score, and exquisite photography of the archipelago.

Though a child of traceable lineage, The Tale of King Crab nevertheless achieves what it sets out to do, and I can find very little at fault with this quiet, thoughtful tale, a song within a song.

*  *  *  *  * 
Produced by Tommaso Bertani, Ezequiel Borovinsky, Ezequiel Capaldo,
Agustina Costa Varsi, Massimiliano Navarra, Thomas Ordonneau
Written and Directed by Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis
Starring Gabriele Silli, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Severino Sperandio, Bruno Di Giovanni,
Enzo Cucchi, Claudio Castori, Domenico Chiozzi, Dario Levy, Mariano Arce