This happens no more often than happy endings in auteur films: the best film of the festival receives the main prize. An enthusiastic roar greeted the final remarks of Venice 2023 jury president Damien Chazelle, who announced the victory of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Poor, the Wretched”, the undisputed favorite of this year’s competition.
The distribution of awards turned out to be close to perfect. One can only regret that the acting Volpi Cup did not go to Emma Stone, but this is the regulation of the Venice Festival: prizes for female or male roles are not awarded to performers from a film that received the Golden Lion. Stone, after all, still has the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar ahead, and the very young Cailee Spaeny from Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla needs the prize more; Once upon a time, Stone herself was in the same position, receiving the Marcello Mastroianni prize for best beginning actress in Venice for Chazelle’s “La La Land.” This award in 2023 went to Seydou Sarr, a non-professional actor from Matteo Garrone’s drama “I Am Captain” about two Senegalese teenagers illegally fleeing from Africa to Europe.
“Poor Unfortunate”
Venice International Film Festival
The theme of migrants in the competition films sounded even louder than the feminist leitmotif of the same “Poor and Unfortunate.” The jury heard and noted it. Catchy, picturesque, at times scary, but ultimately optimistic, the odyssey I Am Captain earned Garrone, one of Italy’s best-known contemporary authors, a Silver Lion for directing. It may not be his most individual or radical film, but, according to Garrone, it is almost his most important. The same can be said about Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, a more adult and tragic drama about illegal migrants. She was awarded a special jury prize to the unanimous applause of the audience.
“I am the captain”
Venice International Film Festival
Holland and Garrone represented, as it were, two wings of cinema, united by a common theme: harsh realism on the one hand, film poetry rich in metaphors on the other. But the jury refused to pit them against each other, awarding both and thus emphasizing the importance of the issue itself. Perhaps such a rare versatility in tastes was predetermined by the fact that the same jury brought together several directors of completely different styles, who managed to find a common language when making decisions: such authors as Irishman Martin McDonagh, New Zealander Jane Campion, Frenchwoman Mia Hansen sat under Chazelle’s leadership. Loew and last year’s laureates, Argentinean Santiago Miter and American documentarian Laura Poitras.
“Green Border”
Venice International Film Festival
Like any smart prize giveaway, this one made it clear what interests and excites both filmmakers and audiences today. Women’s rights (“The Unlucky Poor,” “Priscilla”), the ongoing migration crisis (“I Am Captain,” “Green Border”), as well as environmental problems and the protection of small communities from the encroachments of cynical corporations. This is what “Evil Does Not Exist” is about, again not the most brilliant, but still a masterful and sophisticated film by the Japanese Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Take the Wheel of My Car”). In it, a small community of villagers tries, without much success but with considerable resilience, to protect a forest spring from imminent pollution by building a glamping tourist center (it stands for “glamorous camping”). This deliberately quiet, discreet and poignant work received the Grand Prix – the Silver Lion of Venice 2023.
“Evil does not exist”
Venice International Film Festival
The private lives of suffering and vulnerable people are depicted in “Memory” by the Mexican Michel Franco (“New Order”) – an intense psychological drama about the relationship between two wounded adults: the heroine survived abuse as a teenager, the hero suffers from progressive dementia. The manipulative material is so passionately and masterfully played by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard that it does not leave a feeling of contrived or false. The Volpi Cup for Acting was awarded to Sarsgaard, who gave an inspirational speech from the stage about the Hollywood strike and the threat of artificial intelligence to people in his profession.
“Memory”
Venice International Film Festival
And the political and satirical component was in charge of the grotesque “Count” by Chilean Pablo Larrain, in which Pinochet turns into a 250-year-old vampire. The film was awarded for its unusual script. Another political film that received a prestigious award was directed by Hungarian director Gábor Reis, called “An Explanation of Everything.” In a witty tragicomedy reminiscent of contemporary Romanian cinema, a high school student fails his final history exam when his teacher asks him why he put a national flag pin on his lapel. The cartoonishly loud conflict, which involves the boy’s parents (his father is a right-wing conservative and a voter of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán), a liberal teacher, a conformist principal and cynical journalists eager for fried food, pushes into the background the true motivations of the participants, mainly related with crushes, jealousies or dissatisfaction in marriage. Reish’s “Explaining Everything” was awarded the main prize of the parallel competition “Horizons”.
“Graph”
Venice International Film Festival
Not the brightest cinematic year is likely to be remembered for many films, but at least one of them will be remembered for decades – Lanthimos’ uniquely bold, deep and free “The Poor Miserables.” Often such films are ignored by premium authorities for precisely this reason: they are too talented and good to determine a consensus. However, something like a miracle happened, and the picture received what it deserved. All that remains is to wait for her meeting with the audience, scheduled for early December.
