Priscilla: the review of Sofia Coppola’s film at Venice 80

«NoI didn’t make a movie for Elvis fans,” said Sofia Coppola of Priscillapassed today in Competition at Venice Film Festival. There Elvis Presley Enterpriseshaving read the project, didn’t grant her the rights to use the songs, but she solved it brilliantly with a soundtrack that doesn’t make the rocker regret. And neither was the previous biopic about the king of Rock N’ Roll, the overflowing and remarkable one by Baz Luhrmann.

This (yet another of its kind and taken from Elvis and me – written by Priscilla in 1986), focuses on the point of view of his partner, who met Elvis when he was 14, while both were in Germany: he was in the military, she was the daughter of a soldier. Shot in 30 days on a shoestring budget, Priscilla immediately amazed by the gloom of the photograph, stolen from the livid lights of empty and bare Graceland as the great William Eggleston photographed it in 1984.

A patina that covers everything, too the signs of Las Vegas faded like in a vintage movie (trick also used for a pool party). So much so that, when we finally see Elvis and Priscilla quite well silhouetted, it immediately sinks back into elegant – but a little frustrating – games of silhouettes and backlighting mostly orchestrated by the windows. And from the sky.

Priscilla and Elvis: The Tale of the Love Encounter

It is a muddy representation of the past reminiscent of that of The Virgin Suicidesmixing – wonderfully anti-television – of dust and memory. In one of these dark ravines, the house where Elvis holds parties to break the boredom of the naja, there is a meeting between little Priscilla and the kingworried about whether young Americans still listen to it.

A very chaste friendship is born, with an admirable control of sexual impulses (an exceptional feat for those who made the pelvis a trademark). Until, by dint of permissions requested from the parents and a wait of a couple of years, Priscilla flies to Graceland, under the tutelage of Elvis’ grandmother and father. And without revealing the relationship, while he has a paparazzi flirt with Ann-Margret on a set of those little tunes wanted by Colonel Tom Parker, and she tries to graduate from Catholic school.

Then sex, finally. Measured by the amount of trays placed in front of the bedroom door. The daughter. The shots of violence. The shared pills at the morning wake-up call. The spiritualist drift of Elvis who reads oriental religion books. And Priscilla living a dream of love from ponytail to backcombing, from innocence to emancipation. Like all trapped heroines of Sofia, who observe, gather information, maybe act.

Freer and looser in the first part, Priscilla proceeds getting lost in an accumulation of hasty wikipedia-style bio blocks. But first, the typical Sofia figure, that delicious impressionistic touch, those minute-long paintings that summarize dramas of decades – the beautiful scene of Elvis with cape shot against the light – they manage to seduce once again leaving at the same time dismayed by divine superficiality. For disconnection between beauty and motivation of the characters (still brought to life by the talented Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny).

It is a language now well canonized, nothing else was expected from the director, too bad for a real lump in the throat you have to wait for the real Priscilla Presley at the press conference. Although I will always love you by Dolly Parton, placed on the final, corrupts a lot.

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