Venice Diary #06 - A comedian, a captain, and multiple torturers

by Elisa Giudici

A lot of movies to discuss today (the festival ends tomorrow) including two potential Golden Lion winners....

Reflection (Valentyn Vasyanovych)
A major theme in this edition is torture, as experienced by both victims and torturers. It is common to see movies on such brutal acts of violence revolving around the need to give a voice and a spotlight to the forgotten victims and their true stories. Some of the movies shown this year in Venice prefer to focus on the torturer, asking the audience if it is really possible to atone for such a crime?

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Nathaniel in Venice: It's a brutal world but men sure make it worse!

Nathaniel reporting from Venice, final days...

On day one Parallel Mothers set the theme that Venice would be about death. Not Death in Venice, mind you (different movie). And now the death of my Venice trip as I'll be flying across the Atlantic as you read this back to NYC. Power of the Dog  (also on the first day of the fest) also revealed that you would not be able to escape films examining toxic masculinity. So here are three more doing the latter, one from Italy and two from Mexico.

The Catholic School (Stefano Mordini)
This mainstream Italian film which premiered out of competition belongs to the ever popular “true crime” genre. It seeks to analyze the environment that led to an infamous rape/murder committed by three upper class school boys in 1975 that set the Italian nation on edge...

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Nathaniel in Venice: Horrors! It's "Last Night in Soho" and "Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon"

Nathaniel reporting from the Venice Film Festival

Let’s take a wee break from the Oscar-bound and foreign arthouse offerings at Venice and talk genre. As with comedies, there’s not enough of it at festivals but it’s good to program a variety of pictures if you can. Here are two films featuring supernatural elements, one a complete misfire the other a future cult gem... 

Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright)
I am deeply sad to report that this wasn’t (at all) for me, though I was so looking forward as I generally enjoy Wright’s work. I was worried from the start with the movie’s hyper enthusiasm about everything it’s doing even before it’s begun doing things...

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Breakfast with... a repurposed "Birth" Score

September is "Better Breakfast Month" so we're celebrating because we love food and movies

This post has been repurposed from the TFE vault... but for most of you it will be "new"

Seventeen years ago on this very day (September 8th) Jonathan Glazer's Birth premiered at the Venice Film Festival (where Elisa and I are right now!) and began its long journey from misunderstood/reviled oddity to cult-beloved arthouse classic. Far fewer people remember this but ten years ago, its score was repurposed in a Quaker Oats commercial called "Wake up America"! (Remember commercials? They were these interruptions to your binge-watch that you didn't cause with the pause button.) It was one of those commercials that would look right at home during the Olympics: pretty Americana, sunrise, sports, and other daily wholesome capitalistic endeavors like the building of skyscrapers. If I hadn't been looking away from the television when it aired ten years ago, I would probably have never made the connection that the commercial was the opening score to Birth.  Alexandre Desplat is one of movie composers of all time so why shouldn't his scores live on past their movies and earn him yet more coin?

The commercial and its voiceover went like so...

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Complete the sentence(s) and luxuriate in the Isaac/Chastain vibe!

With fall festival season raging, we're curious what you're thinking out there. So let's have a comment party about the Oscar buzz by completing the following three sentences.

1. I know people at (Telluride or Venice) raved about ________  but I'm still doubtful about its awards chances because ___________.

2. I think ___________ is winning an Oscar but for  _________ the nomination will be the reward.

I wish I had words for this but I really do not pic.twitter.com/xJVzOJJCeh

— Christina Newland (@christinalefou) September 4, 2021

interesting choice to award the golden lion to that slow mo getty images clip of oscar isaac kissing jessica chastain's arm but i respect it

— hannah strong (@thethirdhan) September 4, 2021

 3. That already famous video of Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac on the red carpet made me _______________ . 

Ready? Go.