Review:  Rosebush Pruning

‘People are roses’, begins the proverb, the one that obviously hints at the title, in itself a metaphor for the film, and more a platitude. ‘Rosebushes need pruning’, the premise promises. A garden is beckoning, albeit a sterile one. It’s an image of Eden; there’s the polished forbidden fruit, surely tasting of taboo.

Not so fast. The demand is that one strips at the gate. Of all logic, of the capacity to infer meaning, to reflect (every quality one would think is necessary for the safe-landing of a satire). Also, of one’s poverty. Discard any dupes and all disbelief. Open the mouth of the eyes and watch, watch the surface as it ripples and shifts, attempting only to elicit the occasional jolt. It’s camp! Does that do it for you? What Rosebush Pruning delivers is only that it comes replete with the lesson of what becomes of untended ground- rot, rampant rot.

It’s difficult to surmise what Rosebush Pruning is attempting to be. Broadly, it’s an iteration of the idea that wealth exacerbates the disturbed, dismantling delicate family structures. ‘It tries to be funny’, director Karim Aïnouz has said.* The many germs of intent seem apparent enough: a dash of Dogtooth‘s twisted play on dynamics, a splash of Saltburn‘s most viral shocking antics, and the disparate crumbs of a music video sensibility, played out in occasional bursts of fast cuts. Much like the protagonist, who saves us the trouble of discernment and promptly introduces himself (then proceeds to talk the audience through the time they’re taking the trouble to spare), the film is remarkably resistant to coherence. Singular, un-chewable pearls of plot are constantly introduced- that’s mostly what happens- strung loosely together by the thinnest of threads. Perfect for choking on.

There sure is something wrong with this family…quite a lot, none of it significant until singled out. Tragedy is constantly carved and cored, beat on like a drum. Vengeance is so sudden it doesn’t quite translate to justice. The entire affair is blanketed in unpleasantness. Even Martha, the outsider and therefore the supposed audience stand-in, is steeped in the absurdity. She absorbs all rebuffs, imposing herself onto a situation anybody else would distance themselves from; she is no better than her means (her mate). After all, ‘these are characters that you normally wouldn’t like’, the director himself has admitted, ‘but are still fascinating’.** A show-and-tell lacking in sincerity, it is entirely superficial. At its most inventive, it is nothing short of surrealist, a further departure from the kind of perspective that, instead of enhancing its commentary on the strangeness of the times, turns it into an example of it instead.

It’s not that Rosebush is scandalous, but rather that it is not. It’s just…preposterous.The most drawn out shock factors are unfortunately, out of place, pertaining to little except mostly to ostentatious distaste. One can’t help but connect them to a referent (especially to the film it is ‘inspired by’, 60s Italian dramedy Fists in the Pocket). It seems, sadly, that it’s been done before and arguably done better. If one were to list the scenes in order, they’d read like a mistranslation of the greatest hits.

Dressed in stars whose shine is dulled by their characters’ shallow interests in anything, including themselves, more often in how they’re dressed and especially in each other, it’s all surface. The polished curation of frames renders the surface so slick one can only stare back at their own peering eyes. So much for high fashion. It is noteworthy that the film does takes itself seriously, but even that does not save it from its ridiculousness. Any observational suggestion is muddled by the commitment to gestural elements. Its only success is in the distaste it may provoke towards its many aspects- characterization, plot, antics.

It’s almost as if branding an object all over with a made-up logo doesn’t disguise the fact that it is merely a branded object and nothing more, despite the pricetag. It’s almost like the inspiration was an AI Balenciaga Harry Potter trailer trained on the prompts ‘Greek Weird Wave’ and ‘Eat the Rich‘. It’s almost as if the industry has turned rightful indignation into a machine that has since consumed itself, so is now expelling its most reproducible and often crude parts. Who could’ve thought that a story built around hollow individuals with hollow relations, hollow reactions and hollow motivations would ring so…hollow? What is supposed to be a display, if not a critique of the depravity that indulgence fosters, exposes itself to be as insipid as it hopes for its diegesis to appear. But hey, at least it looks nice.