Venice: Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Poor Things’ Wins Best Film
The feminist fable, starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo, took the top prize, the Golden Lion for best film, at the 80th Venice Film Fest.
Yorgos Lanthimos Golden Lion winner ‘Poor Things’ starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA
The winners of the 80th Venice Film Fest have been announced at gala ceremony on the Lido Saturday night.
The Venice festival jury, headed by jury president Damien Chazelle, includes directors Jane Campion, Martin McDonagh, Laura Poitras, Santiago Mitre and Mia Hansen-Love, Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri and Chinese actress Shu Qi.
The dual strikes in Hollywood have meant the 2023 Biennale was less star-studded than usual but, judged by the films alone, it was a fine vintage.
Most critics praised such competition entries as Yorgos Lanthimos’ feminist fable Poor Things— which includes a potentially career-defining performance by star Emma Stone — Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein drama Maestro, in which Cooper plays the legendary conductor, and Carey Mulligan his wife Felicia Montealegre (another award-season favorite); David Fincher’s wry pulpy thriller The Killerstarring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton; and Ava DuVernay’s Origin, an examination of race in America told as a tender love story and starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Jon Bernthal. The reviews for Michael Mann’s Ferrari, which stars Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley and Patrick Dempsey were more mixed. Many praised the film, about a key turning point in the life of legendary Italian car maker Enzo Ferrari (Driver), as a return to form for the director of Heat and The Insider. Others groaned at the film’s casting — with no Italians in any of the major roles — and the uneven nature of the southern European accents on display.
On the actor front, alongside Stone’s barnstorming turn in Poor Things, Cooper’s performance in Maestro (putty nose aside) and Ellis-Taylor’s turn in Origin, critics singled out Caleb Landry Jones’ star-making role in Luc Besson’s Dogman. The film split audiences and critics but drew universal praise for Jones’ fearless performance as a man beaten down by life who finds redemption in dogs and drag.
Venice this year was also highly political. On the screen, there were bracing refugee dramas like Agnieszka Holland’s The Green Borderabout migrants caught between Belarus and Poland, and Matteo Garrone’s Me Captain, a tale of two Senegalese migrants trying to reach Italy. Off the screen, where the premiere of Woody Allen’s out-of-competition entryCoupe de Chance was accompanied by a small, but very vocal group of protestors chanting “no rape culture!” a reference to public sexual assault allegations levied at Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, which he denies.
Over the festival’s first weekend, which Roman Polanski’s very poorly received new feature, The Palace, premiered, areas near the festival were plastered with banners that read “Island of rapists” and “no Golden Lion for predators.” Polanksi, who admitted to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, is still a fugitive from U.S. justice and did not attend Venice this year.
On the business side, Venice was strong. There were domestic deals for Ferrari and Origin (Neon), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist (Janus/Sideshow), and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla (A24) ahead of their Lido premieres, a solid tally for a festival without a formal market.
When it came to the winners, in the main competition Matteo Garrone won the best director await for his migration drama Me Captain, while newcomer Seydou Sarr won the best young actor award for his performance of a Senegalese teenager who leaves home on a quest to reach Europe in the film. The young actor broke down in tears before stammering out his thank yours to the Venice jury. Cailee Spaeny won best actress for her portrayal of Priscilla Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, while Peter Sarsgaard won best actor for Michel Franco’s Gondry, using his speech to comments on the strikes.
“The issue that really struck a cord with me is A.I. I think we can all really agree that an actor is a person and that a writer is a person but apparently we can’t,” Sarsgaard noted, warning to not hand over stories about connections “to the machines and the 8 billionaires that own them.” He appealed to the “humanity” of the members of the AMPTP to ensure that “the future for their own children hums with the hive of humanity.”
Polish director Agnieszka Holland won a special jury award for Green Border, her harrowing drama on the plight of refugees caught on the border between Belarus and Poland. Members of Poland’s far-right government, including Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro have attacked Holland online for the film, comparing it to “Nazi propaganda.” The director says she will sue for defamation if Ziobro does not formally apologize and retract his comments.
Alex Braverman took Venice’s best documentary prize for Thank You Very Much, which looks at the career of legendary comedian and prankster Andy Kaufman. Braverman paid tribute to the late Kaufman in his acceptance speech, saying the comedian was “as relevant now as he every was.”
Love is a Gun, the directorial debut of Taiwanese actor Lee Hong-chi won the Lion of the Future prize for best first feature in Venice this year. The drama follows an ex-convict desperately trying to go straight. French director Alice Diop (Saint Omer) headed the jury that presented the award.
Explanation for Everything, a Hungarian drama from director Gabor Reisz, which looks at the culture wars in central Europe, took the top prize for best film in the Horizons sidebar. Swedish filmmaker Mika Gustafson took the best director honor in Horizons for her drama Paradise is Burning. Mongolian actor Tergel Bold-Erdene won the best actor trophy for a film in the Horizons section for his role as a modern-day shaman in Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s City of Wind. Erenik Beqiri’s A Short Trip, an Albanian drama about a couple desperate to obtain French nationality, won the prize for Horizons best short film in the Horizons sidebar.
Micaela Ramazzotti’s Felicità, an Italian tale of a shattered family,won the Armani beauty audienc award, voted on by Venice festival filmgoers.
Celine Daemen won the grand prize of the Venice Immersive section, which honors VR and interactive works, for Songs for a Passerby, which allows users to become puppeteer of their own bodies in a melancholic journey through a cityscape. Marion Burger and Ilan Cohen won the Venice Immersive achievement award for Emperor, an interactive and narrative experience in virtual reality, which invites the user to travel inside the brain of a father, suffering from aphasia. Dutch director Adriaan Lokman won a special jury prize for his short VR film Flow.
