Venice 2008 – Review
The competition film, “The Wrestler,” which stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, packed three Venice screenings Friday and prompted speculation among festival participants that Mickey Rourke could be a candidate for Venice’s best actor prize, which will be announced with the other major awards Saturday.
Mickey Rourke has given what critics are calling the performance of his life in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” in which he plays a lonely, washed out wrestler whose story poignantly mirrors the Hollywood outsider’s own troubled past.
“Wrestler,” which centers on an aging former professional wrestler, is the fest’s final premiere at the Sala Grande.
Rourke, who received a rare standing ovation at a press conference, is generating early Oscar chatter. He told in an interview that “The Wrestler” was “the best … movie I’ve ever made.”
The film, the last of 21 movies in the main competition to premiere, is a contender both for the top actor award and the coveted Golden Lion for best picture, critics say. The festival wraps Saturday with its prize ceremony.
Anne Hathaway also impressed in her unusually dark role in “Rachel Getting Married,” Jonathan Demme’s touching wedding drama that has been lauded in Venice.
A third late entry, Thursday’s premiere, “The Hurt Locker” by U.S. director Kathryn Bigelow, leads an informal poll of Italian critics who were impressed by its portrayal of the perils faced by a bomb disposal unit in Iraq led by a reckless sergeant.
Venice 2008 – Natalie Portman’s “Eve”
Natalie Portman presented her debut as a director at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday with a short movie “Eve” about a young woman who is dragged along to her grandmother’s romantic date.
A young woman, Kate, goes to visit her grandma Lola for a private dinner. She is surprised to find she is instead the third wheel at her grandma’s date with Joe.
“Eve” (17 minutes), screening out of competition in the Venice short film section, star Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara and Olivia Thirbly.
Portman, 27, said she had always had a fascination with the older generation, and drew inspiration for Bacall’s character from her own grandmother.
Getting Bacall on board was like fulfilling her “wildest dream”, Portman said.
“It’s so exciting to see someone with that much experience and that much wisdom on screen. It’s rare. The film was definitely inspired by personal experience and also all my friends, female friends, starting to define themselves in relation, and in reaction to, their mothers and their grandmothers”
Having started her acting career as a child, she said that she had long wanted to be on the other side of the camera and will present a second short work at the Toronto film festival which starts later this week.
“I have been working now in films for 16 years…it was exciting to know what a director goes through and also to create something completely on your own. When you are an actor of course you are creating something but you are serving someone else’s vision and ultimately it’s someone else’s creation. To have authorship is … and feels like a more adult job.”
Early reviews have been positive.
Venice 2008 – “The Burning Plain”
“The Burning Plain” is a drama that explores the mysterious connection between several characters separated by time and space: Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16-year-old girl trying to put together the shattered lives of her parents in a Mexican border town; Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a woman in Portland who must undertake an emotional odyssey to burnish a sin from her past; Gina, Sylvia’s mother (Kim Basinger) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), a couple who must deal with an intense and clandestine affair; and Maria (Tessa Ia), a young girl who helps her parents find redemption, forgiveness and love.
The film is the first of five U.S. entries to appear in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.
“The Burning Plain” is the directorial debut by acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga who is best known for his scripts that include well received dramas “Amores perros“, “21 Grams” and “Babel“, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Arriaga also wrote “The Burning Plain.”
“I enjoyed every single moment of it. I can tell you that directing was maybe the happiest moment of my professional life. Just arriving on set I had a smile … and it hasn’t vanished until now”
he told reporters.
As well as time, the film explores the elements, each storyline represents either earth, air, fire or water. Landscape is central to the movie which Arriaga initially had titled, “The Four Elements.” Water, earth, wind and fire are present as the story moves back and forth from the searing dryness of New Mexico to the nonstop rain in Portland, Ore.
“We experienced the desert and the sun and the extreme cold in the desert to the nonstop rain in Oregon. I think the weather and the landscape also influences the character.”
“We never in real life tell stories in a linear way. We tell it always in a decomposed way. I think that cinema is a very young medium and it’s beginning to find its own language and among these languages is the deconstruction of time”
Arriaga said.
Venice 2008 soon after Cannes 2008
The 65th Venice International Film Festival (Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia), organised by the Venice Biennale, will take place on the Venice Lido from August 27th to September 6th 2008.
Marco Müller will be the director of the upcoming edition, continuing the work he began in 2004.
Along with Enrico Magrelli, the Director’s right hand for cultural programming, sixteen consultants will participate in the selection and search process for the 65th Venice Film Festival.
The 2008 Selection Committee will include: Violetta Bellocchio, Paolo Bertolin, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Claudio Masenza and Alberto Pezzotta.
Venice’s 22-film competition lineup has been made up entirely of world premieres the past two years, and the festival is said to be looking to make it three in a row.
More than three months before the Coen brothers‘ “Burn After Reading” opens the festival, few contracts have been signed.
Films mentioned to premiere ( ‘Burn After Reading’ is already confirmed) at Venice include:
Saul Dibb’s “The Duchess” – Kiera Knightley and Ralph Fiennes
Ridley Scott’s “Body of Lies” – Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe
Baz Luhurmann’s “Australia” – Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman
Marco Bechis’ contemporary drama “Birdwatchers”
Spike Lee’s Italian-American co-production “Miracle at St. Anna”
Samira Makhmalbaf’s “Two-Legged Horse”
Sandra Nettelbeck’s “Helen”
Diane English comedy “The Women ” – Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan and Carrie Fisher
Of course that this is not official.
The line-up of the 65th Venice Film Festival will be announced during a press conference that will take place at the end of July in Rome.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
