I was a big fan of Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah and was very encouraged when his follow-up, Reality, also bagged him the Grand Prix at Cannes last year. The film just opened Hong Kong’s European Union Film Festival, and to be honest it’s a bizarre though intriguing affair.

Aniello Arena is fantastic as Luciano, a modest fishmonger in an aging suburb of Naples, living in a spectacularly breezy and historic apartment with his beautiful wife and three children – but one gets the feeling from films like this that everyone in Italy lives in beautiful places like this. After witnessing the praise lavished on a local who achieved modest success on the reality TV show Big Brother, Luciano’s family convinces him to apply for the show. No sooner does he make contact then he becomes convinced he has been accepted and the community embraces him as if he was the hero of the city. It becomes increasingly addictive and Luciano, who was at first reluctant to participate – or at least to acknowledge his desire to participate – becomes obsessed with the idea of his own fame.

What might seem an odd topic for Garrone in light of his previous work is what makes the project intriguing, while also being the reaon it doesn’t quite work. His verite style and love of character interaction, mood and community, seem somewhat at odds with the subject of celebrity, validification and the role of the media in creating and perpetuating stardom. There’s also a bizarre subplot involving the reselling of household cooking robots that is never quite explained, but even when you can feel the film go off the rails, you can also sense that you are in the hands of a filmmaker who completely understands the medium, even when his particular subject and aesthetic make uneasy bedfellows.