78th Venice Film Festival 1-11 September 2021
78th Venice International Film Festival, Lido di Venezia, 1.09 - 11.09 2021 ©www.popcinema.org
Review and analysis of the 78° Venice Film Festival
Author Roberto Matteucci
Click Here for Italian Version
VENEZIA 78
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Director Jane Campion
Main Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee / New Zealand, Australia / 128’
“I am not your brother”
A son has a duty: to take care of his mother.
In 1925, in Montana, a teenager, Peter, lived with his mother. The father committed suicide. Peter is completely the antithesis of the young cowboys of the state. He is effeminate, totally dressed in white, consciously homosexual, lover of flowers. Yet, he can hunt a bunny and kill him for an autopsy.
He provokes the virility and the masculinity of Phil, a real rude cowboy.
The film is a product of Netflix, the accentuation of realistic details is intertwined with a plot with a psychological predominance.
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COMPETENCIA OFICIAL
Director Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn
Main Cast Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martínez, José Luis Gómez, Nagore Aranburu, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo, Pilar Castro, Koldo Olabarri / Spain, Argentina / 114’
“Yo tambien lo sentido.”
If a very rich industrialist, at the age of eighty, wanted to leave his indelible memory of humanity, what should he do? Producing an over-budgeted film with a neurotic filmmaker and two actors with a disproportionate ego? Or would it be better if he built a bridge?
After watching Competencia Oficial, the millionaire should have no doubts: a strong and long viaduct is better. The plot of the alleged film is the confrontation, the rivalry between two brothers. So, the director, Lola chooses a couple of completely different interpreters. The competition becomes an ironic and sarcastic war due to Lola's aggressive provocations.
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SUNDOWN
Director Michel Franco
Main Cast Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan, Samuel Bottomley / Mexico, France, Sweden / 83’
“I'm not hiding.”
Acapulco is an amazing location for a relaxing holiday. The brothers Neil and Alice Bennett, with the woman's children, are enjoying the resort with baths, tanning, alcohol, food. In England, they are the managers of the family business, a pig factory. During their stay, their mother dies, they have to run home. Neil finds an excuse and remains in Acapulco alone. He disappears, he does not contact anyone. He has a secret. He dreams of pigs in every place. He is confused, lost. His mind is broken down. However, Neil is not the only one to have sunstroke in the film.
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ILLUSIONS PERDUES
Director Xavier Giannoli
Main Cast Benjamin Voisin, Cécile de France, Vincent Lacoste, Xavier Dolan, Salomé Dewaels, Jeanne Balibar, Gérard Depardieu, André Marcon, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Jean-François Stévenin / France / 144’
"The newspaper is a liberal so I'm a liberal."
From Balzac's novel, director Xavier Giannoli narrates a story set in nineteenth-century France but very modern. At the time, newspapers, publishing, books, intellectuals and writers were corrupt, biased, liars, false. Positive or negative reviews were written for money, favours, economic and powerful interests.
How is intellectual life nowadays? Are journalists heroes ready to sacrifice themselves to defend the truth? The illusions are lost, not just for Lucien.
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THE LOST DAUGHTER
Director Maggie Gyllenhaal
Main Cast Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Dominczyk, Alba Rohrwacher / Greece, USA, UK, Israel / 121’
“I left.”
An English university professor, Leda, is on holiday in Greece. On the beach, she meets bizarre and disturbed tourists. Observing these people, Leda is forced to remember her youth. She got married early, and she had two daughters, but, under stress, she did an unworthy gesture. Leda has an unpleasant and insane character. The behaviour of the new friends, with their children, shocks Leda, and on the beach, she reminds her past. The restless protagonists are opposed to the natural beauty and the friendly attitude of the Greeks. The flashbacks create a dominant secondary story, but the film is massacred by too much abnormal chatter.
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SPENCER
Director Pablo Larraín
Main Cast Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins / Germany, UK / 111’
“I am lost.”
Diana Spencer has always lived in wealth, in luxurious environments, in the most sumptuous nobility. Spoiled, she has never worked, cooked, cleaned and, when she drove her Porsche, she got lost. She likes to be a Barbie, and she was treated like a doll, but it is her choice. The film narrates her personality during the three days Christmas meeting of the Royal Family in the Sandringham mansion. Pablo Larraín has abandoned the emotional plots of a historical Chile; nowadays he prefers stories about important women in contrast to their world. For Larraín, Diana had fallen into a crisis of neurosis on the verge of insanity. Is she sick? or are they killing her? Elegant dresses, opulent rooms, impeccable ceremonies are the high point of the story. In meantime, Diana is eating fried chicken at KFC.
