There are two men. They sweat. They are apparently exhausted. They are competing in a game of tennis which seems to hide something subtle and intimate that only they know and understand. In the gestures of the body, in the continuous flexing in the direction of the ball, in the direction of the other, that sinuous dance is generated which in sport and in their personal relationship has never completely disappeared or stopped, and while the ball becomes the main glue of a breathtaking sporting match, it is the subtle looks on their faces and the imperceptible gestures that inspire another match elsewhere, which perhaps no one will ever truly know. Presenting us with such a dynamic Challengers, the new film by Luca Guadagnino, immediately sets the narrative and aesthetic rhythm of a story that feeds on the same images to capture, inspire, involve and above all excite (to find out what the film left us, please refer to our review of Challengers).
Much of a person’s fascination develops in the construction of a precise aesthetic love triangle that expresses itself through its own language, finding immediate relief and lifeblood in a direction that works both for the external construction of the main story and for the ways in which they are captured by the camera itself. Going beyond the script, they are their own the images of Challengers seduce and bewitch, make the difference in terms of sensations and attractive charmproducing an eroticism that never stops only at the external appearance of the main cast, or at the triangle between the protagonists, establishing a precise and enveloping shape made of many small things, formal details capable of leaving their mark as much as everything else ( it is not the first time that Luca Guadagnino talks about love and attraction, we also found all this in the review of Call Me by Your Name, for example).
Sex first in pictures
Challengers is a film that speaks first and foremost with its shotswhich involves starting from the same direction as Luca Guadagnino who projects his gaze onto the lens of a camera right from the start with a sinuous and very close eye.
It is the bodies of the protagonists that speak before their own voices, it is the minutiae of the skin, the hair, and the micro-facial details capable of punctuating the internal battles and the specific beliefs buried in each of them and barely manifest. Indicative of all this, for example, is the scene in which we see the character of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) involved in her own morning routine, before the daily mechanism of her existence as Art Donaldson’s (Mike Faist) wife and his first supporter it triggers. Here we see her in her underwear while, before getting dressed, she spreads some moisturizing or toning cream on her body. Guadagnino’s camera first frames the situation in full shot and then focuses specifically on on the woman’s legs, and on one knee on which a scar appears that is impossible to ignore, despite the speed with which everything happens.
Tashi puts on cream and runs a finger of her hand over this scar, anticipating what will be the biggest shadow that will drag on forever, a huge regret that not even she herself would admit to having, all through an extremely explanatory and silently verbose, but incisive and above all physical sequence. Starting precisely from a physicality like this the entire visual construction of Challengers immediately strives to establish a direct dialogueand at the same time indirect, with the audience in the room, moving hand in hand with an editing that punctuates these first, very close-ups and details endowed with a disruptive corporeity, to then continuously play with the sculpted and sweaty bodies of the protagonists, and the sensations that could result on the big screen.
In the exact same way the director treats as well the friendship/brotherhood between Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig. Their bond is something profound and difficult to explain in words, and it is precisely the images of the film that convey its weight in the best and most explicit way possible. Coming from the same sports “Academy”, the two have known each other all their lives and have shared many things, having grown up together in every way. There are no limits in their relationship, and this is evident not only from the jokes, but also from the way we see them joking together and above all eating. Challengers is a film about food and the daily ritual of eating it they manage to take on a further role in characterizing what we see. On several occasions the protagonists eat and share their food, or the character of Art spits out his chewing gum in a gesture of intimacy first with Tashi and then with Patrick himself.
In the apparently quickest and most insignificant details lies the corporeal materiality of a film in which skin and fluids occupy a large part of the shots, establishing an intimate and extremely close-up aesthetic. In sculpting the specific features of the protagonists and the world around them, Challengers gets very close to their faces and to that sweat that continually wets and dirties the action in progress, in a comparison made up of close-ups and very close-ups. Furthermore, the construction of the possibility of a love triangle between three beautiful actors tickles the morbid curiosity of an audience that observes a private situation from a privileged and safe point of view, without ever descending into the most vulgar eroticism, placing the most carnal desire before direct a subtle eros made of glances and a sexuality that finds its maximum expression precisely in the images and in the directionbefore in gestures.
A ball flying everywhere
Hand in hand with the formal construction of a film that makes human forms and looks a real trademark, we find tennis which from a simple and direct sport becomes in turn a carnal metaphor and a commercial context. It is practically impossible not to notice all the big brands that are framed by Guadagnino from scene to scene, peppering the entire narrative with well-known brands that from time to time seem to confirm and apply a commercial and curiously pop interpretation to the entire experience. So we return again to the dimension of the images but in this case, thanks to the colorful photography curated by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, we move away from the underlying sensuality to be struck by the mass of brands that populate the Challengers cinematic experience.
Coca Cola, Camel, Nike, Adidas, Wilson, are just some examples of work that is done, as well as physical, also an object of desire, and hunger for consumption. It is as if the same film recognized itself as two distinct faces that at the same time perfectly communicated in attracting the public. Hence the ability to intrigue with underlying eroticism, to then involve in a consumerist recognizability strong with a commercial awareness that never goes out of place. In the lightness of a formal and marketable approach like this, the extremely accessible soul of a film that works its aesthetics in many different ways is revealed, flirting first with the promise of a cast in a “hot story” without rules, and then with everything else.
Shaping the entire rhythm of the story, therefore, we find the sport of tennis and its specific reading in relation to all three main characters. The entire narrative of Challengers is punctuated by the final of a “Challenger” tournament, in fact, by a non-prestigious competition that acquires value only in the specific comparison between Patrick and Art. Their performance on the field becomes pure sex in its progressive development from ball to ball, from joke to joke, from response to response, closely linking to one of the most important sentences of the entire feature film, as well as a key to understanding what happens on the screen: “You don’t know what tennis is… It’s a relationship… We went somewhere really beautiful together”. Tennis as a sentimental, physical and emotional relationshipas a comparison, an indissoluble bond and mutual intimacy between three people who, in trying to dismantle their own balance, find a new one that is practically impossible to explain in words.
Luca Guadagnino, therefore, takes the dynamics of a “two-man sport” and transforms its intrinsic meanings, broadening its modalities across the entire ongoing narrative. Challengers is all about a game of tennis, it’s all about a comparison between three challengers who measure themselves on a field that only they know. In applying such a reading to the entire narrative, the director transforms the camera itself, making it a character in its own right, thus dynamizing and at the same time projecting the ongoing sensations onto the audience at the cinema.
The last moments on the field are extremely indicative, with a direction that continually reinterprets the way of seeing and perceiving the three protagonists, framed from above, up close and from below, to the point of bathing in their own sweat, arrogance and deep anger. Here the point of view in progress, as for the story, changes from long shots, to subjective shots, to transforming the same camera into the ball hit by an anger which, only in the very last seconds, reaches an orgasm like no other, almost liberating for all three protagonistsin a sporting climax with a viscerally cinematic flavour.
