Spitball Army

4.6
[blu-ray, Netflix]

If the context that I watched this in was as an evaluator of a philosophy/art school dissertation, I would be tempted to give it one of the highest marks available. But as a filmic entertainment, it is merely semi-audacious. Certain scenes hit the mark, such as when Cate Blanchett assumes the role of a mother saying grace at the family dinner table but the words coming out of her mouth are from Claes Oldenburg’s “I am for an Art” (“I am for the art out of a doggy’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof. I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.”), followed by her husband ripping the roasted bird apart with shears while Blanchett empties the contents of a gravy boat on top of it. Or Blanchett as elementary school art teacher, mouthing a melange of film theory dictums from Godard, Von Trier and Werner Herzog to her students, who are innocently scribbling in their notebooks (“The camera must be hand-held! Genre movies are not acceptable! The director must not be credited!”). MANIFESTO is its own unique brand of Meta, but it’s too busy trying to be clever to generate any genuine feeling in the heart, much less true stimulation in the brain.