There’s nothing quite like Venice at night. The Queen of the Adriatic, unique in the force of sheer opulence that submerges you under the waves of its conspicuous canals, dons a more decadent gown when the sun sets. The blindingly luminous limestone fades into the background, the breeze turns to chill, and the lights inside endless rows of palazzos reveal immense chandeliers, lighting Renaissance motifs, marble monoliths, and fine lumber.
As you meander around its 472 bridges amid thick, ravenous dark in the distance and low-lit candelabras around the docks, you will be startled by the radiance of private but casually flaunted luxury. A parallel world of the most astonishing riches opens through immense solid wood frames, inviting you to marvel and tremble before it, but only from the decks of a packed waterbus with no handlebars. Any one of those lavish chambers could be a location for a period piece or a haute couture shoot.
More than just bourgeois kitsch with a tortured poet’s twang, this display of wealth and grandeur would provoke revolutions in the past. In our time, it creates the perfect backdrop for Europe’s second snobbiest, but content-wise likely the most impressionable film festival, the lauded Biennale. Running from 28 August to 7 September on the picturesque island of Lido, reachable only by water, in the past decade and a half, the Venice Film Festival has been hard on the heels of Cannes in terms of major releases and star power.
Following in its new-found tradition of obscene budgets and obscenely opulent gala gowns, thanks to the efforts and tenacity of director Alberto Barbera (who took over in 2012), the Biennale Cinema also honed its bets to emerge as the buzziest awards season launchpad. The likes of George Clooney, Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, and more embraced their status as Venice darlings, where we meet them this year, too.
It is fair to say the Venice Film Festival can be a bit hit or miss with its adventurousness, especially when it comes to releases in English described as “bold”, but this year’s lineup has mostly been the good kind of “bold”, with a minimum of flirting with popcorn and tabloid flicks, and a hefty dose of narratively and aesthetically surprising features from both distinguished and emerging auteurs (that’s European for film-maker). Besides the fantastic I’m Still Here from Walter Salles, here are some more films that got Lido buzzing so far.
Wolfs, Director: Jon Watts
(Streaming on Apple TV+ 27th September, limited release through Sony, 20th September)
Since launching in 2019, Apple TV+ has struggled to win over subscribers from giants like Netflix and Disney+. Sorely needing a hit feature meant minimizing risk, including that of audiences straining their brains by the TV set.
Enter Jon Watts, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt to the rescue. Watts, fresh from a triad of well-received Spider-Man features, took a left turn into extra silliness with Wolfs. The film he wrote and directed trails two “coolest guys ever” (Clooney and Pitt, of course), otherwise known as fixers for botched jobs within the underworld, who operate under a veil of secrecy as “lone wolves”. When a goody-two-shoes district attorney (an always dependable Amy Ryan, who recently starred in another Apple TV+ original, Sugar) gets in trouble with a young man who’s “definitely not a prostitute” (a standout Austin Abrams), the two men will cross paths, butt heads, and get into a shit-ton of unfortunate situations – all in a single night.
Nobody will be surprised to hear that Clooney and Pitt, both nameless, secretive “wolfs”, turn up their legendary cool kicks to the nines. Darkly clad, with badass snide grimaces and impeccable comedic timing, the two take the piss out of each other and their characters’ jobs. This (i.e., the film itself) is a too easy gig for both, expecting not much more of either than to wear a black turtleneck (Clooney, of course), or an unbuttoned white shirt (Pitt, of course) beneath leather jackets, and giving sexy glances the way they might in a men’s cologne commercial.
The effortless charm of both, coupled with a mildly intriguing excursion into New York’s underbelly and some moderately engaging jokes, makes this action comedy appealing enough for an easy night with a bucket of popcorn. The issue is that Wolfs sets the bar so low that one cannot but notice how easily this could have been a considerably better film.
Had Watts not strained so hard to ensure that we never forget we are witnessing Hollywood royalty at work, what ended up like an overlong SNL skit could have been an intriguing tale of male loneliness and the difficulties of forming friendships at work, not to mention a more engaging action flick. There’s a fantastic running joke about both having bad backs (Clooney is 63, Pitt is 60) that crack ominously whenever they ought to clean the mess up, but their age is otherwise not incorporated in the narrative. There’s also a curious, palpable darkness to Clooney that he imbues his character with ex-cathedra despite the sparse script, which makes you wonder why he doesn’t stretch his chops in this direction more often or more substantially.
