Film Review - Brando With a Glass Eye

Images courtesy of Screen Inc.

Antonis Tsonis’s 2024 film Brando With a Glass Eye is a confused work. It’s unclear whether it wants to be a thriller or a drama; an analysis of an actor or a comment on class; something surreal or something freudian. Instead of focusing on one of these themes and providing us with a clear and satisfying analysis, the film meanders between all of them. It’s analyses remain surface level and leave the audience wanting.

Brando with a Glass Eye opens with its main character Luca talking directly to the camera. Ashe describes an acting exercise that involves carrying a fake gun into a bank,  holding up what looks like a very real pistol, none of the people in the background react. This opening shot sets up for an excellent film that is absolutely not delivered. It suggests a lack of clear reality, not only in the perspective of Luca but in the film itself. It suggests that not only the characters but the audience won't be able to tell what is real and what is performance. These suggestions don't extend far outside the opening scene. 

The rest of the film follows Luca’s life as an aspiring method actor. With his brother, Luca attempts to steal enough money to fund his education at The Method Acting School in New York. The robbery goes disastrously, and Luca accidentally shoots a bystander. Half to atone for his misdeeds, half to check if he saw his face, Luca befriends Vasili, the man he shot. The odd relationship between the two men is the crux of the film. 

One would assume that there would be some kind of tension in this relationship, but the idea that Luca’s crime may be discovered is only ever brought up in passing, and mostly in relation to Vasili’s father - who it turns out is a police officer. 

Similarly, Luca’s position as a method actor only comes up in passing. While towards the end of the film his grip on reality does start to slip, there's nothing really to distinguish this as related to his acting. You could film it almost identically and have him be an aspiring architect or passionate baker. 

What we could have had was a deeply fascinating film about lies, both those in the performance of an actor and the ones Luca is telling Vasili. The film could have further blurred the line between performance and reality, raised the tension in the central relationship and created something great. Sadly, that is not the result here.

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Brando With a Glass Eye screened at Lido Cinema on Wednesday 24th June. For more info, click here.

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