A movie satirizing the work of documentarians at controversial new media organizations may seem a little outdated – VICE News was launched in 2013, after all. But a quick look at its YouTube channel shows that videos are still uploaded regularly and get hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of views. That particular brand of journalism is still ripe for parody, then, even if it doesn't get as much attention outside of its own bubble anymore.
Creative Lab, the media company in Amalia Ulman's Magic Farm, is desperately trying to retain relevancy. Presented by Edna (Chloë Sevigny), produced by Edna's sleazy husband Dave (Blink Twice's Simon Rex) and incompetent Jeff (Hereditary's Alex Wolff), and filmed by the more well-intentioned Elena (writer-director Ulman) and Justin (Joe Apollonio), Creative Labs makes online documentaries about subcultures around the world.
Their next subject is Super Carlitos, a musician who dresses up as a giant rabbit and is based in San Cristobal. It's only once they've touched down in San Cristobal, Argentina, that the crew realizes that there are several towns with the same name in Latin America, and Jeff has booked them a trip to the wrong one.
Tongue-in-cheek
Unable to track down Super Carlitos (or Marita, the contact Jeff was originally speaking to when they were planning the doc), the group scrambles to think of a new pitch – and fabricate a zany subculture in a rural Argentinian town. Coming up with a new plan isn't their biggest problem, either: Elena is hiding a pregnancy from everyone but her best pal Justin, and Dave has to hightail it back to the US to deal with an unfolding sexual assault scandal. And that's before Jeff and Justin find themselves distracted by tentative romantic entanglements with a local woman and their hotel receptionist.
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Elena is the only Spanish speaker in their midst and, like Ulman, she was born in Argentina but raised in Spain. She feels obliged to explain away her accent to the locals, and finds herself occupying a precarious middle ground between her New York colleagues and the subjects they're trying to capture. "I don't want to exploit someone just because they're weird," Elena says at one point. "Well, you chose the wrong job," Jeff responds.
Magic Farm isn't a straightforward tale of exploitation, though – a movie that veers down that path would fall into the same trap of the people it was trying to satirize. Instead, the people of San Cristobal, Argentina, give as good as they get, keeping their American visitors on their toes and making sure they never get too comfortable. None of it is malicious, though – in keeping with the movie's tongue-in-cheek tone, the locals' behaviour always keeps a wry and playful undertone.
Bigger picture
The surreal and bizarre nature of the situation is reflected in the movie's use of high-contrast colour-grading and wacky camera angles, which include putting the viewer inside a fridge and on the back of a dog running around the village. The Creative Labs crew is trying their hardest to manufacture something off-the-wall, but if they possessed any self-awareness, they'd see that their own presence in San Cristobal is providing the same entertainment that they're seeking out.
Jeff, Edna, and co. are so wrapped up in their lives and their inability to process their issues, though, that they're oblivious to the bigger picture around them. A refusal – or perhaps an inability – to look outwards means they miss the real story that becomes apparent as the film progresses: harmful herbicides, sprayed onto local crops by anonymous aircraft, are causing severe health problems in the community that they've forced their way into.
"The final feeling of the film is pretty much that we’re all fucked, all of us together, and we have to communicate," Ulman said in an interview with Vogue. "Nothing else we can really do while the earth goes to shit."
Magic Farm is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.
