In this directional film debut by Yuri Ancarani, ‘Atlantide’ blurs the lines between fictional film and a documentary, making its debut at the 2021 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) on November 17. The film is a coming-of-age film that blends contemporary visual and experimental arts in a documentary style fictional film about a couple of teenagers and speedboats roaming around the canals and lagoons in Venice, Italy.
The viewpoint of the film is mainly on Daniele (Daniele Barison), portraying a fictional version of himself as a young teenager who has an affinity for speedboats and the desire to add mods and “soup up” their motorboats to achieve the highest speed possible riding on the Venice waters. Not only the speed is the intent, the mods include Hi-Fi stereo systems and bright coloured LEDs, almost looking like a street racer showing off their flashy vehicles at a midnight race.
These souped-up motorboats are called “Barchini”. Daniele and his teenage friends would often try to one up one another with their speedboat mods and challenge each other in races in the nights near a deserted island isolated away from the Venice canals. Their prize? Getting the girl.
The dialogues are very minimal, where they simply talk about the mods they add to the boat and the top speeds they have achieved so far with the mods. Many of the conversations from the teenagers are about some rebellious acts they have done or want to do, often finding ways to live on the edge. Most of the scenes filmed dabbles on the experimental art, showing speeding boats from a first-person point of view, to the landscape of the Venice architecture, canals, deserts and plain skies.
Many of the scenes show the vacant face of Daniele, giving the mood of his “I don’t give a fu*k” attitude to the world, while he spends most of his days with his friends and his speedboat by the water. Some scenes show the friends bopping away at Hi-Fi eclectic tunes, looking like they are in a trance state rather than showing emotions of joy to the music. The heavy bass and underground music set the dark night vibes with neon LED lights attached to their speedboat looking like little fireflies racing around the waters of Venice.
Storytelling wise, there’s not much to say about that. This film is more of an opportunity to experiment with shoot night locations and action shots of them speedboating. The pacing of the film remains stagnant throughout with an anti-climatic shift towards the remainder of the film. I think there was no real intention to create a backstory. It might be more of a challenge for the director to try and gather unique footage to show off the isolated sights of Venice away from the heavy foot traffic of tourists visiting the city.
From a past visit to Venice, it is a tourist city no doubt. But for those who live there as a teenager, there probably is not much else to do in the city. While tourists are excited to visit the area, teenagers have probably lived there far too long that they end up so bored that they are finding alternative ways to live a rebellious lifestyle in Venice. It’s like they are lost within the city, without much purpose, but to drink, hang out with friends, and ride some speedboats.
The music composition for the film gives off a grungy cyberpunk vibe, which complements the rebellious nature of the teenager’s life in Venice. It plays well into the emotionless nature of Denielle and his interesting goal of topping his previous max speed on his speedboat. While the speedboats are moving fast in the scenes, the music is slow, and depressing.
Daniele’s character does seem to have a soft spot when he’s interacting with his girlfriend. The dialogues between the two helps bring out another dimension of his stoic-faced character that he portrays through the majority of the film. The intimacy between the two helps mixes up the pacing a little bit for his character beyond his love for speedboats. It is a nice contrast to help break the monotony of the scenes through various parts of the film.
Overall, ‘Atlantide’ is more of an experimental film in nature than it is of storytelling or a documentary. It is just a point of view to feel what it is like to hang out with coming-of-age rebellious teenagers hanging around with their speedboats. To the teenagers, it might look cool to be in that lifestyle, but for adults, it might be a confusing one to relate to. Just keep an open mind and enjoy this work of visual and experimental art.