CineCola's 71st Venice Film Festival top 10

(Note: This Top 10 includes all the films that I have seen at the 71st Venice Film Festival - main competition, Orizzonti, Venice Days, Venice Classics, Settimana della Critica and Out of Competition. It naturally does not include the films that I have not seen from the festival selection. Those are films, hence, that may be included in other Top 10s from other films festivals I will be attending. Nevertheless, the ones that are featured on this list are indeed in order of preference).

10 - DEAREST (Qin'ai De) by Peter Chan

Based on a much publicised and intricate true story of a missing child in China found in the countryside, Chan’s tale examines greatly complex domestic drama in all its aspects within the narrative of Dearest, his latest work. The interesting element is the shift in focus, which goes from the initial divorced parents of the missing child to the woman who raised him, who suddenly finds herself having to give up a little girl she also looked after for years on the same grounds. It is the non-judgemental approach that makes Dearest such an enriching interactive experience; it is up to the audience to make up its mind on the ethical inclinations of each individual element of the tale. Despite this, Chan plays up the emotional to quasi-exploitation levels through a shameless use of melodrama and a heavily stringed musical score. This, however, does not undermine the fact that the power of the story and the in depth examination of each of the individual characters remain remarkably gripping and ensure a three dimensional viewpoint on the delicate matter of cultural contrast, prejudice and the Chinese social plague of missing children.

9 - FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER (Von Caligari zu Hitler) by Rudiger Suchsland

From Caligari to Hitler is a close examination of the cinema of the Weimar Republic, from expressionism to the start of propagandist ideals. Suchsland is faithfully inspired by a book by Siegfried Kracauer by the same name that was published in 1947, which famously proposed a link between the apolitical and escapist nature of the Weimar days, keen on genre films and portrayal of youthful thoughtlessness, and the totalitarianism which was to follow. Aside from the thought provoking nature of the film, the clever use of archive footage from films of the time also makes From Caligari to Hitler a priceless visual celebration of the everlasting influence of German cinema of the time, many of whose leading exponents from Fritz Lang to Ernst Lubitsch would emigrate to the States during its golden age. Unhurried and hypnotic, whilst this may not have enough charisma to interest the hoards of film buffs and cinema history fans, it is certainly a great representation of the importance of cinema that in the end leaves us with a haunting question: what does cinema know that we don’t?

8 - LABOUR OF LOVE (Asha Jaoar Majhe) by Aditya Vikram Sengupta

The title is truly appropriate in representing the meaning of Sengupta’s film. Labour of Love is a work of love, or at least a celebration of true love and its power that is able to rise above the surrounding mayhem, hardships and violence of a hostile place like Calcutta – the place where the film is set. The story gravitates around a man and a woman, whose name we never know. The lack of dialogue gives way to an enhancement of the power of the visuals, and it is through the language of sound and vision that the film becomes a pure meditative experience that at the same time also pays tribute to the patience of the working class. It does so by allowing certain images to play out – such as the sun setting on the city. Much praise also goes to the meticulous packaging of the editing, that gives Labour of Love an even more impressive and downright musical rhythm to the film.

7 - THEY HAVE ESCAPED (He ovat paenneet) by Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa

A young boy and a young girl meet at an institution and decide to run away. Another rebellious tale of hopeless romanticism? No way. This is far from being yet another rendition of Badlands by Terence Malick. Finnish director Valkeapaa is very keen throughout the film to trick the viewer into thinking that we are headed for familiar grounds, whilst more and more prominently he hints at the whole experience being a nightmarish experience, almost channelling the spirit of the brothers Grimm to the point where the whole film fades into abstraction. Flirting with surrealism and causing frights and shocks especially through a vividly dark and frightening soundtrack, in many ways They Have Escaped is a re-definition of conventional cinematic language where love becomes secondary and staying alive the prime goal in the unpredictability of real life. A special mention goes to Roosa Soderholm, one half of the pivotal couple, who is the type of young Finnish beauty that conceals unspeakable magnetism.

6 – MELBOURNE by Nima Javidi

Javidi’s feature directorial debut is the story of a Hitchcockian dilemma. The story takes place in one house, and even more so in one room. It also takes place on a big day – the day in which the central couple is to move to Melbourne. However, the titular destination seems almost unreachable when a good deed turns into tragedy as they agree to help a nanny look after a baby and the baby is soon after discovered dead. The drama intensifies and the frenzy begins as hoards of friends and family come and go to wish them well and say their goodbyes while the two undergo extreme internal conflict and drama and the four walls in which they are confined become tighter and tighter, in fact claustrophobic. Melbourne is a well-timed and perfectly balanced thriller drama. Despite its tricky ambition of employing a theatrical approach, the acting conveys the tension and suspense amazingly well and makes the whole viewing experience even more gripping and exciting.

