La Biennale di Venezia - Cinema

This is a belated post rounding up things I saw at the Venice Film Festival (the oldest of its kind), more later on the less exhilirating art Biennale...

SE, JEI (LUST, CAUTION) by Ang Lee (USA/China/Taiwan, China, 156’, language: Mandarin, subt. Italian/English) cast: Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Tang Wei double billed with SLEUTH by Kenneth Branagh (UK/USA, 86’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Michael Caine, Jude Law

CAUTION, this film is full of LUST. I glimpsed Ang Lee and his actors on the red carpet going in for the Gala Screening and thought how boring it must be to have to watch yourself in a film a gajillion times at every festival across the world. It'd be like reading your own book a million times. But Venice is one of the biggies so I guess they can't scive off like they usually do once the lights have gone down in the cinema (or maybe they did, there is a nice bar in the theatre).

It must be so weird to be Tony Leung and walk down the red carpet in a beautifully pressed tux only to sit in a room with a bunch of strangers watching you watch yourself butt naked on screen. Gorgeous film full of qipaos, mahjong rings, pretty faces, nice view of nipples, testicles, and other usually uncinematic body parts (thankfully no Hollywood-styled pointed toe climax scenes). Joan Chen acted everyone out of the house.

The best review I heard for it was from this old Italian dude sitting in front of me at the screening who said to his two friends: 'I heard there's loads of sex in this movie' to which the other guy said 'yes, but not for the first hour and a half.' The second best review was from a friend in Prague who saw it later and wrote to we 'We have seen Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" lately and that reminded me of my long-standing wish to learn mahjong, I hope I will get one for Christmas and we can play next time.' Yes, the film was WAY too long and you have to really love the visuals to not start thinking about random things like 'should I buy a mahjong set for Xmas?' - watch the trailer, which is beautifully edited.

It won the Lion (second for AL after Brokeback Mountain). It's no surprise, Shanghai in the 30s is the most lucrative cinematic cliche going at the moment, not to mention the jury was led by Zhang Yimou and also had lust-aficionados Paul Verhoeven (whose own 'erotic spy thriller' Black Book bombed earlier in the year at the cinemas) and Catherine Breillat (whose would-be feminist 'I am a hole' film Romance is all about sex - get a load of her promo photos... embarrassingly lacking in any avant-gardist legitimacy). Oh, not to mention festival guru Marco Mueller has a thing for Asians evidenced by his kow-tow before Zhang Ziyi at the 2006 festival.

Incidentally, v good to see Wang Leehom doing good after those early MVs:




Leehom really looks the part! OK, OK, different flag, different ideology - this is a Communist 'must liberate Taiwan' poster on the right, but it's the same visual rhetoric as the Nationalist stuff.

LUST, CAUTION was double billed with SLEUTH (2007), which is a remake of SLEUTH (1972) starring Michael Caine as the victim of Laurence Olivier's older geezer. Here Caine plays the older geezer and the younger geezer is now played by Jude Law (formerly played by Caine). Wink wink, nod nod - Jude Law also plays Caine's character in the god awful 2004 remake of ALFIE (1966).

I'M NOT THERE by Todd Haynes (USA, 135’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Julianne Moore, Christian Bale, Charlotte Gainsbourg double billed with IL DOLCE E L'AMARO by Andrea Porporati (Italy, 98’ language: Italian, subt. English) cast: Luigi Lo Cascio, Donatella Finocchiaro, Fabrizio Gifuni, Tony Gambino

This was THE highlight of the festival and I have to say of cinema so far in the 21st century. WTF has everybody else been doing for the past 7 years?! Too much to say so will save for London Film Festival post where I saw it again. Todd Haynes is a genius and I never use that bogus, cliched word. More entertaining and less challenging to write about right now is the dreadful IL DOLCE E L'AMARO whose writers and directors should be thoroughly thrashed for making me sit through this lame-o rip off of every mafia movie cliche in the history of cinema. The imprisoned mafia hero tells his son who visits him in jail: 'In life my son there is sweet and there is bitter', mostly bitter after you see this film. Undoubtedly the only way it would be seen was to double bill it with I'm Not There. I include the film poster here just to give an idea of how crappy this film is. No, it's not sideways, it was designed that way.

NIGHTWATCHING by Peter Greenaway (UK/Poland/Canada/ Netherlands, 134’, language: English, subt. Italian) cast: Martin Freeman, Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May, Michael Teigen double billed with L'ORA DI PUNTA by Vincenzo Marra (Italy, 96, language: Italian, subt. English) cast: Fanny Ardant, Michele Lastella, Giulia Bevilacqua

Martin Freeman as Rembrandt makes up for the fact that Peter Greenaway is still making the same film he's always made. Check out the artist and the actor, the before and after.

L'ORA DI PUNTA was so bad even the Italian audience boo'ed it after the screening. Really. I felt bad for Fanny Ardant who is always so charming, but she was actually delusional enough to compare the director of this ocular travesty to legendary French filmmaker Robert Bresson! It was either strained PR or she really is incapable of sound judgment and gets what she deserves. Booooo. I love Italian audiences, there's no holding back. It was that bad. It made IL DOLCE E L'AMARO look good that's how bad this was. Not a good showing for Italian film (otherwise exciting and very healthy at the moment).

Two documentaries from the festival that I saw:

WUYONG (USELESS) by Jia Zhangke (China, 80’, language: Chinese/Shanxi, subt. Italian/English) cast: Ma Ke
Slow paced doc by hot-new-thing Jia Zhangke (whose STILL LIFE won the Lion in 2006). Couldn't tell though if he was laughing with or at the designer featured in the film.

ANDARILHO by Cao Guimarães (Brazil, 80’, language: Portuguese, subt. Italian/English)
Even slower paced art film about the travels of different men on the same Brazilian highway. Really good and gives you an insight into the existence of these men, but requires patience.

AND that my dears was this year's Venice film festival (I was there to work in the Marciana afterall). Movies I missed:

• JIANG Wen Taiyang zhaochang shengqi (The Sun Also Rises) - China / Hong Kong, China, 116’ Jiang Wen, Joan Chen, Zhou Yun, Jaycee Chan, Anthony Wong
• LEE Kang Sheng (LI Kangsheng) Bangbang wo aishen (Help Me Eros) - Taiwan, 107’ Lee Kang Sheng, Yin Shin
• KITANO Takeshi Kantoku banzai! (Glory to the Filmmaker!) - Japan, 104’ “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, Tohru Emori, Kayoko Kishimoto, Anne Suzuki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
• Alexi TAN Tiantang kou (Blood Brothers) - China / Taiwan, China / Hong Kong, China, 95’, Daniel Wu Zhang Zhen, Shu Qi, Sun Honglei - I had to go to dinner with a friend that night and friends are more important than seeing Daniel Wu (though you can check out his blog photos from the red carpet).
• AOYAMA Shinji Sad Vacation - Japan, 136’ Tadanobu Asano, Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Ken Mitsuishi
• Julian SCHNABEL Lou Reed's BERLIN - USA, 85’ Lou Reed, Emmanuelle Seigner