Maverick filmmaker Abel Ferrara's first-ever full-throttle screwball comedy also happens to be a flat-out masterpiece. Go Go Tales is Ferrara's La Ronde, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and The Golden Coach all in one, a consistently hilarious and heartfelt screwball comedy about art and commerce, about community, love, filmmaking, and performance, performance, performance, held together by a masterful mise en scène and wall-to-wall hip-grinding music. It's fitting that Ferrara shot the New York-set tale at Cinecitta in Rome, as the proceedings can also be easily described as Felliniesque.

Willem Dafoe never releases his smirk as Ray Ruby, nightclub impresario and sometime crooner, who finds himself in a right pickle when his landlady (a beyond indelible Sylvia Miles) threatens to close down his Paradise to make way for a Bed, Bath and Beyond. To try and pay for his back rent, the full-time gambler Ray and his Irish accountant embark on a scheme to win the lottery. Meanwhile, we are witnesses to the show-stopping events, and backstage squabbles, of a bevy of scantily clad go go girls, most notably Asia Argento as the dangerous Monroe, who does a rather remarkable number with her rottweiler. Also featuring Matthew Modine as the best toy-piano-playing hairdresser on Staten Island and Bob Hoskins as Ray's gruff right-hand man, the moral of the exuberant Go Go Tales is apropos for both a film festival and life in general: the show must, and indeed, will, go on.

The VIFF gratefully acknowledges the support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Vancouver for its help in presenting the Italian Film Series.

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