Venice, Entry 9: Waiting for Miyazaki
Everybody's leaving! I've just said my goodbyes to most of the Croatian film critic contingent here, and even my roommate is leaving today, which means that I'll finally be able to sleep next to an open window. Cinematic joys are getting fewer by the day, also, as the Mostra is visibly running out of steam. The one highlight of today will be Hayao Miyazaki in one of his extremely rare appearances outside Japan; he's here to receive his Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, and I'm truly looking forward to seeing both him in the flesh, and his two movies (Nausicaa and Porco Rosso) on the big screen. I mean, them's the breaks; of the high-profile titles, only Neil Marshall's Descent and the festival's closing film, Peter Ho-sun Chan's Perhaps Love remain.
As I've seen 46 titles so far, these four will make it a round 50; I might add a few more. But I'm tired; tired to the bones. It isn't really easy to see so many movies continually, especially since really good ones are few and far between this year. Here's three that mattered since Wednesday.
The Constant Gardener is probably the best Le Carre adaptation so far. I know that this isn't saying much, so how about this: this major Hollywood production is actually one of the strongest competition titles this year. The direction by Fernando Meirelles here means all the difference: the Brazilian director tones his style down somewhat from the ultraintense City of God, but still manages to cram a lot of story and a lot of heartfelt drama in a standard-length feature film. The storyline -- about a low-ranking diplomat investigating the death of his activist wife in Africa -- isn't anything that hasn't been seen before, but still the film impresses with its uncompromising verisimilitude and relevance, so much so that it might even impress those who usually don't care about the issues of globalisation. You never know if a movie that takes on Big Pharma via Africa could ever connect with the American audiences, but the presence of Ralph Fiennes and never-better Rachel Weisz could make this a contender at the Oscars, if not at Venice.
Backstage is a French film about fangirls: and really, how many films about fangirls are there? Here, Isild le Besco plays Lucie, an underage provincial girl with an almost mystical crush on a pop singer named Lauren (Emmanuelle Seigner, looking very much like Debbie Harry). Circumstances bring the two together, and much heartache, hysteria, and utterly inexpressible love is had by little Lucie, before her exposure to the private life of a star leads her to take some very worrying actions. The theme is very fresh, the storytelling quite compelling, and the power ballads suitably dodgy; Backstage should be seen by many, many, many regular Internet users, of course.
Finally, Dam Street by the Chinese directress Li Yu has been the strongest Chinese title of the Mostra so far, and, as is only too usual this year, it wasn't screened in competition. It tells a story of a high-school girl who becomes pregnant in a beautiful town full of dams and waterfalls in the early 80s, and is expelled from school and forced into a life of a low-class chanteuse in the subsequent ten years. Told in a minimalist, but highly evocative style, the story never drags, speaking volumes in very few strokes. And it's funny, too. Catch it if you can.
Oh yeah, Vincent d'Onofrio was here too, in the short features section, presenting a 30-minute movie in which he also stars in the one role he probably can't escape. Five Minutes, Mr. Welles is a fictional story of how Orson wrote his dialogue for the ferris wheel in The Third Man; and while it will amuse film buffs, it's really not much more than a glorified single-act play, competently done. So, um, you know. Don't be surprised if it too ends up being nominated for an Oscar...
As I've seen 46 titles so far, these four will make it a round 50; I might add a few more. But I'm tired; tired to the bones. It isn't really easy to see so many movies continually, especially since really good ones are few and far between this year. Here's three that mattered since Wednesday.
The Constant Gardener is probably the best Le Carre adaptation so far. I know that this isn't saying much, so how about this: this major Hollywood production is actually one of the strongest competition titles this year. The direction by Fernando Meirelles here means all the difference: the Brazilian director tones his style down somewhat from the ultraintense City of God, but still manages to cram a lot of story and a lot of heartfelt drama in a standard-length feature film. The storyline -- about a low-ranking diplomat investigating the death of his activist wife in Africa -- isn't anything that hasn't been seen before, but still the film impresses with its uncompromising verisimilitude and relevance, so much so that it might even impress those who usually don't care about the issues of globalisation. You never know if a movie that takes on Big Pharma via Africa could ever connect with the American audiences, but the presence of Ralph Fiennes and never-better Rachel Weisz could make this a contender at the Oscars, if not at Venice.
Backstage is a French film about fangirls: and really, how many films about fangirls are there? Here, Isild le Besco plays Lucie, an underage provincial girl with an almost mystical crush on a pop singer named Lauren (Emmanuelle Seigner, looking very much like Debbie Harry). Circumstances bring the two together, and much heartache, hysteria, and utterly inexpressible love is had by little Lucie, before her exposure to the private life of a star leads her to take some very worrying actions. The theme is very fresh, the storytelling quite compelling, and the power ballads suitably dodgy; Backstage should be seen by many, many, many regular Internet users, of course.
Finally, Dam Street by the Chinese directress Li Yu has been the strongest Chinese title of the Mostra so far, and, as is only too usual this year, it wasn't screened in competition. It tells a story of a high-school girl who becomes pregnant in a beautiful town full of dams and waterfalls in the early 80s, and is expelled from school and forced into a life of a low-class chanteuse in the subsequent ten years. Told in a minimalist, but highly evocative style, the story never drags, speaking volumes in very few strokes. And it's funny, too. Catch it if you can.
Oh yeah, Vincent d'Onofrio was here too, in the short features section, presenting a 30-minute movie in which he also stars in the one role he probably can't escape. Five Minutes, Mr. Welles is a fictional story of how Orson wrote his dialogue for the ferris wheel in The Third Man; and while it will amuse film buffs, it's really not much more than a glorified single-act play, competently done. So, um, you know. Don't be surprised if it too ends up being nominated for an Oscar...