By Alessandro De Leone <filmfestivals.com>
The awards closing out Venice 71 were whimsical to say the least -- to avoid more (im)pertinent terms such as absurd and ridiculous. Of course, these awards are decided upon by juries composed of cinema professionals who tend to have esoteric values widely divergent from normal standards of good taste or pedestrian logic. The Golden Lion for best film in competition, for instance, went to a Swedish entry from veteran director Roy Andersson, 71, with the whimsical title of "A Pigeon sat on a Branch reflecting on Existence" -- which consisted of a series of absurd random vignettes, vaguely amusing in spots, but adding up to the Big final Question: "What the hell was that all about?" ~~ as one files out of the hall scratching ones head and wondering why we shelled out twenty €uros for a compulsory Double Feature of which this was the introductory half.
Half a dozen far better candidates for the Golden Lion were passed over in a decision that was not only absurd but sharply criticized in the Italian press. This festival, however, has a reputation for awarding top prizes to highly unpopular entries. If anything "Pigeon on a Branch ... " should have gotten an award for Longest Dumbest Film Title (LDFT) and Most Early Walkouts on a film in competition.
The second half of this double ticket program in the vast hangar like hall known as the PalaBiennale was Abel Ferrara's hot ticket "Pasolini" starring iconic American character actor Willem DeFoe with the most chiseled of features in the title role.
Because of Pasolini's notoriety as the Baddest Boy ever of Italian film history -- he made some of the most controversial Italian films of all time ("The 210 Days of Sodom and Gomorrah") and was a strident homosexual who was murdered in an unsolved sex related incident that is still heatedly discussed -- coupled with the fact that director Abel Ferarra, is an Italian American admirer of Pasolini, himself noted for controversial independent films ("The Bad Lieutenant" among others), and Mr. Defoe looking like an ideal choice for the role -- "Pasolini" was easily the festival film with the highest audience and critical expectations. Extensive press and magazine interviews with striking photographic portraits of Mr. Ferarra help created an atmosphere of collective bated breath such that no fan worthy of his film buff salt would have been caught dead missing this super highly touted picture. Well, to make a long story short, "Pasolini" turned out to be the biggest Dud and Disappointment of the entire week.
One could cite endless reasons but here are the salient facts.
While Defoe looked like the perfect choice to play Pasolini, he was pathetic if not ridiculous in the role. Most other characters in the picture spoke Italian but Defoe, except for one scene in which he answered some questions in French, spoke English throughout, which in itself totally undermined the Pasolini character -- a man who was also an eloquent Italian poet. On top of which Defoe was constrained by Ferrara to perform in an uncharacteristically restrained manner --all of which just blew it completely.
Everything else about the film was a fiasco -- clumsy mise-en-scene with too many extreme closeups --plodding narrative, etc. Ferrara was on record as stating that he had no interest in trivial facts like who killed Paolini, or anything like that -- ("me ne frego di tottonquello") -- he was only interested in showing what a great loss to the world Pasolini's untimely death was. The film recounts only the last day in the life of the director and does end with the brutal murder -- in this version by a band of violent homophobes -- but is utterly empty of anything memorable. Bottom line -- the biggest disappointment of the festival and no great loss to cinema history. Poor Pasolini is probably turning over in his grave.
Speaking of pictures that were undermined by the use of the wrong language, another disappointment was Fatih Akin's high expectation Armenian Genocide film, "The Cut". (Note in Armenian, the Cut is a word often used to refer to the Turkish Massacres of Armenians in 1915 -23).
A German diaspora Turk defying the Turkish ban on mentioning the Genocide of the Armenians in Turkey Pin 1915 was in itself big news. Akin reportedly received death threats from outraged compatriots, but completed the film, about an Armenian father trying to track down two daughters who survived the Turkish massacres. The quest takes the father halfway around the globe, to Cuba, Minneapolis, and finally North Dakota. What "CUT" turns out to be is a kind of shaggy dog international road Movie in which all characters speak their own language, the Turks Turkish, the Cubans Spanish, the Americans, American English -- just one problem, all the Armenians including the central protagonist speak only English!
