Venice 2022: Reviews

Aside from the variety of scandals surrounding certain celebrities at the 90th Venice Film Festival, there were also some film screenings...

With thanks to the CICAE, I was able to make the trip over to Venice once again this year and fight my way through the throngs of Harry Styles and Timothee Chalamet fans to explore the Lido and what the festival had to offer. I was very fortunate this year to be able to get my hands on some of the most sought after tickets, as well as jump into Giornate degli Autori (or Venice Days) for the first time.

Before I go into the rundown, I wanted to take this opportunity to make another quick PSA about trigger warnings in festival programmes. In the majority of cases a film festival is hosting screenings of a film for the first time, sometimes in the world but at least in the local area. It’s hard to get a complete understanding from the programme synopsis of what the film will entail, especially at such an earlier point in the timeline of the film’s release when crowdsourced resources such as Does The Dog Die haven’t had the chance to respond. This can therefore lead towards an adverse reaction from an audience that could easily have been made aware in advance. Many point towards not wanting to use trigger warnings to save spoiling the plot, but a simple key system that links to another part of the programme or website would suffice.

Casa Susanna (dir. Sébastien Lifshitz)

Sébastien Lifshitz has focused his entire career on sharing the stories of the LGBTQ+ community, and more often than not giving them the space to express themselves rather than simply writing about them. This goes some of the way to explain why Casa Susanna felt like a disappointment. The documentary centres on a holiday home for cross-dressing men and transgender women in North America and tells its tale through three different characters all with a relationship with the home, which is where the key problems arise. Whilst one of the interviewees attended the home several times, the other two are so transiently linked that the majority of the film doesn’t feel like it truly represents how invaluable this space was for those who needed it. It’s one saving grace is the stunning archive footage and photography that shows the heart of the community that the rest of the film so daftly fumbles.

The Last Queen (dir. Adila Bendimerad & Damien Ounouri)

This could be the furthest thing from a festival film that I imagined I’d see at Venice. Set in Algeria at the beginning of the 16th Century, this debut feature from directing duo Adila Bendimerad and Damien Ounouri brings forth a new heroine in the form of the legendary Queen Zaphira and her fight against fierce pirate Barbarossa. The opening action sequence is bombastic and compelling; however a lot of the budget was clearly blown in the first five minutes as the rest of the film feels more like a courtroom drama. That being said, it’s one of the most immaculately and ornately set-dressed and costumed courtroom dramas you’ll see, with every scene being accompanied by a stunning new array of outfits. As the film ambles towards its climax the pacing does dampen any emotional clout the film has mustered to this point, but this film still made for a surprisingly entertaining evening on the Lido.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (dir. Laura Poitras)

I’m ashamed to say that I went into this documentary, the newest film from Laura Poitras, with very little knowledge of Nan Goldin. By the time I came out of the cinema I was awestruck. Rarely have I seen a film, let alone a documentary, that captures the very essence of a human being in such an immaculate and frank fashion. Jumping back and forth in time, Poitras weaves the two periods together to paint the entire portrait of Goldin, not just detailing the work she’s been doing in recent years but handing us an insight into the other passages of her life to help us try to understand the motivation behind it. Within the film, Poitras puts the documentary format aside in favour of showing Goldin’s slideshows how they were originally intended to be seen. It’s the plethora of nuances and personal touches like this that highlight the care with which this film was handled, and help aide it in creating one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen.  

Other People’s Children (dir. Rebecca Zlotowski)

When looking through the programme notes for Other People’s Children, it felt like a film that was more suited to La Croisette in Cannes rather than the Lido in Venice. On the surface, it seems no different from any typical French Romantic Drama, and the opening scenes do nothing to alter that perspective, with an 80s aesthetic ever so slightly aging a film that was intended to be set in the here and now. It also employs some iMovie-esque transitions between scenes, akin to the frame shrinking like a Bond title sequence, which sometimes spoils this story of a women adjusting to the unexpected responsibility of raising her new partners child by constantly reminding us that we are watching a film. That being said, it’s the two performances from Virginie Efira and Roschdy Zem that kept me transfixed throughout. There’s a genuinely raw tension between the two that bubbles up in a host of different ways and it’s their chemistry that makes this film so watchable.  

The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonaugh)

Martin McDonaugh always seems to have had a little bit of a cult following ever since his feature debut In Bruges, something he’s managed to maintain even though he’s only released three films in the past 14 years. For his next venture he takes us to his homeland of Ireland for the first time with The Banshees of Inisherin, which feels like his most accomplished film to date. It’s a simple plot following two friends, played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who fall out for a reason unbeknownst to us. What stood out to me was that, even through the grotesque jokes and debauchery, its message is crystal clear. Being so upfront about the message may not appeal to some people, however the depiction of the Irish civil war is shrewdly represented through Pádraic and Colm’s relationship and is made all the more poignant by holding on to the traditionally morbid Irish sense of humour throughout. A huge shout out goes to Kerry Condon who plays Pádraic’s sister Siobhán. There seems to be very little space on this fictional Irish island for any representation of women, however she carefully carves out a space for herself to leave a huge imprint on the film alongside acting heavyweights Farrell and Gleeson.