by Helen Barlow
The competition was strong, with Yorgos Lanthimos’s Golden Lion-winning Poor Things the stand-out, though there were many films of note in the sidebars and out of competition slots. Here’s a selection.
Thank You Very Much (Venice Classics)
Alex Braverman’s documentary on Andy Kaufman revives the memory of the American comedian, who took stand-up to another uniquely bizarre level without ever telling a joke. The film includes interviews with Steve Martin and Danny DeVito, who were hugely influenced by him, though no Jim Carrey who played him in Milos Forman’s 1999 film Man on the Moon, titled after REM’s hit song about Kaufman. He died at the age of 35 from lung cancer in 1984. Two years earlier, he had met the love of his life, Lynne Margulies, who provides personal insights in the film. It won the best documentary award in the Venice Classics section.
Hoard (Critics Week)
A crowd pleaser, Luna Carmoon’s audacious British debut film won two audience awards as well as an award for best newcomer, for actress Saura Lightfoot Leon. It follows a London girl (Lily-Beau Leach), whose mother was a hoarder and was institutionalised, so she was adopted by a caring woman. As a teenager (with Lightfoot Leon in the role), she begins an affair with an older man (Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things), who understands the eccentric ways she has inherited from her long lost mother, including surrounding herself with trash.
Tatami (Horizons)
Iranian-French actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, the 2022 Cannes best actress winner for Holy Spider, who is also in Noora Niasari’s Australian gem Shayda, makes her feature directing debut together with Israel’s Guy Nattiv (Golda). She also acts in the film, which is set around the World Judo Championships in Georgia, playing the coach of a young Iranian woman who has been ordered to lose by the Iranian regime.
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Out of Competition)
After his mean turn as lawyer Roger Robb in Oppenheimer, Australian powerhouse Jason Clarke is again in legal mode as a more sympathetic defence attorney in the late William Friedkin’s final film, also the final film of the recently deceased Lance Reddick who is impressive as the judge. Kiefer Sutherland is the star of Friedkin’s adaptation of Herman Wouk’s 1953 play which is set solely in the courtroom. The man on trial is the first officer (Jake Lacy from The White Lotus), who had taken control of the ship when he deemed Sutherland’s US naval captain mentally unstable.
El Paraiso – The Paradise (Horizons)
Enrico Maria Artale’s film follows a Colombian illegal immigrant and her grown son living on the outskirts of Rome. They manage to get by with cutting drugs for a local dealer, but their intense bond is threatened with the arrival of an outsider. The film, which explores how isolating the immigrant experience can be, won the Premio Arca Cinema Giovani for the Best Italian Film in Venice as well as two prizes in Horizons: Margarita Rosa de Francisco for best actress and Artale for best screenplay.
FROM FRANCE
Daaaaaalí! (Out of Competition)
In a cinema world that is becoming increasingly homogenous and safe, there is no one quite as adventurous or as prolific as Quentin Dupieux. A so-called absurdist filmmaker, he has made a film named after the surrealist Spanish artist who was similarly adventurous. Dupieux enlisted an array of French actors to play Dali, all varying in shapes and sizes but all sporting a cartoonish moustache and engaging in hilarious gags. Having just released the wonderful Yannick in France, Dupieux is at the height of his powers and with his latest, looks set to take on the English-language market in a bigger way than he had with his 2010 English-language film Rubber.
For Night Will Come (Horizons)
In Celine Rouzet’s debut feature, a seemingly regular family has moved to a new neighbourhood and are intent on keeping their family secret. The parents need blood for their vampire son (an impressive Mathias Legout-Hammond), so the mother (Elodie Bouchez) has to work at the local blood bank to get it. While the vampire metaphor serves to express teenage malaise, the film deftly addresses the rejection of difference, the importance of family solidarity and the injustice of the world. It’s also very entertaining.
Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (Out of Competition)
Frederick Wiseman, 93, had a brief foray into fiction at last year’s festival with A Couple and now returns to his documentary roots. In this four-hour epic, he embeds himself in a famed Burgundy restaurant, La Colline du Colombier, which has enjoyed three Michelin stars for 50 years. Wiseman juxtaposes the precision of the kitchen with the lulling rhythms of the farms and fields, while fine-dining customers from all around the world are treated with the same loving care as the food.
The Dreamer (Horizons Extra)
Raphael Thiery is one of the most unusual of actors. He is big, overweight and with craggy features, so he might be considered the antithesis of a Hollywood heartthrob. Yet we come to love him in his cinematic roles. Somehow, his 2022 film, Pietro Marcello’s Scarlet didn’t make it to Australian cinemas but hopefully his new film will. Anais Tellenne’s directing debut The Dreamer is a beautiful movie that really hooks us in. Thiery’s character works on an estate where the owner/heiress (Emmanuelle Devos) suddenly turns up. She’s a performance artist who wanted to create a sculpture of his unusual form and their connection is palpable. Oh, and did I mention that Thiery also plays Saveur the butcher in Poor Things? A tiny role, though he has obviously caught the attention of Lanthimos.
