Seeing how we’re usually at our local cinema several times a week, we tend to end up watching certain trailers half a dozen times or more before the films are ever shown. In some cases, I might find a trailer appealing the first two or three times I see it, but by the time I’ve seen it so often that I could lip-sync along to the dialogue I feel I’ve seen enough and don’t even want to watch the whole film. Perhaps in a year or two, once it’s appeared on Film Four or on one of the streaming services we’re subscribed to, but I’m just glad to have seen the last of it for now.
Some trailers are different, though, and each time I watch them I find myself more intrigued. Often, these are the trailers that don’t much focus on plot or dialogues, they’re more about the aesthetic and the vibe of a film. The trailer for Disco Boy by the Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese is a case in point: obviously the film stars Franz Rogowski, an actor I’ve come to appreciate a lot in recent years, but more than that it was the images and the soundscape of the trailer. It was also the hints at the film’s themes: soldiers, colonialism, identity and doubling, intertwined in ways that felt poetic rather than literal. And yes, I’d also heard good things from film festivals, suggesting that Disco Boy was something to look out for.
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 