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KAPITAN VOLKONOGOV BEZHAL (CAPTAIN VOLKONOGOV ESCAPED)
Director Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov
Main Cast Yuriy Borisov, Timofey Tribuntsev, Aleksandr Yatsenko, Nikita Kukushkin, Vladimir Epifantsev, Anastasiya Ukolova, Natalya Kudryashova, Dmitriy Podnozov, Viktoriya Tolstoganova, Yuriy Kuznetsov, Igor Savochkin / Russia, Estonia, France / 126’
“Why are you afraid?”
False confessions, obtained through torture during the Stalinist USSR before the Second World War, were widespread and consolidated. In St. Petersburg, army Captain Fyodor Volkonogov was one of the cruellest perpetrators. They justified it as preventive repression, in fact, it mainly affected minorities. Such wickedness causes a human upheaval in the Captain's soul. He will have to face his sins. So, he wants to ask for the forgiveness of the families of the people killed. However, forgiveness must be earned, only the final catharsis will help him.
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THE CARD COUNTER
Director Paul Schrader
Main Cast Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe / USA, UK, China / 112’
“I was an american kid.”
Processing the past is always difficult, especially for a cruel former contractor.
William Tell was a sadistic, ruthless tormentor. He enjoyed himself while he tortured, even took witty selfies with the suffering victims. Sentenced to eight years, in prison, he vents his loneliness by learning to count cards. Released, he became a professional gambler. Thanks to his new skill, he continually wins in many casinos in the United States. At one stop, he is forced to remember his brutal past. Paul Schrader narrates one of his classic themes, the traumas created by war, adding the recent attention of the director, the new religious catharsis.
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LA CAJA
Director Lorenzo Vigas
Main Cast Hernán Mendoza, Hatzín Navarrete, Elián González, Cristina Zulueta, Dulce Alexa Alfaro, Graciela Beltrán / Mexico, USA / 92’
“Es mentira.”
The director Lorenzo Vigas, winner of the 2015 Golden Lion with Desde allá, has not yet resolved the relationship with his father. In La caja, the teenager Hatzín has to go to pick up a box, a small coffin, with his father's corpse. Many years ago, he abandoned his son. During the journey, from the bus, Hatzín thinks to recognize him, so he is not dead? Does he still alive? The man denies it, he kicks him out, but the boy insists. Is he really the father? In poor rural Mexico, the exploiters take advantage of the marginalized and immigrants. Hatzín, on the other hand, is looking for a father.
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OUT OF COMPETITION
HALLOWEEN KILLS
Director David Gordon Green
Main Cast Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Thomas Mann, Anthony Michael Hall / Usa / 105’
“He needs to die.”
The dead are never enough. Michael Myers returns to the Halloween saga massacring, quartering, slaughtering, exterminating, slaying, tearing apart, dismembering most of the inhabitants of Haddonfield. He survived the fire, the gunshots, the heavy blows. The director does not avoid the bloody details. The aim is to awaken the most hidden fears of the spectators. No one can be helped, no weapon can kill him. The anxieties must be studied to be resolved. Of course, the bombastic scenes in the film do not help psychoanalytic analysis.
OLD HENRY
Director Potsy Ponciroli
Main Cast Tim Blake Nelson, Scott Haze, Gavin Lewis, Richard Speight Jr., Max Arciniega, Brad Carter, Trace Adkins, Stephen Dorff / Usa / 99’
“Who are you?”
Oklahoma 1906. Old Henry and his son Wyatt live on a farm hidden away on a hill, far from everything. A peaceful family, Old Henry counteracts his son's teenage tantrums with authority.
A casual encounter with an injured man, with a bag full of cash, will destroy their peace. A bunch of cowboys is pursuing him. Old Henry defends him, and he is forced to face them. The shooting obligates him to reveal his secret. The film is a western with lots of firings, action and a final resolution adapted to future changes.
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DUNE
Director Denis Villeneuve
Main Cast Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem / Usa, Ungheria, Giordania, Emirati Arabi Uniti, Norvegia, Canada / 155’
“This is only the beginning.”
Year 10191. The Emperor decides to entrust the planet Arrakis to the Atreides clan. Before, the planet was colonized under the cruel domination of the Harkonnen clan. The Atreides are intelligent, their purpose is to reach an agreement with the inhabitants of the infamous and unlivable desert, the Fremen.
