79th Venice International Film Festival, Venice, 31.08 - 10.09 2022 - Film and Review
79th Venice International Film Festival, Lido di Venezia, 31.08 - 10.09 2022
Reviews, news and analysis from 79th Venice International Film Festival, Venice, 31.08 - 10.09 2022
A selection of the most important films from the popcinema.org editorial team.
Author Shane Virunphan
VENEZIA 79 COMPETITION
THE SON
Director Florian Zeller
"He scares me."
Nicholas is a teenager from New York. His parents divorced. Nicholas lives with his mother while his father has remarried and has a newborn son. The separation created a fracture in Nicholas' soul. He did not react like a normal teenager, rebelling or making stupid gestures. Nicholas has withdrawn into himself. He has no friends, he does not hang out. He has acute depression. How do you cope with teen depression? With parental love or with medical care? And what's behind the washing machine?
Read the review here
BONES AND ALL
Director Luca Guadagnino
“You look like a faggot.“
Guadagnino combines two always precious genres: road movie and cannibalism. Numerous cannibals live in disguise anywhere in the United States. They recognise each other, or rather, they smell each other. While escaping, two teenage cannibals encounter. They fall in love. Then there is anthropophagy, but everyone knows that all love has many obstacles. Even love for cinema also has its obstacles.
Read the review here
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER
Director Joanna Hogg
“I am not fussing.“
In the misty English countryside, a long road leads to Moel Fanam Hall. It is a very large, ancient aristocratic mansion. It has been transformed into a hotel. A charming hotel, there are very few customers. All around only fog, a park and a lot of silence. And when there is deep silence, any slight noises are amplified by the imagination.
At night, a film writer and her elderly mother arrive, who lived her childhood in her palace. The creaks, the squeaks, the breezes, the sounds, the receptionist, and the sad old servant conceal the true mystery of the hotel.
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
Director Martin McDonagh
“Just silence.“
In April 1923, the civil war was being fought in Ireland. Many Irish people did not accept the agreement with the United Kingdom that excluded the six Protestant counties in the north.
On an Irish island far from the coast, the clashes are heard only by the rumble of cannon shots on the mainland. However, even on the small island, a civil war begins, Colm rejects the old friendship with Padraic. Every day, they go to the pub together at two o'clock. Suddenly, Colm does not want to talk to him anymore. There is no reason. Padraic goes crazy trying to understand and challenges him continuously. Living in that small space with the usual people, doing the same boring actions, limits the humanity of the islanders, leading to unnatural follies.
In May 1923, the civil war in Ireland ends, but not the war on the island.
Read the review here
LOVE LIFE
Director
Kôji Fukada
"I've read a lot about science and philosophy, but those are not things that can protect us."
Love Life is a film about mourning the death of a child. The baby is Park's son from her first marriage. Now, Park is married to Jiro, who has not yet recognised him because their union is opposed by Jiro's parents. Park, in her mourning, gets closer to her ex-husband, a dumb, deaf Korean homeless man under the protection of social services.
The winner will be the cunning and liar ex-husband.
Read the review here
THE WHALE
Director Darren Aronofsky
“You're disguisting.”
The loss of a loved one can cause acute depression. The effects can be of several types. Following his partner's suicide, Charlie falls down and lets out his anger by eating everything in colossal quantities. His body is totally deformed, stratospheric, he can't stand up. He is about to die. His clinical levels are frightening. He meets her rebellious but intelligent teenage daughter. The confrontation is furious. Darren Aronofsky intersperses it with the visit of a Christian missionary eager to convert Charlie. It is the story of Moby Dick, hunted for years, flees the oceans to his enemy.
Read the review here
BARDO, FALSA CRÓNICA DE UNAS CUANTAS VERDADES (BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDUL OF TRUTHS)
Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu
"You cannot dream of dreaming."
The dream should be unique. Yet, to Alejandro Iñárritu, there is interchangeability both with reality and with the imagination itself. In three hours, the director concentrates on a multitude of themes, often banally conservative and reactionary. The author's style and his intelligence are not enough to systematically tell an illegible narrative. Ironically, there is a witty hyperbole: Amazon bought Baja California from Mexico. This is an exaggeration, however, there is another disheartening truth regarding another powerful American multinational: Netflix has bought world cinema.
