Glasgow Film Festival 2012: ‘This Must Be the Place’ is a strangely compelling oddity
This Must Be the Place
Written by Umberto Contarello and Paolo Sorrentino
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Italy/France/Ireland, 2011
“Something’s wrong here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but something’s wrong here.” Repeated by its protagonist throughout This Must Be the Place, the line captures the baffling quality of Paolo Sorrentino’s English language debut. An erratic merging of different forms and tones, it is a difficult film to describe and one even harder to discuss in regards to why much of it succeeds. It is certainly schizophrenic conceptually and stylistically, but it also never feels disjointed or packed with too many strands.
