The sophomore work of director and actor Amalia Ulman (of 2021’s El Planeta), Magic Farm follows a VICE News-like crew of inept Americans to small town Argentina in where they hope to spotlight a music group, Super Carlitos, renowned for wearing bunny ears as costumes in their music videos, but instead find themselves in the wrong country and forced to create a sensationalized story. With smart and deadpan humor, Ulman crafts an offbeat satire regarding the ways in which our tech-infused society disregards the nuances of foreign cultures, packaging them into bite-sized content to pretend like we were really there.
Landing in the wrong Latin American town of San Cristobal, Argentina, a team of documentarians find themselves struggling to rectify the situation. Comprised of host Edna (played by Chloë Sevigny), her husband Dave (Simon Rex, who returns home early to deal with a sexual harassment scandal), and three younger staff members Jeff (Alex Wolff), Justin (Joe Apollonio) and Elena (played by Amalia Ulman), the latter is forced to play the role of translator due to her Spanish background. Elena aids the crew in navigating rural Argentina and communicating with the local townsfolk, often acting as an impartial bystander in the process. Utilizing bright, stark fonts and a variety of camera techniques (Go-Pros on animals and fish-eye lens), Magic Farm leans into what’s trendy and eye-catching on the social media surface. Playing the role of tourist, the rest of the crew capture striking graffiti art on their iPhones that ultimately translate to darkly nihilistic messages (“if he makes you laugh, suck his dick”) and rarely bother to investigate what lies beneath the surface of the various characters and ways of living that they encounter.
More involved with their own personal dilemmas, the crew strikes encounters with the hostel manager (Guillermo Jacubowicz), a single father to a young, curious boy Uli, as well as mother-and-daughter duo Popa and Manchi (played by Valeria Lois and Camila del Campo, respectively). Obsessed with her previous life in France, Popa recants fascinating tales about her life back in Paris, while Manchi proudly asserts her sexuality and self-assuredness regarding her attraction to Jeff. Varied in their histories, age and gender, many of their stories in part revolve around the toxic fumes percolating in the town causing birth defects, with little say in having their voices heard in their economy and government.
Ulman’s film is certainly quirky, occasionally meandering into random conversations and scenarios that understandably might irk some viewers. However, Magic Farm’s often awkward and spontaneous humor also gives life to its characters, creating personalities that are simultaneously cringe-worthy yet charming. Beyond the playful humor, Ulman also trusts that her viewers will acknowledge the irony and ineptitude of these ‘gringos’ in foreign territory, a commentary on how easy it is to package a culture into digestible entertainment value, while ignoring the complexities and history of the unfamiliar that’s too often taken for granted.
You can catch screenings of Magic Farm at Austin Film Society starting today at 4:45PM through Thursday, May 22nd. Purchase your tickets here.
