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VENICE
2002
ITALIAN
CINEMA - THIS MYTH THAT VANISHES
One
thing is to live off past myths, and what a glorious
past. The 59th Venice Festival promoted a complete
retrospective of master Michelangelo Antonioni, with
restored prints, and granted a life award to Dino
Risi. Sophia Loren was the sensation of the festival
opening and was treated like a diva, returning to
acting through her son Edoardo Ponti’s début
feature. But the film almost looks like a North-American
picture. The English title is “Between Strangers”
(photo1), all of which shot in Canada and spoken in
English. Besides Sophia Loren, the rest of the cast
is prestigious but has nothing to do with Italy: Gérard
Depardieu, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Malcolm McDowell,
Mira Sorvino and Pete Postlethewaite. It’s a
beautiful film about the parallel drama of three women
who struggle to free themselves from the chains of
male domination.
Dino
Risi said in Venice during his interviews that television
keeps destroying Italian cinema. Italian television
is one of the most vulgar in the world. Beside the
flood of pornographic appeals and mediocre live studio
shows, what we see in it, of Italian cinema, are things
from this glorious past that sum up the delightful
culture of a nation, from Totó to the epics
of the Roman Empire, abundantly produced during Cinecittà’s
golden age.
What
was seen of the new Italian productions at Venice’s
selection is far from a rebirth. “La Forza del
Passato / The Power of the Past”, by Piergiorgio
Gay (photo 2), was the most sensitive Italian film
in competition. Nonetheless sustained by the sweet
interpretation of Swiss-German Bruno Ganz (“Wings
of Desire”, by Win Wenders). It’s a psychological
suspense about KGB intelligence service and the past
of a teenage book writer’s dead father.
The
second Italian film in competition was “Um Viaggio
Chiamato Amore/ A Journey Called Love”, by also
actor Michele Placido. The tormented love affair between
a bourgeois writer and a bad-tempered poet in the
angry years of First World War. The duel between two
very renowned Italian actors, Laura Morante and Stefano
Accorsi, surpasses the limits of hysteria. Poetry
is the one to lose. And the third Italian in competition
was “Velocità Massima/ V Max”,
by Daniele Vicari. A strange film about souped up
cars in a street race and prostitutes as awards. Bad
example as a film that intends to attract young audiences.
Even more so because the pilots don’t wear safety
belts, a law that does not apply in informal Italy.
Out
of competition, “L’Anima Gemella / Soul
Mate”, by Sergio Rubini, an irrational slapstick
with southern Italian folkloric characters that seems
to be inspired by Brazilian TV miniseries. “Rosa
Funzeca”, by Aurélio Grimaldi, of all
above mentioned, is the film that takes most seriously
what Italian cinema meant in the past. It looks upon
the relationship of an old prostitute that does what
she can to raise well her adolescent son; it is a
declared homage to magnificent “Mamma Roma”,
by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Even
more pasolinian and radical in its city disconsolate
investigation is Tonino De Bernardi, with his ‘pasticcio’
“Lei/ She”, a part carried out in São
Paulo with a performance by Joana Curvo. Sensitive
radiography of a reality that does not exist neither
in cinema nor in television any longer.
Leon
Cakoff, from Venice, for the ‘Jornal
da Mostra’
(06/09/2002) Jornal da Mostra nº 142
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O
que se viu de novas produções italianas na seleção
de Veneza está longe de significar uma retomada. “La
Forza del Passato/ The Power of the Past/ O Poder do Passado”(foto
2), de Piergiorgio Gay, foi o mais sensível filme italiano
na lista da competição. Ainda assim sustentado pela
doce interpretação do suíço-alemão
Bruno Ganz (“Asas do Desejo”, de Wim Wenders). É
um filme de suspense psicológico sobre espionagem da KGB
e o passado do pai morto de um escritor de livros para adolescentes.