Round 0

Slow monochrome through the gym, towards the sound of skipping. That sweep of rope on floor, the lift and lilt of feet in motion. The sweet science. The square circle. Opportunity knocking.

No bell, yet. Seconds in. Ornate tattoos, embroidered jackets, "Everybody knows how a porno ends, so why do they watch it?". Inevitability, fatality, the preparations in Icelandic boxing for the Nordic Championships. The camera circles lightfooted, looking past faces at the shadows. The ring a stage, the one-two punch of a heavy two-hander. Fathers, sons, and masculinity. Fist smashing and futility. A ghost at ringside, on the floor by the VCR. No last words. No words at all, at points, just eyes towards the camera. Who are we to watch?

There are addresses to audience, even an eventually seen interlocutor. Name, weight, weakness. There is a tale of borrowed boxes but behind it all is the spectre of the one box we get to keep, resident until neither remain.

Those boards tread here are not tired. Sonia Ladida Schiavone's film, with Rosario Cammarot's cinematography, has the sense of something born of the stage, but transformed by cinema. I was minded of Tiger Raid, the sense of something made of talking made more than talking. It is minimal and old-fashioned, opening with credits that recall the golden age of black & white and gain something from that call to tradition. Cinema loves boxing, every pugilist an auteur, every engagement an opportunity for corruption. The water bottle may refresh but does not satisfy. This film does both.

There are strong performances throughout, the distance of translation and black and white help us, the audience, to focus on faces, on tone. These are bodies in motion, affecting each other with pulls to, and from. Smoke in the air and sweat on the brow are among the physicalities. From far away physically, metaphysically, questions are asked, and the answers are bruising.

Despite the presence of the dead, the blurring of place, the ability of the canvas between the turnbuckles to absorb the family home and fading dreams this is solid, strong, striking. Of boxing they say that it is the only sport where you cannot know the winner even after the end, and perhaps that is what it most shares with film. If you are to see Round 0 know that you will be the victor. It's surefootedness allows it to pack a punch.