A sequence of conspiracies, betrayals, political and military mismanagement will destroy the plans of the Atreides. Visions, dreams, nightmares, perfect geometric figures, terrifying worms, create tension and vitalize the future. Meanwhile, we are waiting for the bull.
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LAST NIGHT IN SOHO
Director Edgar Wright
Main Cast Anya Taylor-Joy, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, Synnøve Karlsen / Regno Unito / 118’
“Music was better.”
The Soho district in London is a trendy area, full of fun, many clubs, music, dances and other more or less legitimate attractions. In the 1960s, Soho was even more aggressive and glamorous. Nevertheless, more dangerous are the criminal gangs which exploitation prostitution and drug dealing. Eloise and Sandy are two girls belonging to different eras, they meet only in dreams. The Sandy of the sixties is threatened, but Eloise, in the 2000s, wants to save her. A thriller exalted by wonderful Swinging London music. Thanks to music, there is an illusion of redemption.
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ORIZZONTI COMPETITION
PILIGRIMAI (PILGRIMS)
Director Laurynas Bareisa
Main Cast Gabija Bargailaite, Giedrius Kiela, Paulius Markevičius, Indrė Patkauskaitė, Jolanta Dapkūnaitė, Ieva Andrejevaitė / Lithuania / 2021 / 92’
"Who do you want me to take away?"
A dramatic murder in Lithuania remains unanswered by the victim's brother and girlfriend. They begin a pilgrimage, an Easter procession in the places where killer and dead stopped on a fatal night. The macabre details, the indifference, force the two guys to resign themselves to finally mourning. It is a Calvary. Linear editing, flashbacks, long pauses, spasmodic waits are the characteristics of the film.
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PUBU (THE FALLS)
Director Chung Mong-hong
Main Cast Alyssa Chia, Gingle Wang, Chen Yi-Wen, Lee Lee-Zen / Taiwan / 129’
"I advise you to stay away from me."
A female student from Taipei is forced into isolation. She was sitting in the classroom near a positive case at Covid. The quarantine is in her house, a beautiful middle-class home. She lives with her divorced mother. The problem is not the virus, but the relationship between the two women. It would seem like a normal generational crisis, in reality, it is an existential crisis. A snake will find the right solution in their love relationship.
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EL HOYO EN LA CERCA
Director Joaquín del Paso
Main Cast Valeria Lamm Williams, Yubah Ortega, Lucciano Kurti, Eric Walker, Santiago Barajas, Enrique Lascurain, Jacek Poniedzialek, Raul Vasconcelos / Mexico, Poland / 100’
“Posture, punctuality, penance.”
On a Mexican ranch, surrounded by greenery and indigenous villages, there is a Catholic college run by professors intimately involved in teaching. The boys are smart, naughty, bratty, undisciplined, the same as those of many schools. There are bullies and their victims. Their souls are different. They need to relieve their emotional tension. The causes are both school education and hormonal adolescence. Both motivations must find physical and psychological satisfaction even in angry resentment. Violence is the topos of many coming of age stories. The teachers are even fun, like the students. However, they will come out mature and ready to face life.
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AMIRA
Director Mohamed Diab
Main Cast Saba Mubarak, Ali Suliman, Tara Abboud, Waleed Zuaiter, Ziad Bakri, Suhaib Nashwan, Reem Talhami / Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia / 98’
“Your mother lives half a life.”
A woman marries a man in prison. She has never met him, during the ceremony, she kisses his photo. Another is forced to feel ashamed of an unwanted father, others cannot speak or are excluded from every decision in life. It is the female universe in Palestine. The plot does not have anything new, as usual: the wall between Israel and the West Bank, the checkpoint, the hate. Only the tragic final catharsis will dispel suspicions and conflicts.
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CENZORKA (107 MOTHERS)
Director Peter Kerekes
Main Cast Maryna Klimova, Iryna Kiryazeva, Lyubov Vasylyna / Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Ukraine / 93’
“Do you dream your crime?”
The babies of women in prison live the same existence as their mothers. Bars, confined spaces, neurosis, a sense of claustrophobia. It happens in every country. The situation in Ukraine is the same. The director Peter Kerekes narrates it with realism. He starts from a real birth to the rhythmic repetitiveness of the inmates' characters in the interviews with the assistants. They talk to the camera, in mid-shot, with blurred background. The point of view is that of a guard. Guard life is no different from the prisoners. Her freedom is only apparent, she lives inside the prison, she occasionally receives a visit from her mother, she is sad. However, there is hope.
