In a weird world where everybody's an artist of sorts and art performances turn into shoot-outs, a painter sends all of her work off to a gallerist to a remote and scarcely known island, to never hear from him again. After a few months she starts to worry and decides to take a trip to the island to investigate. On the island she soon becomes obsessed with bingo, and there she finds the decisive clue to lead to the gallery - which she finds empty. When she breaks in, she's soon surprised by the police and jailed, and the chief of police promises to drop all charges if she leaves the island immediately. However, his second-in-command is more sympathetic of her cause, and promises to give her candid access to the gallery - if she comes to watch his play, a play that's totally derailed during this night's performance ...

Gelateria is a film that's hard to capture in words as it defies a traditional story structure for the most part, is episodic with the episodes not always tied to one another or the main story (if there is one), and is intentionally absurd in approach. All of this might be a turn-off to those more attuned to classic storytelling, but to those artistically inclined it presents a fascinating puzzle made up of all sorts of clues from the art scene and art history as well as elements of genre cinema, a puzzle that admittedly might have no solution, but that's fascinating to piece together still, also thanks to a slick yet playful directorial effort and pretty solid performances by all involved. Sure, you need to be in the right mindset for a film like this, but if you are you're sure to enjoy it.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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