• Yesterday, in Venice. The polysemy of the absurd
  • 'The king'.A flat and graceless Shakespeare

In 1988 the screens attended the first prodigy of Gong Li. Red sorghum , by Zhang Yimou, gave us the story of the first of all the tragic victims who make up his filmography in the body of an actress. No one has ever suffered with dignity and, above all, the beauty of it. The director and the interpreter would return to work consecutively up to six more times. And for every movie, the perfect portrait of an enlightened wound. Since then, when we still did not know what it was to send an email, there have been, in addition to three whole decades, countless reasons to despair. You know, time, that strange substance that, as Groucho would say, "hurts all cures . "

Well, the Mostra wanted yesterday to refute the very existence of time. And as proof presented to the Chinese actress. She is the undisputed, omnipresent and even perfect protagonist of the film of Lou Ye Saturday fiction . And it is in the shoes of an actress who in Shanghai in 1941 faces the most complicated of her roles: to find the secret Japanese plan that will trigger World War II . In a murky environment that announces the imminence of all disasters, a star on the scene is invited by his former lover to star in a play in the city in which China, Japan and the Allied powers dispute the possibility of the future. His intention, like everyone else's, is another.

The Chinese director, as is the norm in his filmography, insists on raising the amour fou to the category of political weapon. But this time he dares much more. Filmed in a steely black and white, the film advances happily in its sense of loss . All are shadows of shadows. For much of the footage, Saturday fiction navigates through the noise of a swirl of broken mirrors in which life and its representation on stage are confused. All the characters cheat, since they spy on each other, and they all love each other. Or they loved each other. With despair even.

It is difficult to adapt to a rhythm not so much exacerbated as only exaggerated. But it is worth the effort . When the last half of the movie rushes and adopts the form and manners of a ravenous and furious thriller , then there is no choice: everything works, everything excites. And in the middle, a Gong Li turned into a heroine who dies of passion that kills dispassionately. Suddenly, the always tortured character of decades now appears as an indefatigable weapon of a crumbling world. And it explodes. And die finally .

In 1992, the Volpi Cup that distinguishes the best actress in Venice was for her for her work in Qiu Ju, a Chinese woman. ' It wouldn't be bad that now too. If only for its elegant way to end time.

Adolescence as a disease

For the rest, the official section was completed on Wednesday with an expected movie nobody knows exactly why. The director of the Mostra pointed to Babyteeth , the second film in competition directed by a woman, as one of the revelations avant la lettre , which the French say or before litteram , which the Italians prefer. And there the girl went to the claim.

The only thing that was known is that it is debu before the camera of the Australian Shannon Murphy. That and that the argument dares with the most delicate of issues: the cancer of a teenager who, when she begins to doubt everything that lies ahead, realizes that in reality, for not having, she does not have time again .

To call it disappointment may be exaggeration. But some of it is there and more considering everything that promises. In fact, the film does not hide its efforts to discuss all the common places of adolescent cinema. This is announced from the first sequence in which before the evidence of having nothing to lose, the protagonist literally dares with (and against) everything. And there they appear questioned from the family to the social class through motherhood, education or haircut.

However, and to the desperation of the concurrence, good intentions barely last two planes. Soon, Babyteeth turns into a melodrama, pompous and almost televised, where what matters is the imminence of the tragedy as an excuse for crying, gesturing and obvious emotion. And a little more. Pity of false passage. Too bad the betrayal of the initial proposal and, already put, at the same time, at the time of the life that ends.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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