Funnily enough, Austin Ambrams steals the show as an inarticulate, wide-eyed kid who’s just down for whatever. The extended scene in which he explains to the growling “wolfs” how he ended up with a backpack full of drugs is easily the best of the film. Unfortunately, that wasn’t hard to achieve, with the crux of the action being a standoff against the generic “Croatian” and “Albanian” Others, a Croatian druglord Dimitri (absolutely not a Croatian name) whose mobsters engage in something resembling a Caucasus dance at his daughter’s wedding (the Caucasus is nearly 2,000 miles away from Croatia, which is in Southeastern Europe). Nobody paid much attention to the details, though. At least the actor who played Dimitri, Zlatko Burić, is Danish-Croatian.
Clooney and Pitt know well they appear in Wolfs only for the “shits and giggles”; this is made clear with their presence at the world premiere in Venice, where they mostly continue with the skit throughout publicity activities. Sure enough, the tabloid response is overwhelming, and millions worldwide comment on how the two “wolfs” still very much got “it”.
If you’re up for unwinding a distilled version of their iconic rizz, Wolfs will be 108 minutes spent well enough. If, on the other hand, you still crave that rizz but expect more style and better thrills, you already know that an entire trilogy of films to showcase these two was made by Steven Soderbergh.
The Brutalist, Director: Brady Corbet
(US premiere at the New York Film Festival on 27th September)
Well, talk about a confirmation of someone’s talent that doesn’t caress you like a pleasant breeze but knocks you down like a block of concrete. The 36-year-old Brady Corbet, a man enthralled with the darkness within and without whose Childhood of a Leader was one of PopMatters‘ best films of 2016, ambushed critics and audiences alike with The Brutalist, a 215-minute epic of the American dream not so much in the vein of Once Upon a Time in America or The Godfather, but rather akin to Kafka’s first novel, Amerika.
Starring the eternally unflinching Adrian Brody as Hungarian prodigy architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth, Corbet’s unsentimental, sprawling tale unfolds over 30 years to paint Tóth’s journey to Ellis Island and then residency in Philadelphia in a devastating, cynical light. Brody is in his typical electrifying, commanding form as a broken man who will stop at nothing to rebuild his life, reputation, and identity. Corbet is deadpan in his intent to show us that all heavily accented and crooked-nosed Tóth has to offer a growing, voracious America is his labor (and, ultimately, his body). We end up with proof that the American dream is a nightmare.
Upon arrival, Tóth, traumatized and forcefully separated from his wife Erzsébet (a fierce Felicity Jones in a thankless role), slowly uncovers the American way. He lodges with his anglicized cousin Attila, once Molnár, now Miller, frequents brothels (where he can’t get satisfaction), and shrivels under scrutiny from the God-given locals. Still, this is no pathography; Tóth will not give in to despair. Instead, he will stubbornly chase his vision of an imposing, brutalist world, working obsessively and tirelessly to show his immense skill. This, on the other hand, is a feature the American liberal system rewards (wait until the end to see how), so Harry Van Buren (a phenomenally despicable Joe Alwyn) hires Tóth to redesign his wealthy father’s study.
Enter Harrison Lee Van Buren, a prominent Philadelphia industrialist and the proxy for the US. Played with remarkable tenaciousness by Guy Pierce, Van Buren is the diabolical destiny fulfilled. After a casual introductory outburst, Van Buren recognizes and comically identifies with Tóth’s talent, along with its complementary narcissism and megalomania. He then enlists him to build a behemoth church-cum-library-cum-congregation center as a monument to hi(m)s(elf) late mother, and so the real trial of our protagonist begins. Through Van Buren’s many connections within the establishment, Erzsébet and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) are extracted from Europe, and we expect a new chapter to begin for Tóth.
However, the shackles of history hang heavy on the less fortunate, and there is no reinvention in sight for Tóth. To his and Corbet’s credit, Tóth’s stubborn insistence on his heritage, vision, and even his trauma, which he weaves into his work, imbue him with solemn dignity and humanity where most other players merely blend with the dark end of history. It is a Pyrrhic victory for the smart but “ugly-faced” Hungarian Jew, but hope is, after all, not lost.