OUT OF COMPETITION
BOBI WINE: GHOTTO PRESIDENT
Directors Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo
"Because everyone in the ghetto is a superstar."
The onslaught of singers, comedians, actors, artists, in power continues. The reason is elementary. They are marketing creations. With a powerful and well-funded propaganda machine, they can win. It even happens in Uganda. Singer Bobi Wine wants to be president. Bobi Wine wants to teach democracy to Ugandans, but do Ugandans know what democracy is? The two activist and slightly partisan filmmakers are not convinced. They direct a funny film, mainly thanks to the rhythmic music of the presidential candidate.
LIVING
Director Oliver Hermanus
“Infatuated?”
The remake of director Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru is no easy task. Yet, Oliver Hermanus can direct it by setting it in the London of the fifties. The bureaucracy has no heart in any country; so - in London, or Rome, or Japan - it always remains dull and useless. Just death can sweeten the bureaucratic zombies.
Read the review here
MASTER GARDENER
Director Paul Schrader
“The better the money, the better the manure.”
Paul Schrader returns to elaborate on the terrifying past of a man guilty of infamous crimes. A typical theme for the director, from Taxi Driver to The Card Counter and First Reformed. Narvel was a member of a paramilitary group of neo-Nazis. His body is completely tattooed with swastikas. Now, he is a talented gardener. He manages Grace Woods Gardens, an enchanting park full of flowers of all kinds. When Maya, the owner's granddaughter, arrives, he is forced to rethink his past definitively. No link must remain.
Read the review here
DON’T WORRY DARLING
Director Olivia Wilde
“Changing the world.”
What will be our future? An ideal metaverse, where perfection is a must?
It is the Victory Town. An exemplary city of the fifties. Everyone is colourful, beautiful, perfect, elegant, happy. As they move in sync, they leave for work at the same time, and their cars start simultaneously. It is the Victory project. The inhabitants cannot leave the desert. Is it a happy place or a prison? And what happens in the headquarters?
Just women can revolt to have a new freedom. Men are unable to understand, or perhaps they are the executioners.
DEAD FOR A DOLLAR
Director Walter Hill
“I try to pay my debts.“
The Western keeps its seduction intact. The excited tones of the old westerns have increased the rhythm. However, the characters always maintain their integrity, both for the good guys and the bad guys.
Walter Hill is aware of the rules of the genre in his latest film. A classic, normal story, with refined rides, brilliant dialogue, immense landscapes and a final duel with a surprise.
Among the many belligerent men, there are a sophisticated lady able to shoot precisely and an unexpectedly combative waitress.
Read the review heree
ORIZZONTI COMPETITION
ARU OTOKO (A MAN)
Director Kei Ishikawa
"Nobody lives without a few scars."
In cases where a person does not like the way they live, or has suffered inconceivable traumas, is it possible to abandon the past and drastically change their name, life, and habits?
According to the director Kei Ishikawa, all people in Japan need a new identity. The story proceeds like a thriller, with lots of flashbacks to create personalities.
JANG-E JAHANI SEVOM (WORLD WAR III)
Director Houman Seyedi
"They keep us in the rain for this shit."
Shakib is an Iranian with no luck. He alone lives in the back room of a friend's shop. He survives on occasional and daily jobs. He meets only a very pretty young prostitute. Shakib is hired to prepare the set of a historical film about Nazi concentration camps. As a carpenter, Shakib, unknowingly, becomes an actor. He even has to play Adolf Hitler. Simultaneously, he can enjoy benefits such as staying in the house built for filming. Unfortunately, problems also come. The harlot runs away from the brothel to join him, but she is chased by the pimps.
Shakib is betrayed by the cast. His revenge will be right and merciless.
Read the review here
LA SYNDICALISTE (THE SITTING DUCK)
Director Jean-Paul Salomé
"So you get the grappa and I get the seminars."
Maureen is an energetic, strong-willed woman. She manages the Areva union, the French nuclear multinational. Maureen is not afraid. She discovers that the managers are trying to sell the nuclear sector with the help of dangerous middlemen. In her house, she is attacked. She is arrested on suspicion of pretending. She begins a fight to defend her honesty. At the same time, Isabelle Hupper is both fragile and steadfast in her role.
Read the review here
ORIZZONTI EXTRA
VALERIA MITHATENET (VALERIA IS GETTING MARRIED)
Director Michal Vinik
"If you are afraid of wolves, do not enter the forest."
