Turning his keen eye on Dafoe and the Intercontinental Hotel with studied still frames, Poças encourages audiences to appreciate the spaces Lucius inhabits, whether he’s spraying water over the rink, sitting alone in the perfectly set restaurant or playing a game of chess with his daughter (Lilly Senn) on the rooftop. But while such a description would suggest Solnicki’s latest film is a languorous project about faded glory and the encroaching violence of global capitalist modernity, that is selling “The Souffleur” short — mostly because with Dafoe at the helm, the Vienna-set project has a wry sensibility throughout. Much as Wes Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos have plumbed Dafoe’s deliciously wicked sense of humor in pieces that straddle the line between the real and the archly stylized, Solnicki understands that a strong Dafoe performance must always teeter between the two.
Author: Manuel Betancourt
Published at: 2025-09-28 21:00:00
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