Trying to guess the winners of a Festival is of course a very meaningless diversion: we're not talking about the Oscars, but of nine, almost random personalities with different tastes and ideas. From what we've seen, every single title could be a potential winner or loser, since no title really stands out from the others. That's why, in this last dispatch, we find it better to talk about some very good movies we've seen in the collateral sections, out of the main lineup. All three of these deserved to be in the big race, and the reason why they aren't is one of this year's Venice mystery. We'll go back to it, among with other thoughts and questions about this 70th edition of the oldest film festival in the world.
See you tomorrow for the winners!
The UNFORGIVEN Japanese Remake is Cool Entertainment
OK, the original masterpiece remains unreachable in its crepuscular perfection, and Ken Watanabe hasn't got Clint Eastwood's charisma. Still, Lee Sang-il's Unforgiven remake is quite good and enjoyable. The story, excluding a few little changes, is exactly the same as the 1992 version. The set has been relocated in a full Japanese scenery, but the mood is still so western, with more gunshots rather than swords and samurais. The director manages to amplify pathos through an empowerment of the soundtrack and giving more dramatic takes to the scenes, differing from the noir dryness of Eastwood. The 1992 film was an outdated masterpiece with a mournful evocative mood, this one, although done in a more conventional way, is cool epic entertainment with some spectacular scenes in it.
P.S: Watch out for Jun Kunimura's great performance, playing the role that Richard Harris did more than 20 years ago.
EASTERN BOYS Unexpectedly Turns Romantic
One of the festival's most beautiful surprises is Robin Campillo's Eastern Boys, presented in the Orizzonti section. The film starts like a home-invasion thriller in the vein of Funny Games and The Strangers, with a bunch of dangerous male prostitutes uninvitedly occupying a client's house. Then, it unexpectedly turns into a delicate and tenderful romance. The film gives its best scenes in this segment, getting from actors Olivier Rabourdin and Kirill Emelyanov the sweetness of feelings developing in an ambiguous and uncertain way. A client and a gigolo who become sex lovers, then romantic lovers, then father and son: definitions are not important, the emotional evolution and the process of self-knowledge are.
Uberto Pasolini's STILL LIFE is The Best Italian Film of the Mostra
Another surprise from the Orizzonti section is Still Life by Uberto Pasolini, the minimal story of a lonely man who investigates the lives of deceased people who seem to have nobody in the world and who died in solitude and silence. We know nothing about the protagonist: John May has a common name, a gray existence and no friends at all: his job is everything to him, being so glued to the dead ones, almost in a necrophiliac, though sexless way. The moving and funny performance by Eddie Marsan deserves a Coppa Volpi more than any other official candidate (like Antonio Albanese or Nicolas Cage), and so is the movie itself, the best Italian title of this year's whole selection. Still Life has it all: a refined and crystal clear script, a skillfull direction and an ending that is both so cruel and tender. Totally heartbreaking.