After the screening of the refreshing urban fantasy film “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” by Ana Lily Amirpour, an Italian critic calls the work “americanissimo”, or something like “super American”, as she walks out.
What tastes of the USA (aka “Hollywood”) was still defining world cinemas two years ago.
Then Covid-19 cut the supply chains and barricaded the multiplexes.
The streaming industry found itself well prepared for an end to the central power of film sources: on the Internet, it has been diversifying its offerings on a regional basis for years;
Netflix has long been running in local languages everywhere.
Dietmar Dath
Editor in the features section.
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Venice is getting used to the new location.
From the boxes in front of the red carpet, formerly occupied by Beyoncé, italo-pop can be heard, the US stars are leaving for the next premieres (in Toronto) even faster than before, and one of the longest premiere rounds of applause does not receive a blockbuster from overseas, but “Qui rido io”, Mario Martone's opulent life picture of the theater populist Eduardo Scarpetta.
But Hollywood isn't finished yet.
Not a disaster, but by the meter
Because Jamie Lee Curtis is receiving an honorary award in Venice this year for her life's work, which could hardly be more American. It stands for commercially successful genre cinema, from British slapstick (“A Fish called Wanda”, 1988) to the ironic action thriller (“True Lies”, 1994) to the endless “Halloween” series, whose original film John Carpenter directed in 1978. The latest episode of this horror series, "Halloween Kills", will be shown out of competition in the festival in honor of Ms. Curtis.
The film comes from David Gordon Green, who in 2018 already produced an episode of the saga and in 2014 was pleasantly noticed here in Venice with the whimsical “Manglehorn”. That was smart auteur cinema, quiet and introverted - the opposite of "Halloween Kills". This contribution to the legend is a disappointment, albeit not a disaster, but a schematic piece of goods that dutifully ruminates the overall myth of "Halloween" and with many dull flashbacks, including gouging the eyes and slitting the stomach, everything feels like fast-forwarding and rewinding a VHS -Cassette. Jamie Lee Curtis spends her time on screen idle in the hospital and has not been half as busy as an actress as as a co-producer. Anyway, she's not being honored here for this film, but for what she is.
She plays with her back straight and her head cool
And what is she?
An athlete in the entertainment business with a unique aura.
The famous long legs, the straight back and the striking face of the actress communicate: I keep my head up, even when blood splatters.
Hollywood-style effect cinema in particular (as opposed to mood cinema, thought cinema or postcard cinema) is dependent on such attitudes because they hold films together that would otherwise be torn apart by the effects.
Wherever they are missing, the film goes wrong, as in several of the experiments represented in the current Venetian competition, such as the abortion drama “L'évènenement” by Audrey Diwan, in which a fetus at the umbilical cord causes horror, or the soldier's show “Vidblysk” by Valentyn Vasayanovych, who illustrates the cruelty of war with one person driving a running drill into another's leg. In terms of content, these films are about women's rights or against Russia, but the shocks eat up this content if no identification offers are made that bind them. Such offers are the business of American stars.
If their empire really crumbles or flows into a new, often promised variety, the stock of symbols, grammar and syntax of the audiovisual Hollywood language will probably not disappear. They are more likely to rejuvenate regionally as different-voiced dialects. They will soon appear so natural to the eyes and ears everywhere, as if these sensory organs had been designed exclusively as end devices for them, so that the game could continue into the foreseeable future. Horror films, even weak ones like “Halloween Kills”, know their way around: It doesn't depend on what has to die, but on what (like Jamie Lee Curtis) nothing and nobody gets broken.