(Venice) Five years ago, Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone proposed a film called “Dogman,” about a dog groomer who falls into a criminal spiral. On Thursday in Venice, the most American of French filmmakers, Luc Besson, proposed a film called “DogMan,” about a dog guard who falls into a criminal spiral. This is where the comparisons end. Garrone’s Dogman was remarkable. Besson is a bad dog.
Published at 4:20 p.m. Updated at 4:48 p.m.
The consummate ridiculousness of his film didn’t stop the filmmaker of “The Big Blue” and “Subway” from receiving warm applause at a press conference on Thursday, as if they had wanted to publicly congratulate him for overcoming his recent financial and legal setbacks has survived years. In June, Besson was acquitted of rape charges in France by actress Sand Van Roy. Around ten other women accuse him of inappropriate sexual behavior.
Anyone who believes that the backlash from the #metoo movement is an illusion should take a trip to the Venice Film Festival, where Besson, Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are being welcomed with great fanfare these days…
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE VENICE FESTIVALS
Caleb Landry Jones in Dog Man
After watching DogMan, I actually wondered why we thought it was relevant to select Besson’s film in competition as well. This New Jersey-set Europudding stars Douglas, a child martyr turned stray dog guardian (Caleb Landry Jones), who makes ends meet by imitating Édith Piaf as a drag queen and “protecting” the honest people in his neighborhood. in front of criminals offers gangs (music from The Godfather as a bonus).
A young psychiatrist is called in when Douglas is arrested behind the wheel of a truck full of dogs, dressed as Marilyn Monroe and suffering from gunshot wounds. Then a five-cent psychological tango begins, dialogues with theses as a bonus to eradicate evil at the root, of course in the wounds of childhood.
PHOTO GUGLIELMO MANGIPANE, Portal
Actor Caleb Landry Jones
That Doug was burdened with a heavy mortgage: his father put him in a cage for many months (a French message that inspired Besson’s scenario), with dogs as his only companions, whose company he prefers to that of humans. He communicates so well with his canine companions that his dogs, to whom he reads Shakespeare (!), steal jewelry for him from opulent houses and even give him salt. No, that’s not a figure of speech.
The characters in DogMan are all more caricatured, more Manichean and more unlikely than the others (the conniving father and brother, the Latin American criminals), so much so that we sometimes have the impression that we are discovering a film for a young audience. like 101 Dalmatians. Everything sounds false and nothing is subtle, starting from the melodramatic music, in this Silence of the Lambs of the Poor with a pointless scenario that confirms everything except the “great return” of Luc Besson.
Pinochet as a vampire
Opinions will undoubtedly be divided about Pablo Larraín’s latest film, El Conde (The Fairy Tale). The Chilean filmmaker (No, Neruda, Spencer, Jackie) has dreamed up a delightful and insane vampire story in which the dictator Augusto Pinochet takes on the features of a royalist vampire who idolizes Marie-Antoinette, who fled France after the revolution.
PHOTO TIZIANA FABI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Pablo Larrain
This black and white film relies on dark humor à la Ari Aster and offbeat humor à la Roy Andersson, with an almost Bergman-esque aesthetic and a touch of South American magical realism. As if Béla Tarr had given herself over to a purely sardonic story or as if Dreyer had imagined a calculating Joan of Arc.
However, it’s Gaspar Noé’s “Irréversible” that we first spontaneously think of, due to a horribly violent scene that foreshadows a gory movie at will, with blood spurting as hearts freshly harvested from dying bodies are sent to the blender to provide them with exceptional power-shake rejuvenating properties.
The soundtrack of classical and lyrical music fits perfectly into this particularly cynical dystopia, coupled with a family fable about corruption, avarice and greed. Larraín’s direction is meticulous, careful and sets the rhythm of the story, less thoughtful than his previous, more traditionally biographical films.
A young nun who speaks French is contacted by the Pinochet children, who can no longer wait for their inheritance, and attempts to seduce the old dictator in order to better expel him. While his loyal servant makes a plan with his wife. And I won’t tell you why the narrator is British… You can judge this joyful delirium for yourself from September 15th on Netflix (which, unlike Cannes, doesn’t snub Venice).
Monia’s class
“You’ll hear me repeating things I’ve already told you, but in English!” Monia Chokri told me when I met her at the Lido. She wasn’t entirely right. The Quebec filmmaker and actress announced on Thursday afternoon, at the invitation of the Giornate degli Autori section, a master class as part of the “Focus” on Quebec at the 80th Venice Film Festival.
Around fifty people, mostly young film students, were in the Sala Laguna to listen to him talk about his journey, from the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts to the making of his third feature film, Simple comme Sylvain, which opens in Quebec on September 22nd cinemas are coming.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Monia Chokri for her film Babysitter
Writing is an act of humility, sometimes even shame, she said of her experience as a screenwriter, a process she finds long, strenuous, but definitely rewarding. We believe that writing and directing are her main creative forces at the moment, more than acting, although she has a small role – as a slightly annoyed mother – in her new film, which had its world premiere at the recent Cannes Film Festival.
“The first thing I always say in a master class is to choose the producer carefully,” Monia Chokri advised the students. “It can change a life,” she added, then recounted how, for her 30th birthday, her producer Nancy Grant offered to finance the filming of her first short film, “Someone Extraordinary.”
Inevitably there was talk of his friend Xavier Dolan, who, together with Nancy Grant, produced Bertrand Bonello’s film “The Beast”, which was shown this weekend in the official competition of the Mostra. “In Italy she is known for her work with the popular Xavier Dolan,” the interviewer clarified, introducing Monia Chokri, headliner of Emma Peeters of Nicole Palo, chosen in Venice in 2018.
“Not just in Italy! ” replied the actress with a smile, grateful for the influence of the director of Imaginary Loves on her career. Although we would like to imagine an interview with Monia Chokri in which Xavier Dolan will not be mentioned at all…
As she did with great success in Cannes, the filmmaker emphasized the importance of respect and kindness on the film set. She also regretted that cinema is now more or less reserved for the richest and that the cost of cinema tickets is equivalent to a one-month subscription to a digital platform.
She is not against the platforms, quite the opposite, and also welcomes the importance of Criterion and Mubi for film fans, especially during the pandemic. “It doesn’t bother me if people watch my films at home,” says the woman, who is committed to the democratization of cinema, which she believes is still necessary but has become the “art of the rich”.
Since I can judge the veracity of her words, I have retained this warning she gave to aspiring artists: in the context of a festival, do not rely too much on criticism from journalists who are exhausted by seeing three or four films per day. When they love, they love to excess, and when they hate, they hate to excess. I will meditate on this phrase as I look for qualities in Luc Besson’s new film…