Venezia79: Star power

Things are clearly winding down at the 79th Venice Film Festival, with only two more days of premieres at hand. Everything is feeling even quieter today with the news out of Britain about the death of Queen Elizabeth II, so I know I will be returning to a very sombre city. Meanwhile, the festival carries on. I spent a few hours yesterday at the Venice Immersive island, taking in six virtual reality productions (more on those later). And my jury met last night to discuss the 19 films contending for this year's Queer Lion (we announce our winner tonight). Here are some movie highlights...

Blonde
dir-scr Andrew Dominik; with Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody 22/US ****
Andrew Dominik takes a very big swing at the life of Marilyn Monroe, and frankly he'd have been crazy not to do so. It may be reductive to define one of the most iconic stars of all time by her unresolved daddy issues, but this is a complex biopic that takes on several pungent themes head-on. The film is charged with energy and passion, ambitiously visual and anchored by a fiercely layered performance from Ana de Armas. It also has strong things to say about celebrity culture, even as it relentlessly deals in myths.

Call of God
dir-scr Kim Ki-duk; with Abylai Maratov, Zhanel Sergazina 22/Kyr ****
The late Kim Ki-duk only just finished this offbeat romance before he died from covid. It’s an extraordinarily personal riff on how love can be so much like a dream, and occasionally a nightmare. Set in Kyrgyzstan and shot mainly in black and white, the film uses its surreal set-up to keep the audience’s expectations at bay, sending a young couple on a passionate odyssey that seems to encompass years in just a few days. And the film radiates with the idea that love is worth the pain. And that maybe the pain is essential.

Bread and Salt
dir-scr Damian Kocur; with Tymoteusz Bies, Jacek Bies 22/Pol ***
Bracingly shot in observational style, this Polish drama gets up close to its characters even as it neglects the narrative. It's an often harrowing depiction of a small town where young people think it's cool to deal in racism, bigotry and bullying. And the thoughtful central character draws us in, even if his journey remains stubbornly off-camera. Writer-director Damian Kocur has a terrific eye for real-life interaction, so the film has power as a document of a place and time. But stronger storytelling might have made it involving and moving.

Beyond the Wall
dir-scr Vahid Jalilvand; with Navid Mohammadzadeh, Dayana Habibi 22/Irn ***
Unlikely to be screened in its home country, this Iranian drama is a remarkably disturbing depiction of a harshly oppressive police state. But writer-director Vahid Jalilvand doesn't take a straightforward approach, blurring present action with flashbacks and other cutaways to create a more sensory approach to the situation. It's all played at a rather arch volume, including the quieter scenes, where more nuanced performances might have made it easier to identify with the characters. But the film is also bold and chilling.

Full reviews will be linked at Shadows VENICE FILM FESTIVAL page, eventually!

Critical Week: Into the blue

This week, London critics caught up with this year's Palme d'Or winner, Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour, a staggeringly involving romance starring Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. The film has had a lot of press for its three-hour running time and explicit lesbian sex scenes, but it's also an unnervingly honest relationship movie. It deserves the prizes. And there will be more to come.

More in the mainstream, we had a late-scheduled screening of the concert documentary One Direction: This Is Us, which is a lot of fun, and sharply well made, although calling it a documentary is stretching the definition of the word, as it's actually a 90-minute promo for Syco Records. Saoirse Ronan stars in How I Live Now, based on the book about teens trying to start their lives over in WWIII Britain (an embargo means I can't say more). Halle Berry stars in The Call, a more-involving than normal thriller about an emergency phone operator who gets caught up in a nightmare. The ending is contrived, but it's utterly riveting.

From Korea we had Pieta, the new drama from Kim Ki-duk, who delights in making audiences squirm - and this is no exception as it cleverly tells a twisted story of redemption and sacrifice centred on a mother and son. Sort of. From Britain, the Indian-subculture drama Jadoo is lively and engaging, and packed with delicious food from Leicester's Golden Mile. And we also saw the restored final cut of Robin Hardy's 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man, which hasn't really aged well but is still pretty freaky.

This coming week I've got: Robin Wright and Naomi Watts in Adore, Harrison Ford in the baseball drama 42, Ryan Reynolds in the ghostly action-comedy R.I.P.D., Hirokazu Kore-eda's acclaimed Like Father Like Son, the Seoul Olympics doc 9.79*, the Aids medication doc Fire in the Blood, and the BFI's restoration of the 1924 expedition doc The Epic of Everest. We also have the launch event for the 57th London Film Festival (9-20 Oct), where we'll finally get our hands on this year's programme.