Tthird day of competition in Venice 2023 with three promising films: Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos, Finally dawn by Saverio Costanzo e Bastarden by Nikolaj Arcel. Out of the race The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Wes Anderson and, in the Venice Days, Sidonie au Japon by Élise Girard.
Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast all (international) star per Poor Things (in Italian it will be: Poor creatures!) by Greek Yorgos Lanthimos: Emma Stone (also producer), Mark Ruffalo, Willem DafoeRamy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla.
Poor creatures!
From the novel by Alasdair Gray, the visionary evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by a brilliant and unorthodox scientist (Dafoe) who she then abandons, attracted by a lawyer (Ruffalo) with whom she has adventures that cross continents. Freed from the prejudices of her time, the protagonist fights for equality and emancipation. “Basically, it’s a story about a woman’s freedom in society,” assures the director.
Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in “Poor Creatures!” (photo Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures).
Finally dawn by Saverio Costanzo
Lily James, Rebecca Antonaci (nineteen-year-old revelation), Joe Keery, Rachel Sennott, Alba Rohrwacher, Willem Dafoe lend their faces to the protagonists of Finally dawn by Saverio Costanzo. Who, in the 1950s, intertwined in Cinecittà the stories of a naive Roman girl and a spoiled American star (a bit Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatraa bit also Anita Ekberg in The sweet life) with the crime news: the death by drowning – on the beach of Torvaianica – of Wilma Montesi, aspiring actress, with the consequent involvement of exponents of the Christian Democrats…
Lily James in “At Last Dawn”.
Bastarden by Nikolaj Arcel
In Bastarden by Nikolaj Arcel Mads Mikkelsen embodies the former captain Ludvig Kahlen who, in 1755, dreams of making the Danish moors fertile, founding a colony in the name of the King. But the landowner, who cruelly dictates the law in the area (Simon Bennebjerg of Borgen), will make his mission impossible… «When I became a father, for me there was an existential awareness» recalls the director. «With the help of the brilliant novel by Ida Jessen, Anders Thomas Jensen and I wanted to tell a grand and epic story about how our ambitions and desires are doomed to fail if they are all we have. Life is a mess; painful and unpleasant, beautiful and extraordinary, and often we cannot control it. As the saying goes: “We make plans and God laughs”.
Mads Mikkelsen in “Bastarden”.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
As usual, all divi from A List they moved for Wes Anderson, however The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – out of competition – and a medium-length film (it lasts only 40 minutes): the appeal is Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley. Drawn from a tale of Roald Dahlis the story of a rich man who, having learned of a guru who can see without using his eyes, decides to master the technique of cheating at gambling.
Cartier Award to Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson will be awarded the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award. The motivation? Alberto Brabera, director of the Venice Film Festival explains it: «he is one of the few directors for whom a single frame is enough to immediately recognize his unique and unmistakable style. His formal universe refers to a childish and visionary aesthetic, dominated by pastel colours, by the obsessive attention to rigorously symmetrical shots and populated by characters of misfit dreamers, incurably romantic and smiling ».
Sidonie au Japon by Élise Girard
Isabelle Huppert travels with Sidonie au Japon by Élise Girard, presented in the section Days of the Authors. She plays an established widowed writer who is invited to the Land of the Rising Sun for the republication of her first book. She is welcomed by the local editor and accompanied to Kyoto, the city of shrines and temples. Magically, she slowly begins to open up, though the ghost of her husband doesn’t leave her. On the contrary…
Isabelle Huppert and Tsuyoshi Ihara in “Sidonie au Japon”.
“The film was born from the sensations I felt when I discovered Japan in 2013,” explains the director. «As soon as I started writing, I thought of Isabelle’s face and I chose the name “Sidonie” for its consonance with Japanese, but also as a tribute to Colette, a writer of whom I am particularly fond. Through this travel film, I wanted to talk about mourning, rebirth, love that returns unexpectedly».
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