Venice Diary #05 - Bad Journalists, bad-ass lapdancer and a french pearl

by Elisa Giudici

"Ridacece i soldi" (give us our money back) is a bizarre event that takes place every year at Venice Film Festival. It's a sort of award for the festivalgoers. In this picture, you can see the wooden prize awarded to the author of the funniest joke about a movie seen during the festival or a joke about a stereotypical situation that can be experienced only during Mostra. Everyone can write (or draw) an entry on a simple white piece of paper. There is a big wooden board in front of the official cafeteria. If you are early for the next screening, you can stop by and read some entries. The kind of humor most appreciated in this peculiar competition is the dry kind: you have to be biting wit to have a chance of winning.

Okay let's talk about three of the main Competition films: Lost Illusions, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, and L'Evenement...

lllusions Perdues / Lost Illusions (Xavier Giannoli)
If not for the scarcity of past costumes drama winners at Venice, I would be under the impression that this was a strong contender for the Golden Lion. Lost Illusions is a superb French adaptation of Balzac's novel, directed by Giannoli with a clear vision and a steady hand. I was positively impressed by how the director manages to give life and meaning even to the most stereotypical characters in the genre (there is even a lovable doomed actress with consumption who is madly in love with the protagonist). The movie follows the rise and fall of a young french man who came to Paris from the country, dreaming to be a published poet and a tender lover for an aristocratic lady. You have heard and seen this story a thousand times, yet Giannoli's tale has its voice, powerful and emotional. It is a shame we have so few adaptations from classic french literature because their focus on social issues tends to make them relevant and relatable still. Lost illusions is also a sort of a proto-Citizen Kane, portraying the rise of the new media (printed independent press) and the vicious system advertisement creates, transforming a means to inform to empty space to be rented by editors and merchants to sell their stuff or their opinions. This specific theme made a lot of colleagues uncomfortable if the press conference was anything to go by. French cinema rarely disappoints me and Illusions Perdues deserves the same attention and coverage that a strong anglophone costume drama would get. The crafts are impressive to say the least and the cast is as glamourous as it can get on the francophone scene. Vincent Lacoste and Xavier Dolan are perfect in their roles, but I want to do a shout-out to Benjamin Voisin as Lucien. Yet another good-looking, super talented young actor whose career was launched by François Ozon.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (Ana Lily Amirpour)
I always appreciate it when there is a movie in the main competition that has a different approach and aesthetic from any other. Even with its faults, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon gives off fresh contemporary vibes, the kind of movie Venice Festival needs to counterbalance its slightly uptight attitude. Ana Lily Amirpour continues to reimagine genre movies she grew up with. This time the protagonist is a young Asian girl who spent 10 years in a chamber of deprivation in a mental asylum. She has no past, no relatives, only a mysterious special power: she is able to control people's bodies. I found Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon enjoyable, the perfect counterpart B movie counterpoint to the elegant French movies I saw before and after it today. The detail that impressed me the most was the richness of set designs: the house of one of the supporting characters is a neon fever dream, with glow-in-thedark mushrooms posters on the fridge and fluorescent wallpaper with mushrooms patterns on the ceiling. I don't think she has a chance in award season, but Kate Hudson's comeback in this movie as a lap dancer and a woman with peculiar ways of handling her motherhood is particularly enjoyable. I kept thinking she looked a lot like Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers; the two roles have a lot in common.

L'Evenement / Happening (Audrey Diwan)
Shot in 4:3 and with a classic approach, L'événement is set in 1963 France, where abortion is not only illegal, but such a strong social taboo that only once do you hear the actual word in the entire movie. Based on the autobiographical novel of Annie Ernaux, L'événement has only one limitation: like every other movie on this particular topic, it has to face the comparison with the Palm d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The more time goes by the more that Mungiu's movie feels close to the definitive movie on abortion. L'événement is perhaps not on that level but I found it perfect in the contained, essential way it tells a traumatic and life-changing experience for a grounded and ambitious young woman. L'événement is able to juxtapose a gut-wrenching scene where Annie tries to perform an abortion by herself at home to a quiet, delicate narrative of the ambitions of a young student who wants to become a teacher. Diwan shows a great sensibility in catching the sense of solitude and silent desperation Annie must face alone and afraid while trying to find a way out of her condition, "a feminine disease that turns women into housewives". Having an abortion in '60 France "is a lottery": you can end up just ok, at the hospital, in prison, or at the cemetery. The outcome is decided by a doctor, in a matter of seconds. In her second feature film, Diwan is already able to do justice to the power of Ernaux's writing, thanks to an amazing trio of young actresses: Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet-Klein and Luàna Bajrami. The press here seem convinced that Vartolomei will be the frontrunner for the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress.

More Venice coverage

• Elisa's Diary #1 Parallel Mothers and Power of the Dog
• Elisa's Diary #2 The Card Counter, Hand of God, The Lost Daughter
• Elisa's Diary #3 Spencer, A Plein Temps, Il Buco
• Eiisa's Diary #4 Sundown, Official Competition, etc...
• Elisa Extra Dune - full review
• Elisa's Diary #5 L'Evenement, Lost Illusions, Mona Lisa...
• Elisa's Diary #6 Reflection, Captain Volkonoff Escaped, Old Henry, etc...

• Nathaniel in Venice #1 Parallel Mothers
• Nathaniel in Venice #2 Power of the Dog, Madeleine Collins
• Nathaniel in Venice #3 Atlantide, Les Promesses, The Lost Daughter
• Nathaniel in Venice #4 107 Mothers, Official Competition, Miracle, etc...
• Nathaniel in Venice #5 Last Night in Soho, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
• Nathaneil in Venice #6 Catholic School, A Hole in the Fence, La Caja

Comments

[thevoid99]

Kate Hudson aiming for a comeback?

From what? She's never done anything remotely interesting throughout her career as she's just a one-trick pony who only had one good performance in Almost Famous and that's it.

[Lucinda]

Thanks for sharing this list! I like everything French! And I try to improve my writing and speaking skills in French. That's why I try to watch movies in the original language with no subtitles. Also, I write at https://assignmentbro.com/ca/french-homework-help website. As a child, I lived in Canada in the French-speaking region. Thanks for this post!