Let me see if I can adequately describe the experience of watching Manifesto – ok, I got it. Imagine you’re a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and you go to Chavez Ravine to see them play. And when you get there, the Dodgers are all in uniform and so are their opponents, but instead of a baseball game, the players take turns reading random passages from the baseball rule book. Now, before you respond with, “well that might be kind of fun and unique,” please think very carefully – is this really what you came to see?
Manifesto is the most pretentious movie I’ve seen since The Neon Demon and in many ways surpasses the latter for the imbalance of fartsiness in the grand artsy-to-fartsy dichotomy ratio. Even Neon Demon felt the need to tell a story; Manifesto felt no such compulsion. Cate Blanchett plays thirteen (13) distinct different “characters” in the film, each dominating a different segment, except for a newscast where she plays both anchor and reporter. The basic format of Manifesto is a screen wipe, a new setting, and then a Where’s Waldo?-like pan until we find who Cate will be masquerading as for the next five minutes. One might call this performance a tour-de-force, but Cate Blanchett doesn’t so much get lost in this acting exercise as it seems like she spends a few minutes trying on personalities – hmmm, a God-fearing suburban mother/housewife, well that could be very. No, it’s not me. How about a puppeteer? Nah. Drugged –out rock star? Maybe. Homeless guy? Well, no. That one decidedly did not work; not sure if it was the voice or the demeanor.
So, sure, there’s a pointless segmentation to the film, and it plays like being at a Halloween party where people constantly have to explain their costumes. What really separates this tragedy from others is not the many faces of Cate, but the content – in each scene, the would-be dialogue has ben replaced by a half-assed Manifesto on the creation of modern art. I kid you not. Cate is sitting down to a meal and instead of saying, “Grace,” she gives a monologue about artist responsibility. At a manufacturing plant, the loud speaker talks about content and form. At a funeral – a freaking funeral- Cate gets up to deliver the eulogy and instead rails about medium.
To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t say exactly which misplaced monologue belonged to which non-sequitur setting; once you get what this picture is about, it doesn’t 
matter what is being said. The long-winded and forgettable dialogue is just a distraction from the relevant words a mind might imagine taking place in the scene. Part of you is going to say, “well, isn’t that kind of neat … expecting a eulogy and getting a general critique on artistic structure?” No. No, it isn’t. Neat is when you expect an eulogy and get a machine gun. Neat is when you expect an eulogy and get a corpse-directed personal tirade. Neat is when you expect an eulogy and get a musical number about the deceased. There’s nothing necessarily neat about unpredictability, especially when it veers directly into the predictable as of segment three.
This film is a pointless meandering into the massive realm of what writer/director Julian Rosefeldt considers art. This film is the equivalent of a lion-tamer masturbating for 95 minutes to the portrait of a sad clown. This is the director’s cut of a failed graduation speech set to the tune of SCate-zophrenic Blachette. Manifesto is easily one of the worst films of this year or any year and I’m going to make sure it gets recognition as such regardless of what time period the movie world thinks it belongs in.
*Major League Baseball rule 2.00: Infield Fly rule
An INFIELD FLY is a fair fly ball (not including a line drive nor an attempted bunt) which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort, when first and second, or first, second and third bases are occupied, before two are out. The pitcher, catcher and any outfielder who stations himself in the infield on the play shall be considered infielders for the purpose of this rule.
When it seems apparent that a batted ball will be an Infield Fly, the umpire shall immediately declare “Infield Fly” for the benefit of the runners. If the ball is near the baselines, the umpire shall declare “Infield Fly, if Fair.” The ball is alive and runners may advance at the risk of the ball being caught, or retouch and advance after the ball is touched, the same as on any fly ball. If the hit becomes a foul ball, it is treated the same as any foul. If a declared Infield Fly is allowed to fall untouched to the ground, and bounces foul before passing first or third base, it is a foul ball. If a declared Infield Fly falls untouched to the ground outside the baseline, and bounces fair before passing first or third base, it is an Infield Fly.
Rule 2.00 (Infield Fly) Comment: On the infield fly rule the umpire is to rule whether the ball could ordinarily have been handled by an infielder-not by some arbitrary limitation such as the grass, or the base lines. The umpire must rule also that a ball is an infield fly, even if handled by an outfielder, if, in the umpire’s judgment, the ball could have been as easily handled by an infielder. The infield fly is in no sense to be considered an appeal play. The umpire’s judgment must govern, and the decision should be made immediately.When an infield fly rule is called, runners may advance at their own risk. If on an infield fly rule, the infielder intentionally drops a fair ball, the ball remains in play despite the provisions of Rule 6.05(l). The infield fly rule takes precedence.
Not Rated, 95 Minutes
D: Julian Rosefeldt
W: Julian Rosefeldt
Genre: Pretension
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Cate Blanchett’s therapist
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The story hungry
*Source: mlb.com