Akin claims that he made this decision because he himself does not know Armenian and wanted to "maintain control over the dialogue". Bad choice striking a false note throughout. Another bad choice, casting a non-Armenian in the main role. French- Algerian actor Tahar Rahim is a fairly good actor but doesn't know Armenian -- Whassamatta -- no good Armenian actors around? -- to portray an Amenian!
The picture got little attention and bad reviews ~what reviews there were. Too bad -- it might have made a difference with regard to the notorious indifference Turkey has consistenty manifested with regard to Armenian claims for retribution or at least recognition of the issue.
Another eagerly awaited Genocide film and another disappointment was Israeli director Amos Gitai's latest opus, "Tzili", a WW II Jewish survivor story set entirely in the woods with only two actors on screen most of the time, and billed as "the first Yiddish language film in Sixty years". Since Yiddish Happens to be my own first language I was particularly looking forward to this film and, in fact, made the trip to Venice primarily to Witness the Premiere. First of all, anyone expecting a full blown Yiddish speaking film like they used to make 'em on the old days would have been very let down. Even the American film "Hester Street" 1975, had far more Yiddish dialogue. Moreover, the dialogue of this film was extremely sparse and not limited to Yiddish -- one heard snatches of Polish and other languages as well, and what little Yiddish dialogue there was was extremely stilted and unnatural. One example: when the Male Protagonist gets the hots for the Jewish lass he has met in the lush green Forest he says to her "Ich hob kheyshik zu dir" ~ which is about the equivalent of "I have a great desire for you" -- hardly what a desperate horny young jew would have said under the circumstances. "Something like, "I wanna put my arms around you" -- would have been far more natural. (Or, "I hope you don't mind if I screw you? -- I needa get my rocks off") -- --
But this is nit-picking and not getting to the real cause of the failure of the pic which has more to do with a tedious mise-en-scene, static, total lack of action, and unconvincing performances by the lead actors. In various interviews Mr. Gitai said that he wanted to show "a different personal aspect of the holocaust"(in this case two young escapees surviving in the woods) which indeed he did, but in a boring tedious way that adds nothing to the Holocaust cannon.
The film us based on a novel by a Holocaust survivor, Aharon Appelfeld, published in Israel originally in English, but Gitai chose to use Yiddish in the film "because this is the language that was actually spoken by the Jews in Europe the time". This would supposedly be more realistic, but one thing sorely lacking in this two handed roll in the greenery was precisely realism. Straight down overhead shots constantly remind one that this is a film, not reality, and the general feeling is very "filmic". The colorful boredom is finally broken by a striking sequence of black and white archival Ghetto footage at the end with ear-crunching high decibel music that wakes the audience up to reality.
The gala premiere screening I attended in a packed house at the Sala Grande red carpet venue of the festival, attended by GITAI and his entourage, received a ten minute standing ovation from what seemed to me like an overly appreciative opening night audience -- applauding more, I am sure, the effort and the author than the realization. Other screenings were sparsely attended and the pic received little notice of any kind in the Italian press -- lost, as it were, in the shuffle of far more interesting competition pictures. Too bad in a way, because sincere intention was obviously there and TZILI (the name of the heroine) Will probably travel well on the Jewish Film festival circuit -- of which there are many scattered around the globe. It will in all likliehood also attract audiences in cities with large Jewish populations such as New York and L.A. but prospects elsewhere are iffy at best.
Above all this years Venice film festival was marked by a comeback, or revival -- pick your word -- of the Italian cinema. there were three Italian films in competition and a number of others. An Italian actress, Alba Rohrwacher, 35, won Best Actress in "Hungry Hearts" an American film by an Italian director, Saverio Constanzo, (about Jewish immigrants to America!) and Italian American actor Al Pacino made a big splash in two films, "Manglehorn" and "The Humbling", but an even bigger splash at Toronto where, introducing the same two films, in his runaway enthusiasm at the Press conference he kept knocking over glasses of water. More about all this in a subsequent report.
Alex, September 11
Back in Budapest