2023-09-08 12:26:22
Emma Stone is making a splash at the film festival despite her absence. There are initial Oscar speculations and clear favorites. The strike also remains an issue – and a film that has become an object of hate among critics.
Venice.
Despite the lack of stars due to the strike, there is still a lot to talk about at the Venice Film Festival this year. Emma Stone and Carey Mulligan are expected to receive Oscar nominations for their roles. Stone plays the lead role in “Poor Things” by Yorgos Lanthimos, which has become a favorite film. The German film in the competition is also well received – unlike Roman Polanski’s new work, which was surprisingly unanimously torn apart by the critics.
Favorites for the Golden Lion
Who will receive the festival’s main prize, the Golden Lion, will be decided on Saturday evening. 23 works can be seen in the competition this year. Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” received the best reviews overall from critics. In addition to Stone, Willem Dafoe shines as the bizarre professor in the modern Frankenstein story. The film tells the story of a woman who has a baby’s brain implanted and who then gets to know life in a new way.
The work of Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi was also well received. In “Aku wa Sonzai Shinai (Evil does not exist)” he tells about the residents of a small Japanese village who live in harmony with nature. One day, a company that wants to build a glamorous camping resort in the village threatens the village’s ecological balance.
The shocking films ” Zielona granica ” by Agnieszka Holland and ” Io capitano ” by Matteo Garrone, which deal with the situation of refugees in different ways, also received good reviews.
Who could win an Oscar
Some of the films shown in Venice have a good chance at the Oscars later. Emma Stone is set to be nominated. In “Poor Things” the 34-year-old can unfold her full acting talent. The film received the longest standing ovation to date at its premiere – ten minutes.
There was also long applause at the premiere of Bradley Cooper’s Netflix drama “Maestro” about the musician Leonard Bernstein (played by Cooper) and his wife Felicia Montealegre. The latter is played by Carey Mulligan. The British woman expresses the desperation and love that Bernstein’s wife probably felt in their marriage in a forceful and subtle way. The critics agreed that she was guaranteed an Oscar nomination.
The Impact of the Hollywood Strike
Because of the strike, neither Stone, Cooper nor Mulligan came to Venice, which is usually crowded with Hollywood stars. Actors like Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton and Willem Dafoe also stayed away from the premieres of their films. Some production companies had negotiated exemptions with the US actors’ union in order to be able to do promo, which is why film fans got to see Adam Driver and Mads Mikkelsen on the red carpet.
Unionized screenwriters have been on strike in the USA since the beginning of May. Since mid-July, tens of thousands of members of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA have also stopped work. They demand better remuneration and rules for dealing with artificial intelligence.
During the interview with Mikkelsen, the PR agency prohibited questions about the strike. Others were more talkative. Adam Driver and director Michael Mann – together at the festival for their film “Ferrari” – emphasized their support for the strikers.
And director Martin McDonagh – part of the jury this year – told dpa: “I fully support the writers and the actors. I feel like people with money who don’t care about films are trying to hurt the people who make them , to harm.” It is “a bit sad” that so few actors and actresses are in Venice this year. “But it’s also a festival about great films, and the films are still here.”
Reactions to the German film “The Theory of Everything”
One of them is the competition film “The Theory of Everything” by German director Timm Kröger. Many praised the black-and-white thriller, which takes place in a hotel in the Swiss Alps in the 1960s, for its special visual design. Kröger is based on film noir, playing with light and shadow and dramatic image details. He weaves references to filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and literary allusions into his film. Why was this well received in Venice? Kröger told the dpa: “We seem to somehow accidentally enter such a cultural niche.” “The Theory of Everything” is a film “that oscillates between art and entertainment and stirs in this cinematic memory broth”. Festival director Alberto Barbera described it as a “new German mythology”.
Roman Polanski faces headwinds
However, many people wanted to quickly forget Roman Polanski’s latest film, in which German actor Oliver Masucci plays the lead role. The satire “The Palace” takes place on the evening of New Year’s Eve 2000 in a luxury Swiss hotel. Different privileged groups come together. Then scenes like this happen: An old millionaire (John Cleese) dies while having sex with his wife, who is several decades his junior, but she can no longer move away from the corpse because of a cramp. A rich lady (Fanny Ardant) feeds her dog caviar. The animal gets diarrhea and because there is no other doctor in the house, a plastic surgeon has to examine the feces.
“Nothing about this film is funny,” said the industry magazine “The Variety,” for example. The British “Guardian” described it as “appalling”, and the portal “Deadline” also wrote: “None of it is remotely funny. Really, seriously, absolutely nothing.” This level of negative criticism will be difficult to surpass by the end of the film festival. (dpa)
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