Source: Global Times
The 79th Venice International Film Festival will be held from August 31 to September 10 on the Lido Island in Venice, Italy, with a total of 23 films from all over the world competing for the highest honor "St. Mark's Golden Lion Award", including many famous directors who have won golden lion awards and Oscars, and the luxurious lineup has also attracted special attention from the media and fans. However, the Chinese films that were once popular in Watertown are absent again, and only the restored version of Yang Dechang's classic film "Independent Times" is screened in the classic unit, and the Sino-Japanese co-production "Stone Gate" appears in the parallel unit.
Oscar-winning director "Peach for Lee"
"Venice, 90 years old, looks better than ever," the Associated Press is optimistic about this year's Venice Film Festival. As the world's oldest film festival, Venice's influence in Europe is second only to Cannes, and because it is held close to the American awards season, coupled with the organizers' intention to tilt toward Hollywood, making this ancient European film festival one of the vanes of the Oscars. Especially in the past decade, a number of Venetian award-winning works have shined at the Oscars, and these award-winning directors have also "repaid the favor" and sent new films to water city for premieres, and this year there is also a scene of "darling return".
Among the finalists in venice's main competition unit this year, American films led the way with 7 films, including "White Noise", "Poet", "Whale", "Blonde Beauty" and other promising award season seed contestants. White Noise, the opening film of this year's Venice Film Festival, was directed by American independent filmmaker Noah Baumbach, and his last work, Marriage Story, was also shortlisted for Venice.
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by writer Don Derrillo, White Noise is hailed as a masterpiece of American postmodernist literature and focuses on a middle-class couple whose peaceful lives were torn apart by a catastrophic chemical spill. The theme of "White Noise" once again focuses on Western family and marriage, in addition to the well-known original and director, the appearance of popular Hollywood stars such as Adam Dreyver and Greta Gerweger has also made the film highly anticipated, and the media predicts that it is expected to replicate the high reputation of "Marriage Story".
Strong feminine
As a director who once shined in Venice, Alejandro González Iñárritu also returned to Watertown this time, unlike the previous award-winning Birdman and The Revenant, the Mexican director's new work "Poet" turns his eyes to his hometown, focusing on local social issues through the perspective of a Mexican journalist, with a unique nostalgia and black humor.
Another Golden Lion winner, Darren Aronofsky, is even more lamentable — "Whale" tells the story of a decadent, obese man who is saved by friends and reconnected with his estranged daughter. The male protagonist of the film is a 600-pound (1 pound about 0.9 pounds) fat man, who plays him is actually the Hollywood action movie star Brandon Fisher, who has become popular with "The Mummy" and "Forest Tarzan", whose personal life and career are equally bumpy, which makes people look forward to "Whale".
This year's Venice is equally feminine – not only is the jury chaired by Hollywood actress Julian Moore, but the members also include the last Golden Lion Winner, French female director Audrey Divan and Iranian actress Layla Khatami, and 6 of the 23 main competition finalists are written by female directors.
Two of the most watched films in women's themes: "Monroe Blonde," directed by up-and-coming director Andrew Dominic and starring Anna de Armas, is a panoramic biopic by Marilyn Monroe that recreates her turbulent childhood to adulthood, and no matter how much fiction is in the composition, the name "Monroe" alone is enough to charm. Another women's biopic was "Tarr", starring Kate Blanchett, chairman of the Venetian jury the previous year, which showed the professional style and family identity of the famous musician Lydia Tal. Spanish actress Penelope Cruz's "Huge" is about the great mother of the 1970s.
There are also many good works in the finalists of European countries this year. French playwright Florian Zeller sent a new work, "The Son Trapped in the Heart", as the second part of the "family trilogy", the theme shifted from focusing on alzheimer's disease to showing the depression of teenagers, and the English background of the film, the appearance of Hugh Jackman and Anthony Hopkins, so that this work will also make a difference in the Hollywood awards season.
In addition, the American documentary master Frederick Wiseman's "A Couple" and the British genius director Martin Macdonald's "The Mourning Banshee of Inishil Island" also have their own points of view. What young fans are most looking forward to is the second collaboration between Italian directors Luca Guadagnino and Timothy Chalmed after "Call Me By Your Name", this time bringing the thriller road movie "Bones and All".
In recent years, Hollywood and American independent films have dominated the water city, and the status of European local works is still stable, compared with the Venetian road of Chinese films. More than a decade ago, when Mark Müller was the chairman of Venice, the number and quality of Chinese films shortlisted attracted attention, and Chinese directors won the Golden Lion Award many times, including Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee and Cai Mingliang.
The last time a Chinese film competed for the Golden Lion Award was in 2019's "Lyceum Grand Theatre" directed by Lou Ye and starring Gong Li. A year later, "More Than Endless", produced by Jia Zhangke, directed by young director Wang Jing, and starring Bai Ke, was shortlisted for the horizon unit. In 2021, Taiwanese director Zhong Menghong's new work "Waterfall" appeared again in the horizon unit.
In Venice this year, only the restored version of "The Age of Independence" was re-screened, and "Stone Gate" co-produced by Chinese female director Huang Ji and Japanese director Ryuji Otsuka appeared in the unofficial Venice Day unit. Other Asian films include Japanese director Koji Fukada's "Love Life," Iranian director JafaPanashi's "No Bears" and Wahid Jalliwand's Beyond the High Wall, while venice will also premiere his posthumous work "The Call of God" in honor of the Golden Lion-winning South Korean director Kim Ki-duk.
Streaming media vendors' "launch station"
Over the years, in order to alleviate the competitive pressure brought by Cannes, Venice, as the "father of world film festivals", has also shown traditional advantages and innovative highlights: in addition to the awards season, with Hollywood, there is also the organizers' open attitude towards streaming. Venice will not reject excellent streaming works because of pressure from distributors and theaters, and streaming media represented by Netflix will also send the most artistically sought works to Venice for premieres.
This year, four streaming media films, including "White Noise" and "Blonde Beauty", appeared in Watertown, and it is no wonder that "France News Network" commented: "Netflix, which was rejected by Cannes, has gradually positioned Venice as a starting point." At the same time, Venice also adheres to the attention of European filmmakers to political and social issues - the documentary "Beauty and Bloodshed", which focuses on the shady scenes of pharmaceutical factories, is directly shortlisted for the main competition unit, revealing to the world how the American pharmaceutical family controls the opioid trade.