The jury at the Venice Film Festival left critics and journalists perplexed and in some cases vexed when it awarded top prize to China's Still Life.
Jia Zhangke's (賈樟柯) picture, about two people searching for their partners as villages and towns are submerged by the giant Three Gorges Dam project in China, was introduced as a surprise entry at a point when the main competition was already nearly over.
Many journalists at the 11-day movie marathon had not seen the film when the prizes were announced, and after a screening of the Golden Lion winner following the awards ceremony late on Saturday the response of the packed theater was muted.
“This verdict leaves people perplexed (and with Rome looming),” said the headline in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, suggesting the jury had damaged Venice's reputation at a time when Rome is launching a rival festival.
The article by Tullio Kezich goes on to question several decisions of a jury headed by French actress Catherine Deneuve.
“Apart from the award for Helen Mirren ... there is not much to agree on in the list of prizes,” he wrote.
Mirren won the best actress award for her portrayal of the British monarch in Stephen Frears' The Queen, one of the few popular decisions alongside French veteran Alain Resnais' best director award for Private Fears in Public Places.
Eyebrows were raised over the choice of Ben Affleck as best actor for his role in Hollywoodland.
The Golden Lion for Still Life came days after Chinese director Lou Ye (婁燁) was banned from making movies for five years for submitting Summer Palace, a romance set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, in Cannes without official approval.
Still Life was also screened this week at the 31st Toronto International Film Festival. But, for some, the day began with the British film Death of a President. Critics fretted whether they should show up two hours before the screening, or three. One hour was plenty. A fictitious documentary about the assassination of US President George W. Bush, the would-be provocation had already been snapped up for American distribution; we were just here to see what the noise was about.
Like the work of the Taiwanese transplant Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), Jia's films have everything going for them except a robust commercial future in America. That is a shame both for these great directors and for an audience that no longer seems interested in looking at film images from beyond its borders.
One of six features commissioned for the New Crowned Hope festival that takes place in Vienna in November, which are all meant to be inspired by themes in Mozart's work, Tsai's most recent film, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, sounds a requiem for the common man amid the squalor of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Despite an absence of powdered wigs or the naked French women who sometimes entice American audiences into theaters, and who were of course in attendance at this year's festival, the film should speak to anyone with a conscience.
In other film festival news, organizers of Asia's largest film festival are hoping this year's event will power the development of Asian cinema over the next 10 years.
Next month's Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) in South Korea will be the biggest since it was launched in 1996, but organizers are hoping for a new focus on the business side of the movie industry.
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