Hearing about yet another mammoth runtime project taking on the societal issues of the US of A with highbrow actors testing the limits of both their characters’ and the audience’s endurance will rightly raise eyebrows. However, Corbet took no prisoners with The Brutalist, and the script he developed with his wife Mona Fastvold commands attention throughout. Even when the narrative loses steam or hardens too on the nose, the clarity of Corbet’s vision remains.
Aided by extraordinarily organic 70 mm (some say it was 35 mm) shots made with VistaVision and Lol Crawley’s (Black Mirror, The OA) uncanny cinematography, The Brutalist towers above the viewer like the upside-down Statue of Liberty – Tóth’s first omen upon deboarding – then the ever-shrinking walls of the grey compound builds for Van Buren, his own Bell-Tower… or Moby Dick.
The Room Next Door, Director: Pedro Almodóvar
(US release 20th December)
The legendary Spaniard has done it again, miraculously, making his tropes and fixations seem fresh. Famous for his hugely diverse narratives, often mistaken for uniformity just because his films feature women or marginalized groups, the elder icon of world cinema has again repositioned the angle from which he explores the themes of life and how we weave stories to explain our time and purpose on Earth.
The Room Next Door, Pedro Almodóvar’s 23rd feature film, is also his first in English. Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore at the peak of their powers, it is the story of Martha (Swinton) who discovers her cancer is incurable and decides to end her life on her own terms. Ingrid (Moore), Martha’s old but long-lost friend, is pulled back into Martha’s life to accompany her on this last journey.
Sad as the story is, this is one riveting and poignant film that ends up subverting its premise, emerging victorious and teeming with life despite dealing with one’s (inevitable) demise. Martha’s and Ingrid’s friendship, charted by innumerable memories of living at night in New York, meeting up at matinees, or sharing lovers (a typically hilarious John Turturro as the self-centered lecturer Damian T. Cunningham), proves a foundation that, with some typically didactic, deadpan Almodóvar dialogue, transcends the banality of Martha’s illness and demonstrates death is little more than an afterthought.
There is, however, much more to unpack about The Room Next Door, which blinds one with big ponderings, Almodóvar’s flamboyant, burning polychrome (this time through the prism of Edu Grau, working with the director for the first time), and narratives of love and nurture. There is a good reason The Room Next Door had to be made in English, and it’s not just because it’s based on the novel What You’re Going Through by the American author Sigrid Nunez. This film works only in English because its leads are two affluent, accomplished, unbelievably blasé New Yorkers – three if you count Cunningham, who thrives on giving lectures titled “How bad can it get? Navigating urban life with integrity” or pontificating about why people should not keep procreating. (“People should be aware of the state of the fucking planet they’re living on.”)
Ingrid is an accomplished author who people queue to see. She is scared of death and Martha’s acceptance of it, but drawn to her like a moth to a flame to collect quotes and ideas for fresh writings. Martha, a former New York Times war correspondent, is wealthy enough to be the recipient of cutting-edge experimental therapy or to rent a villa upstate for a month to arrange the ideal death for herself.
Indeed, its honest and potent examination of what remains of life in death, The Room Next Door also invites us to consider who gets to shape the discourse on death, especially who gets the enormous privilege of being the masters of their own lives until the end. Certainly, no working-class Spanish heroine of Almodóvar’s could dissect death and approach it in the same playful way that wealthy Martha and her NYC socialite friends can. A dignified death is a human right, and The Room Next Door opens another welcome debate on the potential benefits of euthanasia (under certain circumstances, at least). It also shows us that most of the dying are light years behind how Martha and her idle, morbidly curious friend may gracefully handle the transition.
At the film’s press conference, both Almodóvar and his muses adamantly claimed that The Room Next Door is about the power of love and friendship. All of this is undoubtedly true, and the feature is all the better for these layers, a striking account of how we enact and advance history through our memories and the narratives we form around them. Still, in the end, its subtext of how the privileged get to utilize their blessings – or someone else’s curse – until the very end will likely be more compelling once the first sentimental impressions settle.