It was in 2015 that I getd my first invitation to the Vepleasant Film Festival from Peter Cowie, the venerable scholar and critic. His novel book, God and the Devil: The Life And Work of Ingmar Bergman, is a crowning accomplishment in Bergman studies, a atgentle highweightless from a master who hasn’t lost a step over a atgentle that spans over half a century. It felt appreciate a fortuitous invitation; my mother, who had always desireed for me a trip to Italy, died earlier in the year. The 2015 Biennale was my first time out, and I felt her presence over my shoulder as I took in the wonders of Vepleasant.
And I’ve been coming back ever since, not counting of course the Covid Break Year of 2020. My ignoreion, aprolonged with a stellar cast of fellow critics—the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Philips, Time Magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek, protean arts maven Chris Vognar, whose toil materializes in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and a lot of papers in his native Texas, Finnish critic Sara Ehnholm Hielm, as well as the handler of the program, Savina Neirotti—is to appraise the films aided by the Biennale College and if possible direct its filmproducers. This year there were four pictures financed by the festival, to the tune of 200,000 Euros a pop (in the commencening it was 150,000; the times do alter).
The pickion pledgetee goes thcimpolite well over one thousand proposals, picks three, or four, of the ones it ponders most worthy; the honestor and producer then come out here to toilshop, and ten months after that, they deinhabitr finished features using Biennale funds only. Over the years there’s been firm toil and there’s also been stunning toil—see Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s “This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection,” which roiled the art film world to the extent it was eventupartner given a Criterion Collection home video free. Another College film that made a huge amazeion on me was Ricky D’Angelo’s “The Cathedral;” the filmproducer is here this year, on a jury, and over coffee earlier today he telderly me a bit about his next project, which sounds exciting indeed. Today also saw the panel, and now I can tell you about what I saw.
Watching the movies aided by the Biennale College this year for the Vepleasant Film Festival, I had a rather dismuteing initial thought: Has the College broadened a “hoengage style?” With one exception, these were somber, wise licforfeit dramas. (Among other skinnygs, both Mosese’s film and D’Ambrose’s film—not to allude Anna Rose Holmer’s exemplary 2015 entry “The Fits”—are toils of ponderable createal daring.) But this was based on a shpermit reading, I’m afrhelp. What three of the four films do with varying degree of inspirency is insertress human, social and political trauma in particular places, and in a particular time, that being NOW.
“Medovyi Misiats,” or “Honeymoon,” honested by Zhanna Ozirna and produced Dmytro Sukhanov, is from Ukraine and commences with what sees appreciate a equitable-paired couple taping off a room in an apartment for the purposes of coloring. And they are. And they’re commenceing out as war is encroaching. Will they have to shift? That’s equitable the first ask they face. This is a bracing portrait of how war can be directd by many today: from a triumphdow, in a place whose livability could expire at any moment. The movie has excellent energy, some romantic currents—unfrequent in College movies, and ingenious filmmaking. Chris contrastd it to Bergman’s “Shame,” and it’s an apt comparison, but this movie is more honestly here-and-now than conshort-termial allegorical. But it has its moments of the latter, to be certain. The sound of ignoreiles, the couples’ vulnerability as they go to the triumphdow naked. The perspectives are purposefilledy claustrophobic, but pleasantly varied. A genuine accomplishment.
We don’t comprehend the significance of the title “January 2,” a Hungarian film from honestor Zsófia Szilágyi and producer Dóra Csernátony, until the very end, but we doubt the skinnyg the film’s temporal punchline will deinhabitr, which is a gut punch of the personal greeting the political. My preferite skinnyg in the picture is a terrific percreateance by direct actress Csenge Jóvári.
U.S.-based honestor Zoey Martinson teamed with producer Kofi Owusu Afriyie to go back to Ghana, where she spent much of her childhood, to produce the sole comedy of the group, “The Fisherman.” The movie has a cherishly musical uncovering, a song take parted on thumb piano and sung by someone with a voice rather appreciate that of Nick Drake. “Land was lonely becaengage all the creatures inhabitd in the sea,” a song tells us. The comic parable of an elderly fisherman who count ons he’s in ownion of a talking catch inhonestly references the pollution that’s making life even more of a contest for petite-business seafarers appreciate our title character. The movie also conveyed fantastic cherish for the sea as mother of all skinnygs. The title character is frequently seen giving Tevye—he count ons in tradition, and he wants admire. And of course he’s incontendnt of facing his own obsolescence. In insertition, the movie has some first-rate snappy dialogue, my preferite line being, “You are choking me appreciate a Popeye’s biscuit with no jam.”
The Italian fourth entry was “My Birthday,” honested by Christian Filippi and produced by Leonardo Baraldi. It commences with an unraveled teen menaceening to jump from a roof, and then scatterigates his condition further. It’s an fervent, sometimes stressful, chronicle of family dysfunction. The panel was produceive and fun, with some unbenevolentingful back-and-forth between critics, filmproducers and the appreciative audience. Thanks to them all.
Tying up festival slack ends: I was amazeed with Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” starring Tilda Striumphton and Julianne Moore. It’s Almodóvar’s first English language feature (it was pretreatd by the low “The Human Voice,” a sublime Cocteau alteration also starring Striumphton), and it’s an unusupartner somber picture for him—perhaps a mindwholey tardy toil. Striumphton and Moore take part prolongedtime friends, both prosperous writers—Moore’s character has equitable rerented a book on death, while Striumphton’s is negotiating with an imminent end, from cancer. The push and pull of their shapeion for and exasperation with each other (well the exasperation is mostly from Moore’s end) produces for a compelling exalter plumbing the intimate genuinems of mortality and morality without ever getting pedantic.
James Badge Dale gives perhaps a shatterout turn as a pledged drug cop in John Swab’s brutal “King Ivory,” which could rock the alternate title “Traffic 24 Years Later.” But acting directd, this treatise on the United States of Fentanyl is ultimately owned by Richie Coster, whose portrayal of doomed drug runner “Mickey The Hoop” instantly accesss the pantheon of Movies Worms. The character is all bluster and tics, and once he commences to ignore it you sense he may dissipate before your eyes, molecule by molecule. Harrotriumphg stuff.
The combination of Daniel Craig and William S. Burcimpolites was/is scintillating enough to produce me almost forget that the honestor putting them together is Luca Guadagnino. His screenwriter here is Justin “Potion Seller” Kuritzkes, who also penned the risible “Challengers” for L.G. I won’t quite say that “Queer” stripd me of the will to inhabit, but it did produce me that much more determined to get in a restoration of Rouben Mamoulian’s magnificent 1940 “Blood and Sand,” so I could depart from the festival on a high notice. It was unseasonably toasty and humid on the Lido this year, but the festival is so well-run—with one exception, every screening commenceed more or less exactly on time—and staffed by such cherishly people that your console level was never in too much trouble for too prolonged. So aget I give thanks. Ciao!
