66th Venice Film Festival (2009)

[eerik]

Line-up has been announced. More information: http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[foliagecop]

The Ferrara and Refn both sound mighty strange, and a little left-field. Always good to see a new Tornatore though.

[Nothing]

Herzog-Ferrara boxing match to be staged?

[puxzkkx]

Excited most for White Space, White Material and Lourdes... the latter stars one of my favorite actresses ever, so I can't wait!

[zedz]

It's hard to believe it's taken this long for Huppert and Denis to get together. Can't wait to see the result. And it's very amusing to see Alex Cox's Repo Chick programmed among the "new trends in world cinema" strand - how exactly does this qualify?

[Antoine Doinel]

Officials update the awards lineup to include Best 3D Movie. ](*,)

[sharunasbresson]

hi everybody,

coming back from venice i wish to share with you my humble impressions.
First, it’s fair to say that my personal view about the films was seldom shared by other people at the screenings and the same could be said about expectations about movies. In fact, while many screenings were really crowded I managed to enter everywhere i attempted to, even with the lower grade of pass I was granted.

I think I’ve seen three masterpiece!
To me, Liu Jie Touxi , is even better than his previous feature film.
Every single cut being a next step in sharing the characters path. not a camera movement if not a really needed and significant one.
and a noble reflection on justice (again, his appears to me already as a body of work with a clear, definite, strong and still growing poetical and ethical view).
no easy answers, no easy effects on the audience. all the time you need to perceive and think.

The Frederick Wisemann take on Ballet de l’Opera de Paris is another great achievement.
much much better than his work about Comedie Francaise.
Closer maybe to the experience of Belfast, Maine.
Discovering a world, a community of workers (from the coreographer to the dishwasher!), not just spying them through a peephole, but living beside them like an invisible eye.
And strangely enough, finding myself wishing to buy tickets for ballett (never occured to me before), as if I’m finding some keys to enjoy.

The third masterpiece, even if an unbalanced, fragile, even pretencious one at times,
was the debut from Im Kwon Taek cinematographer (and influential Korean critic) Il Sung Jung: Cafe Noir.
I have to say that I have an allergy to quotations and post modern attitude (intertextual references, cinema for cinema’s sake and so on get on my nerves).
So it’s strange to me to fall in love with a movie wich can be described as a Pastiche.
The film is divided in two half with a structure reminescent of the first period Hong Sang Soo movies (and a brief excerpt of Conte de cinema makes its appearance in the first half, together with a lot of visual quotation).
The first half is a strange modern adaptation of Le jeune Werther. after a beginning dangerously reminding me of the worst signs of Tonino Guerra lyrical excesses, the film takes a weird turn, becoming fresh, self deprecating, inventive, rough but never cynical.
The first half reminded me of the best Hal Hartley achievement.
Not a description of love but mostly of the way culture, literature and cinema has changed our way of perceive love, and represent ourselves. life as a mise en scene.
(and by the way I didn’t spotted any quotations from my favourite cinema Werther: the Ophuls one).
The second half is a nearly literal representation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky White Nights.
Not so much Visconti here, just a bit of Bresson, one wonderful wonderful black and white shot of the long tale told by the girl during the second night in the manner of Jean Eustache... and near the end a ballet scene not so far from the Godard’s Bande a part ballet in the bar...
I know it may sound awful, but in the end i found myself cinemadrunk.

Another very nice surprise was the Jessica Hausner Lourdes.
I love when a movie is driven by the desire to watch more than by that to show.
The film is a sensitive, curious, and intensely ambiguous look at the different meaning an experience can get.
Lourdes is a perfect metonimic image of our world where belief and faith can be a driving force, a power instrument, a mediatical business, a source of delusion, a troubling mystery, a mockery, a spiritual strength...
No answer, but a close watch.

Very very nice the portrait of Ricardo Villalobos by Romuald Karmakar. Two really smart guys. Villalobos really clever in his way of distinguish between the musicianship of his studio work and his role of entartainer in the clubs... and hearing him describing analogic recording technique of deutsche grammophone in the 50s is sublime fun (!?)
Karmakar is a patient and clever interviewer, one of the few capable of makes question with a real question mark, not reflections that wish to be shared. and i don’t know if he was pretending ignorance about the subject but i’m grateful he didn’t make a movie for the initiated.
Also, Karmakar is one of the rare filmmaker that understood that to juxtapose an editing fast rythm to the rythm of techno is the best way to misunderstand what’s going on in a disco. His long unedited takes of the villalobos performance are also of great sociological value (if something like that exist).

I was a bit disappointed by the Rivette feature. graceful, nice, elegant but just that. stoling from the less compelling of the bele noiseuse version i would call it a divertissement.

mixed up feelings ( i should say as always) about Claire Denis.
i always have the impression that a stronger editor could take a better result out of her amazing way of shooting.
an editor who throw all the music from the window (not blaming tindersticks), using more concrete sounds and letting me smell the flesh and blood her eyes are always caressing. and i always starve for a bit more “presence” of the out of field space (is this the english technical word for the french Hors Champ and the italian Fuori Campo? please let me know and be indulgent with my awful english).
Still I find this White Material is stronger and more compelling of her last efforts (closer maybe to beau travail).

there’s a movie i still don’t kno what to think about and is the Vimukhti Jayasundara second feature.
His first let me cold (while i was fond of his previous short).
This last movie is the most amazing visual tour de force of the festival. the first three shots are unforgettable.
but all I’m talking about is visual form.
and I’m not a formalist. I’m interested in the relation between the language and the content.
so am i dismissing the film as formalist?
not at all. just telling that i’ve no idea what this film is about. seems a fairytale, but i lost myself in it like a stupid child. and just lost, not really fascinated.
Maybe you know that usually in venice the cinephile who doesn’t understand decides that the film is stupid, not him.
I disagree. I blame on me, and leave you the opportunity to meet this interesting and puzzling movie.

So now, if you take a look at the palmares you see I’m talking about film who passed under complete silence.
so maybe i’m wrong.
and i could spend my time telling you how much I disliked the Shirin Neshat film who get the silver lion, and many others audience-beloved movies.
But I don’t trust myslef enough to find interesting spending time talking about films I dislike.

Just wanted to talk a bit about movies that maybe some of you are waiting to see, and will be lucky to see, while in italy, my country, it’s nearly impossible to see outside the festivals.
No trace here of La mujer sin cabeza for example ( I had to see this on dvd, and so it happens that the cinema i love to me is more and more dvd and not film screened in a dark hall... but this is another funny-sad story)

thanks for your patience
bye