5 – THE PRESIDENT by Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Taking place in a fictitious totalitarian country, a dictator suffers the consequences of his selfish regime after revolution strikes and he is forced to pose as a poor travelling musician in the hope of fleeing the country and ascending to power again one day. There is a further catch; his little nephew is with him and he must protect his life as well as his own. Having spent a long time in exile from his home country in Iran, Makhmalbaf shot this film in Georgia where cinema is getting more and more interesting. One would expect his views on power and greed to be more strong, yet it is finally the ambiguity of the thematic focus that makes the film more human; in other words the audience must finally be the one to pick sides between the selfish totalitarian and the violent and remorseless revolutionaries. As far as the central figure of the president is concerned, he recalls those conflicted leaders in the films of Kurosawa, but the pace and impulsiveness of The President as well as the intelligent use of satire – of which the musical element is extremely delightful – hails deeply from Mohsen Makhmalbaf himself.

4 – GOODNIGHT MOMMY by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

A truly terrifying experience. A masterful conglomeration of horror film clichés with a compelling lenience towards arthouse cinema – in fact the same sort of arthouse approach that producer Ulrich Seidl is known for. Despite all this, first time feature directors Franz and Fiala already seem masterful in building an intense and chilling atmosphere with haunting and downright shocking relentlessness, spinning out of a relatively innocent domestic drama, developing into a dense psychological thriller with paranormal flirtations and erupting into a full blown tough to watch torture movie. The story is pretty simple – two twins become suspicious and then obsessed by the fact that their mother is not their real mother but a kidnapper or a monster. The visual charge of the film provides added immediacy in such elements as the bandages worn by the mother, who has just returned from a facial plastic surgery operation. It’s hard to pay rightful tribute to the visceral horror that is Goodnight Mommy. It is, in fact, one that has to be lived through but it is certainly not one to be experienced by the faint hearted.

3 – THE LOOK OF SILENCE by Joshua Oppenheimer

Following the rightful success of the nothing short of groundbreaking previous work The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer returns to Indonesia to talk about the infamous but little talked about Indonesian Communist Purges and digs deep inside the conscience of the perpetrators of such brutality and violence. In The Look of Silence, Oppenheimer sides more blatantly with the victims, through the story of one man in particular – a man whose brother was killed in the sixties and who goes around the village interviewing the men responsible for these unspeakable acts. Aside from this documentary being the type of enriching and intense experience one would expect on a political ground, it is also to be admired as the work of a man who does not believe in the neutrality of the camera. This, in fact, what was so admirable and even shocking to some extents about his previous work where he got the perpetrators of the purges to re-enact their evil deeds on camera. In The Look of Silence, he lets the camera eye linger on the two opposed parties, studying their silences long after they have stopped wanting to say anything else at all. A final paradox is provided by the figures in this documentary, the vast majority seemingly going deaf. This is a metaphorical type of paradox, which represents a see no evil hear no evil outcome that the whole historical event is sadly destined to have.

2 – HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT by Benny and Josh Safdie

Drug addiction, self destruction and wasteland. Heaven Knows What is a powerful attack on the audience – it is not meant to be pretty. There is almost no time for conventionality of melodrama in the film, which already begins abruptly with tragedy as a girl named Harley slitting her wrists for the love of a manipulative man named Ilya. Their obsessive and bad natured love affair, it is plain to see, is born out of destruction and can only lead to more destruction. Channelling the spirit of the American New Wave, this film is gritty and character driven - rather than following a deductive narrative it follows naturalistic impulses, much like its zombie like characters. The focus of this film is the decadence of the junkie, heroin addicted youth and subculture of New York City, with the merciless urban setting playing a huge role in the intensity of the atmosphere. The Safdie brothers are far from being afraid to take their audience out of the comfort zone, in fact they turn against them quite often juxtaposing tough to watch graphic moments with blasted rave music. Heaven Knows What is really a rollercoaster ride to hell, a brave film that distinguishes itself quite easily (and perhaps even uncomfortably) from the acknowledged new American Indie Cinema of sunlight seen through tree branches and poetic out of field narration.

1 – PASOLINI by Abel Ferrara

Anyone familiar with Ferrara’s previous work might have been expecting or indeed even concerned by the controversy that such a film might have caused. When this controversy did not take place, and when unexpectedly this turned out to be an almost complete tribute to the works of one of the most highly regarded filmmakers Italian cinema ever dished out, critics expectedly turned against it. Seen without prejudice, however, Pasolini by Abel Ferrara is one of the most touching and faithful films a filmmaker ever made about another filmmaker in the history of cinema. The connection shared between filmmaker and subject is so touching a times that it may even seem like a collaboration – this is particularly true in the scenes where Ferrara brings to life the project that would have been Pasolini’s next feature before his untimely death. Even still, it is remarkable that despite the fact that there was so much ground to cover even by focusing on the last little over 24 hours of Pasolini’s life, that Ferrara was so capable of fitting so much into his feature. His interviews, his casual relationships with friends and family, his openly homosexual lifestyle and in the end even his death. But by the end, thankfully, there is no time for investigations or conspiracies to feed the controversy. Take it for what it is. Pasolini is a touching tribute as well as a great portrayal of human vulnerability, born out of a daydream thought a whole generation of filmmakers who grew up with Accattone and Mamma Roma must have had once in their lives and, in the case of Ferrara, a daydream that became a fixation.