‘A F—ed Up, Queer, Upside Down ‘West Side Story”: Amanda Kramer on Rotterdam Opener ‘Please Baby Please’
variety.comMarta Balaga Chosen as the protagonist of the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Focus section, Amanda Kramer will show eight films to the festival audience, ranging from her 2016 short “Bark” to “Give Me Pity!” and this year’s opener “Please Baby Please,” both set to celebrate their world premieres at the festival.“It’s a funny thing, to be a relatively obscure artist given this very pronounced focus on your work,” Kramer tells Variety. “When Rotterdam was so keen to show it, I was just elated.
It felt like I had done something right.”In “Please Baby Please,” starring Andrea Riseborough and Harry Melling as a couple suddenly faced with their long-dormant fantasies, as well as a violent greaser gang, Kramer turns her attention to the 1950s. “When people talk about that time, they usually go for this cinched waist, poodle skirt, preppy aesthetic.
What I am drawn to is the sleazier, more underground 1950s that I know existed. New York has always been debauched,” she says, mentioning the works of Julien Temple or John Waters, who also tried to re-imagine the era. “They brought it back into the foreground in a very perverse way.
Now, it’s their vision from the 1980s as seen through my vision in 2022.”While her married protagonists are not exactly innocent, they still follow a relatively traditional way of life.
