Black love at the Venice Film Festival: "Amants" and "Lacci"

Alba Rohrwacher and Luigi Lo Cascio in "Lacci", by Italian director Daniele Lucchini, opening film of the 77th Venice Film Festival.

© Gianni Fiorito

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

5 mins

What better way than love to overcome the crisis and the fears?

The first two films of the Venice Film Festival roll out the red carpet to the turmoil of love.

Lacci, by Italian filmmaker Daniele Lucchini, shows in a virtuoso way the toxic and inextricable bonds of passionate, but above all, family love.

Nicole Garcia, who presents the only French film in competition, disappoints with Lovers too smooth to capture us with this fatal love for three.

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More than the honor of being chosen as the opening film of this 77th edition,

would have deserved to be part of the competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Thus, Alba Rohrwacher could have claimed a second Volpi Cup for best actress.

She embodies with incredible conviction and a bluffing accuracy this betrayed woman and mother of two young children - betrayed by her husband, but above all by herself.

In this family drama, an adaptation of Domenico Starnone's novel

, Vanda (Alba Rohrwacher) left everything behind to follow her husband Aldo (Luigi Lo Cascio), a radio storyteller, to Naples.

So what had to happen happened.

Despite the loyalty pact called marriage, her husband falls madly in love with another.

us to the 1980s, but, and that changes everything, the film shows the evolution of the characters until today.  

The couple's crisis on screen could even be interpreted as a film allegory of our current crisis situation, questioning the values ​​and certainties at the base of our convictions and existences.

And what would happen if the lies and betrayals suddenly surfaced?

Musically carried by

Bach's

, Goldberg Variations and a sonata by Scarlatti, the story and interpretation are amazed by a staging and a camera as intuitive as they are inventive.

In a memorable sequence, the often absent father shows his two children how to tie their shoelaces.

This gesture quickly becomes emblematic for the film.

reminds us that bonds as strong as they are underlying often build our loves, but they can also destroy our lives.

There is this incredible scene where the cheated wife arrives at her husband's house on the radio, to ask him for an explanation.

To make us experience the tension between the couple, but also the links with the husband's new mistress, the director juggles with points and shots.

The sound is first picked up on site in the studio, then in the cabin, to follow us to the car radio during Vanda's return to Naples.

Not to mention the very intelligent staging of the strengths and weaknesses of men and women which will leave more than one perplexed at the end of the session.

Pierre Niney and Stacy Martin in “Amants”, by Nicole Garcia, in the running for the Golden Lion 2020. © The Venice Film Festival 2020

The lovers

The story of

begins in darkness, beauty and innocence.

Two sleeping bodies, stuck one against the other, emerge from a night of love.

Very quickly, this moment of total happiness is disillusioning.

Simon returns to his odd jobs as a dealer for a wealthy clientele, Lisa continues to carry out orders given in his hotel school.

But their love at first sight continues to gain ground, even when their lives are turned upside down.

Simon's client dies of an overdose.

The self-proclaimed Night Knight panics, flees and abandons Lisa.   

Years later, they find themselves by chance in a luxury hotel in Mauritius.

She is married to a wealthy Swiss, he works there to pay his debts.

Then begins a love story three, hidden and toxic.   

With Tracy Martin and Pierre Niney in the main roles, it's beauty first.

Alas, on screen, the casting of Nicole Garcia quickly falls into caricature.

Everything seems smooth and hollow, just like Lisa's wealthy husband.

Léo, formidably interpreted by Benoît Magimel, is incapable of loving and is reassured by adorning himself with external signs of wealth: car, house, woman, painting, child.

But inspiration and intermediate colors are also lacking in the writing of the characters of Simon and Lisa.

Paris, Mauritius, Geneva, the flight and the reunion unfold over three parts, in heavenly places.

Despite this, the lovers appear rather monochrome through their characters, their dialogues, their way of being man and woman, rich and poor.

In the end, even the beauty of the

' bodies

becomes bland.

And when the drama comes, tormented love is no longer troubling.

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