Venice 2008

"Inland" (Gabbla)

"Goodbye Solo"

A few years ago at the Venice Film Festival when Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers was shown, one of the stars, Michael Pitt, was asked what he thought of Venice. He replied, "It's okay. Nice seaside resort." "No, not the Lido. Have you not been to Venice itself?" "No, what's there?" young Mr. Pitt asked.
   Perhaps the Venice Film Festival should be called the Lido Film Festival because all the films are shown there, and most of the critics and jurors are stuck on the Lido which, toute proportion gardée, is like Alcatraz for nearly two weeks from which we have no time to escape. Every day I looked longingly over the water and saw the buildings around the Piazza San Marco in the distance. In a way, part of the attraction of coming to the Biennale is being able to spend some time in La Serenissima.
    Although it is always both stimulating, frustrating and important in many ways, and it can be interesting to be on a FIPRESCI jury in Venice, there are too many films to see in ten days, especially for the members of our jury who had to watch both the "Orizzonti" (Horizons) and the "Critics Week". With over 30 films to judge against the other jury's 21, it is almost physically impossible to see more than one or two of the films in the official competition. It would be better to eliminate the "Critics Week" from their duties to make the work more equitable.
    Apart from a number of inexplicable inclusions — to select one Japanese animation feature was acceptable but two seemed excessive, especially as neither merited inclusion — and at least four films that were stinkers by any objective standard, the competition was eclectic and eccentric enough to hold the interest. It would also be appreciated if the FIPRESCI prize was not treated as an irrelevancy.
    Among the peripheral highlights was a retrospective of Ermanno Olmi, who was presented with a special award, and seeing Venice favourite 99-year-old Manoel de Oliveira, three of whose short films were showing there, standing up and waving his white hat and stick in acknowledgment of a standing ovation. However, an Australian writer on films, thankfully not a member of FIPRESCI, was overheard to say, "I wish he would die!" 
   The most disappointing aspect of Venice is the way the circus moves on to Toronto about half-way through, and some of the best films get ignored. This is something that Marco Mueller hopes to rectify from 2009 when Venice will take place at the same time as Toronto. (Ronald Bergan)

Biennale di Venezia, Mostra d'Arte Cinematografica — Venice International Film Festival, August 27 — September 6, 2008, www.labiennale.org
FIPRESCI Prizes. Competition: Inland (Gabbla) by Tariq Teguia (Algeria). Horizons: Goodbye Solo by Ramin Bahrani (USA). Details

Reports

The Same Old Songs. Ronald Bergan found it difficult to discover much originality among the official competition films in Venice this year, but was consoled by at least four films, naturally including the FIPRESCI winner, Tariq Teguila's Inland (Gabbla), which was marked by originality.
The Intensity of Absolute Space. Anne de Gasperi is bewitched by Gabbla (Inland), by Tariq Teguia, a haunting Algerian film set in the vast silent spaces of a desert, which rescued an otherwise rather flat competition.
Narratives from Z to A. Eva af Geijerstam is impressed by the narrative skill of Semih Kaplanoglu's Milk (Süt), the second part of the Turkish director's "Yusuf Trilogy", and  with "the poetic, beautiful and emotional images and sounds intimately tied to the landscape".
Russian Standard. Dita Rietuma finds fascinating analogies between the work of Alexei German Jr., and his father, Alexei German, and in the former's film, Paper Soldier (Bumaznij Soldat), the only Russian picture in competition in Venice, which echoes post-Stalinist Soviet films of the 1960s.
An Engaged Movie Offensive. Janusz Wróblewski uncovers and discusses the unexpected theme of political and social engagement in several of the films in competition in Venice, including The Wrestler, which won the Golden Lion.
Offerings for the Poor. A significant number of films, observed Rachael Turk, "demonstrate a preoccupation with the issue of poverty and the power of the individual in breaking free from it".
Tense Drama about the Value of Feelings. Michael Ranze discovers many themes in Christian Petzold's impressive Jerichow, a deliberate homage to James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, though he considers Money to be the main one which effects the actions of the three leading characters.
The Escape from a Dreary Existence in Kashmir. Gautaman Bhaskaran tells about Tariq Tapa, an Indian from Kashmir who had left his country to the United States, and who returned to the places of his childhood and youth to make a film, Zero Bridge.
Unknown Italian Cinema. Furio Fossati provides an erudite perspective on an interesting program of mostly unknown or forgotten Italian film directors between 1946 and 1975, hoping that many of the rediscovered films will have a wider showing.

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