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BODENG SAR (WHITE BUILDING)
Director Kavich Neang
Main Cast Piseth Chhun, Sithan Hout, Sokha Uk, Chinnaro Soem, Sovann Tho, Jany Min, Chandalin Y / Cambodia, France, China, Qatar / 90’
"Do you still dream?"
A dilapidated old white building in Phnom Penh is the setting for a Cambodian drama. Many families have a flat in the building. The construction is damaged and in poor condition. However, in the future, the area will be assigned to rich speculation. Therefore, a construction company offered them money to leave. There is a problem, funds are insufficient to buy a new home. A confrontation will begin between who wants to sell and who wants to stay, a complex human choice. In the background of the white building, there is an already destined family. Will the teenage son be saved?
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EL OTRO TOM
Director Rodrigo Plá, Laura Santullo
Main Cast Julia Chávez, Israel Rodriguez Bertorelli / Mexico, USA / 111’
“I am bipolar.” “I am ADHD.”
Can a lively and active child be treated with psychiatric drugs? Certainly, it is not the case with Tommy. He lives only with his mother. The father - frivolous and immature - fled to Mexico. Tommy is exuberant, restless, but he is not violent. The superficiality of the doctors is shown by a hasty diagnosis and a cure exclusively of medicine. The mother refuses and starts a fight with the school, with the social workers, with the judges. The solution is identified by the woman: she takes Tommy to Mexico with his father. The parents need psychological help, not the child. Maybe some healthy slaps would have been enough for Tommy. However, it is illegal, and it is not possible. Society prefers to cloud the minds of children with drugs, it is stupidly legal.
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ONCE UPON A TIME IN CALCUTTA
Director Aditya Vikram Sengupta
Main Cast Sreelekha Mitra, Shayak Roy, Bratya Basu, Arindam Ghosh, Satrajit Sarkar, Anirban Chakrabarti, Reetika Nondini Sheemu / India, France, Norway / 131’
“It's my house, I decide whether to go out.”
A famous actress has left her brilliant career to care for her sick daughter. When the daughter dies, the mother has to rebuild her life. The first step is to find a new home. The film is a reminder of the Calcutta of the past, compared with the deceitful of today. The other protagonists are building speculators, mafia, swindlers, misers looking for easy money, entertainers. The setting for the drama is an abandoned theatre, where the woman had lived and worked. All circumstances will converge on the old stage. Calcutta is nostalgia.
INU-OH
Director Masaaki Yuasa
Main Cast animation film / featuring the voices of Avu-Chan and Mirai Moriyama / Japan, China / 98’
"You feel like dancing."
Inu-ho was a fourteenth-century Japanese Noh theatre actor. Inu-ho is a fascinating cartoon, full of rhythm, of original characters: a blind man and a dancer with a deformed arm. The film is a joy for the senses, an energetic plot, a lively script, exaggerated primary colours, rousing rock music. The desire to dance is great.
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ORIZZONTI EXTRA
COSTA BRAVA
Director Mounia Akl
Main Cast Nadine Labaki, Saleh Bakri, Nadia Charbel, Ceana Restom, Geana Restom, Liliane Chacar Khoury, Yumna Marwan / Lebanon, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Qatar / 106’
“It's all going to be ok.”
The Badri family left Beirut to move to the countryside. It is a beautiful, peaceful, serene, silent place. One day some trucks begin to carry materials into the ground below. They want to build a modern and functional landfill. The goal is to resolve the Lebanese capital's waste crisis. Peace ends. Parents and children quarrel with each other. Around, there is only rubbish, toxic fires, and a terrible smell. It is no longer possible to live in the valley, leaving is not easy and above all, it divides everyone. Only the little girl will continue to count 1 2 3 4 5 6… to solve problems.
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7 PRISIONEIROS
Director Alexandre Moratto
Main Cast Christian Malheiros, Rodrigo Santoro, Bruno Rocha, Vitor Julian, Lucas Oranmian, Cecília Homem de Mello, Dirce Thomaz / Brazil / 90’
"I've never slept in a bed."
Four, strong and willing, young people leave the Brazilian countryside to go to work in Sao Paulo. A specialized agency found them a job in scrap recovery. It is a hard tiring task. Therefore, they expect food, decent accommodation, a contract to be respected, fairly paid hours. Instead, they were sold, and forced to live in a kind of prison, and tortured. They must work for free, the workshop is a prison, with bars on the windows and high walls. They have no hope, even the police are corrupted, and they are complicit with the bosses. In a desperate film, the protagonists are without a chance, if they wanted to save themselves, they would have to transform themselves into jailers. There are still many injustices.
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