VENICE
2002
SWEDISH
SEX MARKET, GENIUS SAM MENDES
AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SINS
The Swedish director Lukas Moodysson of
“Fucking Amal” and “Together”
was selected in Venice for the “Upstream”
section with his new “Lijla 4-Ever”, a strong
and desperate portrait of suburban abandoned youngsters’
reality in the extinct Soviet Union. There we meet
the glamourless anatomy of a dreamy teenager’s
enticement process into the sordid world of prostitution.
Into the Swedish market of sexual slavery. Too sordid
for those who remember Sweden as one of the first
markets to export pornographic products.
The
film was one of the first impacts of the festival’s
program where traumatized parenthood themes are reoccurring.
The girl is abandoned by her mother, who goes after
the American dream, leaving to the United States with
a boyfriend. The girl’s fall into hell begins,
and as her poor guardian angel, she has a street boy
even younger than her, equally abandoned by his parents.
Moodysson affirms himself as one of the most talented
of the new Swedish cinema.
SAM MENDES SHINES AGAIN
“Road
to Perdition” confirms the English Sam Mendes
(“American Beauty”) as one of the best filmmakers
in Hollywood. It will be, by far and again, the best
American film of the season. “It’s like
watching a Sergio Leone’s or a Coppola’s
film”, says journalist Neusa Barbosa. “Where
even the bad characters think”, I would add.
At Sam Mendes’ films all characters think and
convey to the viewers the dense atmosphere of thought.
“Road
to Perdition” is one of these films to be watched
over and over several times. Each shot, with its light,
its shadows, costumes and the strength of the soundtrack,
the careful reproduction of an old mystery comic book.
Here comes another international hit with a comic
book label. “It’s like a love letter to
the great gangster films of the 30’s, 40’s
and 70’s”, says Sam Mendes. In fact, this
one is inspired by the framing and architecture of
“Dick Tracy’s” detective comic books
and a short story written by MacAllan Collins and
illustrated by English drawer Richard Piers Rayner.
Gangsters
apart, “Road to Perdition” fits into the
Venice block of films with complex relationships between
parents and offspring. A boy witnesses the massacre
in which his father took part. As a consequence, his
brother and his mother die in his place. The voyage
to Perdition begins, one of escape and revenge at
the same time. Similar to all American films, it will
look like actors Tom Hanks and Paul Newman’s
movie. It doesn’t matter. Sam Mendes is too wise
and knows how to work the star system in his favor,
as only few and good directors do, in Hollywood. It
will last in his history.
MORE
OF CATHOLIC CHURCH’S CRIMES
“The
Magdalene Sisters” was yet another moment of
good and shocking cinema, by Scottish actor and director
Peter Mullan. As an actor, he was granted the Golden
Palm at Cannes for Ken Loach’s film “My
name is Joe”. As a director, this is his second
feature. It relates the terrifying reality in Ireland,
only recently interrupted, in 1997. Girls either too
pretty and desired or too ugly, too intelligent or
too stupid, too flirtatious, raped or single mothers
were sent by their parents to the convents of the
Magdalene order, where sisters of mercy would illegally
slave them in the laundry. The film follows the tragedy
of three such condemned girls. The Catholic Church
still needs to ask to be forgiven for many of its
sins.
Leon
Cakoff, from Venice, for the ‘Jornal da Mostra’
(03/09/2002) Jornal da Mostra nº 139
O
diretor sueco Lukas Moodysson, de “Fucking Amal/Amigas de
Colégio” e “Together/Bem Vindos” foi selecionado
em Veneza para a seção ‘Contracorrente’
com o seu novo “Lilja 4-Ever”, um forte e desesperado
retrato da realidade dos jovens das periferias abandonadas da
extinta União Soviética. Temos aí uma anatomia
sem glamour do processo de aliciamento de uma adolescente sonhadora
para o sórdido mundo da prostituição. Ao
mercado sueco da escravidão sexual. Sórdido demais
para quem lembra que a Suécia foi um dos primeiros mercados
exportadores de produtos pornográficos.
