There have been no genuine grand slams at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Not to hear it from press folk, at least.
I recognize that so far the strongest emotional press-screening reaction has been in response to Kaouther ben Hania‘s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which indicates it’s a favorite to win The Golden Lion. And yet its refusal to consider the horrendous Gaza conflict within some kind of realistic social-political context and its insistence upon a strict and narrow emotional focus strongly argues that it’s dishonest and manipulative on a certain level.
I also recognize that Park Chan-wook‘s No Other Choice, which I chose not to see because PCW’s films have always infuriated or at least annoyed me, is probably Hind Rajab‘s closest Golden Lion competitor.
If I was on Alexander Payne‘s jury I would push for Laszlo Nemes‘ Orphan (which at least brandishes a certain artistic integrity, despite concluding with one of the coldest and ugliest resolutions I’ve ever considered in a movie theatre), Olivier Assayas‘ The Wizard of the Kremlin, Francois Ozon‘s The Stranger, or perhape even Noah Baumbach‘s Jay Kelly, if only because it has the best closing line of all the competition flicks.
The across-the=board presumption is that Mona Fastvold‘s The Testament of Ann Lee, a bazonkers musical about 18th Century Shaker fanatics that will smother your soul and cause Average Joe audience members to weep with frustration, will wind up with some kind of Venice Film Festival award. Giving it the coveted Golden Lion would be going overboard, so the most likely end result will probably be a Best Actress Volpi Cup for Amanda Seyfried.
The best out-of-competition films, hands down, have been Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt, Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus‘ Cover-Up and Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard‘s Broken English.