Cate Blanchett has apparently reached that stage in her career where an ordinary performance experience will not satisfy her. She needs something more akin to an obstacle acting course.
Blanchett plays 13 different characters in Julian Rosefeldt’s project, Manifesto. According to the AV Club, the work straddles the line between performance art and film, recently closing a run at the Park Avenue Armory where all 13 characters were displayed at once on giant screens. At one point their scripts do sync up, but for the most part Blanchett’s many personas talk over each other, using a hodgepodge of “20th century manifestos of artists, architects, and filmmakers” for the dialogue.
This may be a great work of art, but Cate Blanchett screaming in the camera as a toothless homeless person in the trailer makes me wary. A 94-minute version of the project is premiering at Sundance later this month, so the reviews will tell if it’s a tolerable experiment when you only sit with one character at a time.