Three original relationship dramas lead the Venice competition to smaller formats: “Love Life”, “The Eternal Daughter” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”.
We are filmmakers, for us to live is to work.” Jafar Panahi, the Iranian contestant, has written a letter to the Venice Festival from prison. “The work we create is not commissioned by them, so our government thinks we’re criminals…some filmmakers have been banned from working, others have been exiled or isolated. And yet the hope of being able to be creative again is a reason to exist.”
Before Panahi’s film “No Bears”, which was secretly taken out of the country, has its world premiere on Friday, a panel discussion at the Lido provided information on the situation of Iranian filmmakers. Shortly before Panahi, his colleagues Mohammad Rasulof, the Berlinale winner for “There Is No Evil”, and Mostafa Al-Ahmad had already been imprisoned in July. The latter film’s producer, Kaveh Farnam, made it clear that filmmaking in Iran is not a right but a privilege – “granted to those who do propaganda or otherwise portray the country in a good light”. Nevertheless, the works of pro-government Iranian directors are regularly shown at major festivals. All the more touching are the words of Panahis, who cannot imagine life without art.
Anyone who takes their art seriously can understand that, even in a democracy where only material limits limit artistic freedom. How incomprehensible is it that German film funding no longer sees its primary task in promoting art, but obscure entertainment such as “The Young Chief Winnetou”.
As in Cannes, German cinema is now missing in Venice. And it’s been a long time since the Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen celebrated German cinema every year with magnificent receptions in a historic palazzo. The sad news of the death of their former director Michael Schmid-Ospach on August 29 overshadowed the start of the festival.
The first flawless masterpiece in Venice comes from a film country that provides much lower funding than Germany, but can get involved in all international competitions – Japan. Joji Fukada’s Love Life begins like a featherweight family film. A young man has married without the consent of his conservative parents; they insult the divorced with a small child as “used goods”. But before the conflict can be addressed and resolved during a small family celebration, a tragic accident occurs: the child drowns while playing in the bathtub.
Japanese cinema has a strong tradition of unsentimental treatment of grief and death, but the prolific 42-year-old takes completely surprising paths in his ninth film. At the funeral service, the mother, who had been in shock until then, was physically attacked. The attack by the renegade father, a homeless, deaf Korean, initially causes the woman to break down completely. But then she starts grieving together with him – which in turn endangers her marriage.
Fukada’s favorite directors are Jasujiro Ozu and Eric Rohmer, and these influences meld into a gentle delicacy, light yet flawless in style. Fukada invented this simple story in his early 20s, and over the years he developed it into a beguiling drama about the fragility of partnerships. “We come into life lonely and die lonely,” Fukada is convinced. “Even if we have families in between to make them forget, loneliness is the vein of humanity.”
The other two notable competition films of the last few days also delve into unusual worlds of relationships. Tilda Swinton plays a filmmaker and her aging mother in The Eternal Daughter. Joanna Hogg has set this autobiographical chamber play in a magnificent northern English country house. The daughter invited the mother to the place of her childhood during the war, which is now run as a hotel. Each of the magnificent salons brings back memories, and unexpectedly many unpleasant ones for the elderly woman.
Nuance is enough for the filmmaker to convey the basics of trauma transmission in the daughter’s emotional response. While the mother still wants to meet the repressed with discipline, her daughter painfully begins to understand the shadows over their life together. But this is not just an intimate dialogue film. As in a Victorian gothic novel, the suggestive house plays the third main role.
Finally, the friendship between two men is at the center of a critically acclaimed entry set on an Irish island, The Banshees of Inisherin. Filmmaker Michael McDonagh has reunited the stars of his unforgettable debut To see and die in Brussels, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, for the lead roles. When Gleeson’s quirky fiddler refuses to spend time with his best pal to date, his world falls apart. Worse, the musician wants to cut off one of his violin fingers for any further attempts by the other to see him. A finely written black comedy unfolds – flawless and delightfully dogged in the absurd.
However, the festival is still a long way from being a favorite for Saturday – Jafar Panahi’s contribution has to go first.
