Director Report Card: Marjane Satrapi (2012)

3. The Gang of the Jotas

Le bande des Jotas

“Persepolis” was a worldwide success and “Chicken with Plums” won pretty good reviews all around. Yet an animated film and a surreal drama full of magic-realism were involved productions with a lot of moving parts. For her third feature – and her first as a solo director, ending her partnership with Vincent Paronnaud – Marjane Satrapi wanted to make an extremely low budget movie designed simply to remind her how much fun it is to make movies. “The Gang of the Jotas” was, by some accounts, shot over the course of a week. Satrapi herself would direct, write, and star in the movie. The indie would be released in 2012...

...kind of. “The Gang of the Jotas” would play a number of festivals in 2012. A trailer, presumably meant to advertise a theatrical release, would follow sometime after that. Yet if “The Gang of the Jotas” ever received a wide release of any sort, I'm unaware of it. As far as I know, no DVD exist. If the film was ever streaming anywhere, it's not now. I couldn't even find a pirated copy floating around the various torrent websites. I was about ready to accept this as one of those movies I've come across in this project, that are just hopelessly unavailable and end up left out of my retrospectives simply because I can't find them. 

That was when I came across a copy of the film uploaded to the obscure Russian version of Youtube. The only problem was that this copy was without subtitles. At first, I assumed it was in un-subtitled French, the language the movie was filmed in. Yet it didn't sound like French and, after doing a little Googling, I learned this version was dubbed in Turkish. This copy also, for whatever, censors every appearance of a cigarette. Normally I would've just said “fuck it” and exclude a movie only available under this circumstances. Still, being so close to seeing the missing film bugged me so I decided to try watching the movie in this condition. Consider this the most unusual review I've ever done: My attempt to talk about a movie I can't understand, that isn't even in the right language I can't understand.

Luckily a couple of detailed plot synopses of “Gang of the Jotas” are out there, meaning I had a fairly good idea of the story that unfolded. A mysterious woman has her luggage mixed up with Nils and Didier, two men (and seemingly lovers) who are badminton players. The woman tells them a story, about how her sister was assassinated by the Spanish mafia and more professional killers are after her. The guys accompany her as she buys a gun and, in a instinctual moment, Nils shoots an attacker. Drawn in with the woman now, Nils and Didier head to Spain as they attempt to eliminate the murderers who after them before they can do the jobs themselves. (Further resources tell me that all the targets' names begin with J, hence the title.) At least, I'm pretty sure that's what is happening.

Reviewing a movie in a language you don't understand presents a number of challenges. Without being able to grasp every nuance of the plot, or enjoy the specific wording of the dialogue, you start to focus on the visuals or the physical acting. “Gang of the Jotas,” however, ended up being a heavily dialogue-driven movie. This is presumably because Marjane Satrapi made the movie for next to no money. Scenes of people sitting around and talking are very cheap to shoot. All I could do was infer the meaning of their conversations from the actors' faces and what happens around them. I'm sure there was a lot of word play I missed out and I wasn't entirely sure what was going on in quite a few sequences.

Luckily, there's also a number of scenes in “Gang of the Jotas” that don't rely on dialogue or plot at all. This is a road movie. There are many long sequences devoted to our characters driving from one location to the next. In fact, several minutes of screen time are entirely devoted to the road and sky racing by from the backseat of a car. We see a number of bizarre locations, like massive circles in the ground at a former mining compound, or some sort of Christ-like figure living as a hermit in an isolated area. Perhaps because I couldn't understand the language, I also found myself focusing on the music. A handful of moments get provided with an upbeat energy thanks to some jangly songs on the soundtrack. At one point, Marjane even does an improvised dance at a gas station.

Even if I couldn't understand the exact details of the criminal conspiracy pursuing Satrapi's unnamed character, on account of not speaking the language, some things are evident. Midway through the film, there's a sequence where the woman wakes up in the middle of the night, pursued by visions of attackers who aren't there. As the film goes on, it seems the killings the woman and her partners engage in are less and less justified. Even if I couldn't grasp the complete details, the film's twist ending is still pretty easy to get. “Gangs of the Jotas” seems to take the fascination with memory Satrapi showed in her first two films inside out here, where reality itself is as uncertain as the recollections were the last two times. 

Judging performances when you can't understand exactly how the actors are using their voices is tricky. However, a few things are obvious. Marjane Satrapi, acting as the mysterious woman who motivates the plot, is clearly having fun. Some reviewers have criticized her acting as unprofessional or shaky. Maybe that's more obvious if you speak the language. To me, I just see Satrapi enjoying herself by inhabiting a manic and shaky figure, either a master manipulator or someone so involved in their own fantasy that others can't help but be caught up in it. The other key performers of the film, Mattias Ripa and Stéphane Roche, are a lot harder to read. Neither are actors, as Ripa has no other credits at all and Roche has mostly worked as an editor. (Including on Satrapi's other films.) 

Taken within the context of the rest of Satrapi's movies, “Gang of the Jotas” clearly shows some of her emerging trademarks. As she did in her first two features, this one frequently contrasts humor with macabre events. Murder in this movie is frequently followed up with jokes. The first gunfire that happens is followed by a broad, slapstick foot chase. A sequence of a man being tossed from a skyscraper is proceeded by a farcical scramble against a frosted glass window. For extra macabre contrast, the plot seemingly occurs around Christmas. Throughout the film, we also see Satrapi's preference for placing ordinary events alongside comical ones. Such as the director herself laying on the ground, her eyes darting back and forth as a shuttlecock flies over her head. Or an especially unexpected urination playing out in a picturesque location. 

Even though my viewing of the film was far from ideal, I still found myself enjoying “Gangs of the Jota.” Several reviews dismiss the movie as simply an established filmmaker messing around, which is not exactly wrong. The film is obviously a lark. Yet it also runs all of seventy-five minutes, so it's not a lark that overstays its welcome. There's a peppy energy and a morbid sense of humor running through this, evident even when watched in the conditions I did, that I found myself enjoying. I really hope this gets picked up by a state-side distributor eventually, so I can really appreciate this one. On the off chance that happens, I might rewrite this review. Until then, this will have to do. Unless someone reading this understands Turkish and wants to translate for me... [Grade: B]