How do you follow up an acclaimed debut? Amalia Ulman’s answer is to commit to satirical absurdism wholeheartedly. Following her 2021 mother-daughter comedy El Planeta, Ulman’s Magic Farm sees the director return to her birthplace of northern Argentina for a farcical tale of a self-absorbed VICE-esque film crew descending on a rural community to profile a local, bunny-ear-wearing musician. However, they soon realise they’re in the wrong country (it didn’t occur to their producer that there’s more than one San Cristobal) and must scramble to amend their catastrophic error.
Casting herself as Spanish-speaking Elena, Ulman’s character stands apart from the outsiders as a native speaker. She’s repeatedly caught in the middle, translating for the kind-hearted locals and the crew as they fabricate a viral trend to save the documentary. Elena is part of the junior crew members alongside wannabe cowboy Justin (Joe Apollonio) and Alex Wolff’s whiny Jeff “scheming little bitch” Berger who brings boundless physical comedy, sprawling over every soft surface and cowering in corners in an attempt to escape the mess he’s got himself in. Then there’s apprehensive TV host Edna (Chloë Sevigny) and her husband and producer (Simon Rex).
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Though Rex and Sevigny’s appearances are sparse, Ulman has plenty up her sleeve with the younger trio holding down the film’s diverging subplots of a secret pregnancy, a sexual harassment scandal and the assembly of locals into a fictional religious cult. The film’s abstract sense of humour naturally stems from the latter and the surreal situations that arise. Cumbia music and Latin American cultural nuances sprout from Ulman’s connection to the country and, like her character, her directorial voice guides viewers, translating as she goes but refusing to spoon-feed easy answers.
One of Magic Farm’s most compelling narrative branches is an omnipresent health crisis that looms over the film. Locals, including a bemused hostel manager (Guillermo Jacubowicz) and accidental documentary saviour Popa (Valeria Lois), murmur about undrinkable tap water and radio debates on the correlation between reproductive disorders and the toxic herbicides sprayed on fields. This is the real story, one that they can’t (or refuse to) see. The ignorant American archetype is prodded playfully, but there’s a wider comment here about how pressing stories can easily fly under the radar.
Cinematographer Carlos Rigo Bellver tracks these bumbling Americans down winding dirt roads and through colourful homes, chronicling their surreal expedition with equally hypnotising imagery. Ulman’s performance art background informs the film’s optical oddities, like a 360-degree camera, a visual distortion that places characters on a planet of her own creation, a blurred fish-eye effect and a ‘dog cam’ GoPro. Like a visual awakening, these vibrant images interrupt when the script veers towards convention. Magic Farm may not be a blanket crowd pleaser, but Ulman’s smart writing lands in a deeply optimistic place about the pure magic of human connection.
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