Modi

Premiering at the San Sebastian Film Festival, ‘Modi – Three Days on the Wings of Madness’ features the chronicles of three chaotic days in the life of Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani.

Johnny Depp hasn’t taken a directorial credit on a feature since The Brave  in 1997, but when Al Pacino came to Depp with a proposal for a study of three crucial days in Modi’s development, Depp couldn’t say no.

Director, Johnny Depp, did a wonderful job with this movie, and triggers a reflection on themes about loneliness, isolation, self-destruction, and life in general. I loved the fact that Depp feathers this film with a comic touch which added a fun element. I also loved the black-and-white silent movie segments  as it evoked the  aesthetic of the period and enhanced the film’s thematic depth.

The screenplay maneuvers through a labyrinth of chaos and whirlwind – this intentional disorder in storytelling serves as a metaphor for the artist’s life. This film is not meant to be a biopic, but  it is meant to display a slice of artist’s life and a journey for three days. The time is 1916 and World War I is happening –  Modigliani has no money, his relationship with Beatrice is spiraling and his health is declining.  I understood the film to be a metaphor for the “madness” that is the war itself as it parallels Modi’s internal and external conflicts.

The fevered dream and hallucination sequences are littered across the movie with a hidden meaning aiming to highlight Modi’s bizarre state of mind. For instance, we see plague doctors alluding to the myth that these doctors are the last thing a patient would see before death,

The cinematography is beautiful  with visual landscapes in Europe allowing the audience to be immersed into the life of Modi. 

Overall, the cast was great. The brotherhood between Modi (Riccardo Scamarcio ), Soutine (Ryan McParland) and Utrillo (Bruno Gouery) added charm to the movie. Scamarcio was a standout as his portrayal of Modi was charismatic and compelling.  Another standout was  Al Pacino, playing a thirsty collector who tries and fails to curtail Modi’s ego.

According to the production notes, Depp states:

“Ultimately, I wanted to tell a universal tale of love, art and rejection so that everyone and anyone, no matter who, what, where and why, could find something to wrestle with, something to associate and connect with, in that infinite tangle we know only as life, as existence, the very result of creation itself.”

Depp’s mission for this project certainly surpassed expectations. I recommend this movie!