Even in a multi-ethnic nation like Israel, it is difficult to relate to and marry a good girl. Marriage agencies are very common. Jewish Russians are mainly looking for beautiful Ukrainian women. Christine has been living with a Russian-Israeli man for years. She convinces her sister, Valeria, to find a suitor. Since she is attractive, a boy becomes infatuated with her. Valeria flies to Tel Aviv to meet him. He is kind, caring, cute, courteous, polite, yet she rejects him. Why? Why does she push him away? That is the film's question. There is a different explanation for each spectator.
BI ROYA (WITHOUT HER)
Director Arian Vazirdaftari
"If a person forgets the past, is she still the same person?"
A middle-class Iranian family, Roya the wife and Babak the husband, had the longed-for visa to move to Denmark. One night, two weeks before departure, Roya sees a lonely girl on the street, lost, who faints in front of her. The girl, after the first moment of bewilderment and despite Babak's irritation, stays in their home. She stays too comfortable, as she begins to resemble Roya with the same characteristics. Who is this young woman? Who is Raya?
The identity is confused, just as the rules of the shot reverse-shot are mixed up.
Read the review here
NEZOUH
Director Soudade Kaadan
"A film in Syria where no one dies?"
Zeina is a teenager. She lives with her parents in Syria. The conflict line of the civil war runs through her home. Her father does not want to leave. The flat is hit in full by a bomb, causing a huge hole in the ceiling. Zeina meets Amer through the crack, who is also not displaced like his family. They become friends. Amer teaches her the imagination of the image. When the mother and daughter flee despite their father's opposition, Amer will unite and help them. It is a film of rich colours, of contrasts between the irony of the dialogues and the drama of the clashes. The goal is the sea. Can they reach it?
BIENNALE COLLEGE CINEMA
GORNYI LUK (MOUNTAIN ONION)Director Eldar Shibanov
"Maybe I am a boy." "Maybe you are a wolf."
In Kazakhstan, near the border with China, a family faces modernity. The mother wants to divorce. Her husband's habit of picking up trash and cleaning the planet is a weakness for her. Zhabi, the young son, would like to help his father. He considers him too weak and debilitated for sexual coitus. He is not like his uncle, his mother's lover, handsome and young. According to Zhabi, his secret is Gold Viagra, a Chinese copy of the famous drug against impotence. The journey to get a box is studded with joy and naivety. The film is fake, colourful, impossible, and derisive. Why do two cyclists enthusiasts ride with a sign against domestic violence? When asked if there is any mistreatment in his house, Zhabi replies yes: the mother often beats her father.
Read the review here
BANU
Director Tahmina Rafaella
"Martyrs never die."
While the Azerbaijani army is recapturing the territory of Karabakh, previously occupied by the Armenians, the beautiful Banu is resisting a difficult separation from her aggressive husband. Their dispute concerns the custody of their child. The film explores these two lines, the war of the military and the war of the woman seeking witnesses to validate her claim. Banu's loneliness appears in anxious dialogues and the precise shot reverse-shot. In the end, the victory is celebrated in Baku and Banu observes, perplexed.
Read the review here
GIORNATE DEGLI AUTORI
EL AKHIRA. LA DERNIÈRE REINE (THE LAST QUEEN)
Director
Adila Bendimerad and Damien Ounouri
“You are a man of peace.”
In 1516, Algiers was threatened by the Spaniards. To drive them out, his king joins the rough and violent corsair Arus. However, the nomad Arus this time is not satisfied with the booty, he wants something more, he wants to live forever in Algiers. With the death of the king, his wife, Zaphira, is the new queen. Zaphira, strong and courageous, will face the corsair until the final challenge. Historical film with linear editing without any pretentiousness for the simplicity of the battles and clashes.
ALONE
Director Jafar Najafi
"Our house will have a bed."
Amir is a child who, with two sisters, his mother and grandmother, lives in a remote place in Iran. They had an older sister, but she died after the wedding. It is an ancient society, customs prevail and poverty marks families. After the death of his father, Amir is the only man in the family, so he is the head. Numerous mediators push him to allow one of the sisters to marry his widowed brother-in-law. Amir refuses indignantly: the girls are only ten years old. The film is full of dialogue. The contrast is between serious speeches and childish games. Spectators are immersed in a suggestive reality.
Read the review here
