Letter from Venice

Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited

The Venice Film Festival is already in full swing and there’s a positive air if expectancy all around. What is so good about this Festival is that the whole Lido (the outer island of the town, that looks directly onto the Adriatic sea) becomes a citadel dedicated to cinema.

Film posters hang from every wall, shop-windows are a homage to old movies, papier-mâché golden lions are scattered around in the main Festival area, and a crowd of people of all ages are running around like hamsters on a wheel, carrying big laptop bags and wearing a badge around their necks: journalists from every corner of the globe.

The old fashioned Palazzo Del Cinema is going to be refurbished soon; recently the exterior has been redecorated by legendary Italian set designer Dante Ferretti, who has curated the external décor of the Palazzo for the last three years.
This time around, a huge steel sphere attached to a chain seems to smash into the wall of the Palazzo: it is a reference to Fellini’s masterwork Prova D’Orchestra, at the end of which the Chapel the musicians are rehearsing in is demolished.

The sphere is “a symbol of demolition, of destruction, but also a metaphor for a future reconstruction, of a vision capable of surpassing the chaos of the present and the precariousness of circumstance… It is a blessing for the Venice Film Festival”, Ferretti says.

And this year our first blessing is the news that Marco Muller, the celebrated Director of the Festival, might stay for four additional years instead of giving way to Italian film critic Irene Bignardi, currently Director of the Locarno Film Festival and a quite conventional, rough film expert with an undeserved fame.

If Muller stays, this would seriously mean big news for those who really love this Festival and the way he has developed it, discovering talents and giving it a breath of fresh air.

But there is also bad news. For reasons not yet clear, Owen Wilson attempted suicide on Monday.
The actor is the protagonist of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, one of the films in competition and one of the likeliest to win the higher prize.
Wilson should have joined the cast and director at the Lido next week for the press conference, but has asked the media to leave him alone and to “receive care and heal” for the time being.

We wish him a full recovery, and we ask ourselves: how will this affect the success of Anderson’s film?
The filmmaker has now gained a cult reputation but still lacks an official triumph; undoubtedly Wilson’s act has made the film even more highly awaited, but hopefully the Jury will not consider this private matter when judging it.

From the first indiscretions overheard in the corridors of the Palazzo, it seems that Anderson’s fiercest contender for the Golden Lion is Todd Haynes with I’m Not There, a biopic on Bob Dylan in which the singer is played by six different actors.
Haynes and Anderson share the same positions: young-ish trendy directors with a niche but cult following and no big prizes under their  belt.
 Haynes had shown Far From Heaven in Venice in 2002 but went home empty-handed. Will this be the right time for him? 
Another film worth betting on is Les Amours D’Astreé Et Céladon by French maestro Eric Rohmer.

Rohmer has already had a fulgent career and it would probably be better to encourage a younger director.
Lets see what unfolds over the coming days.

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