YOUTH: HOMECOMING
Venice 81 – Competition
Qing chun qi, France/Luxembourg/Netherlands, 2024. Directed by Wang Bing. Running time 2h 32′
For Venice 81 Director Alberto Barbera, he is ‘China’s greatest documentary filmmaker‘. Luca Guadagnino says his movies are ‘the most beautiful made in the last twenty years‘. He’s Wang Bing, whose Youth: Homecoming arrives in competition for the Golden Lion on the penultimate day of the Festival and could call into question the predictions on the palmarès. He is not at all lenient with the government and his country’s history (his only fiction film, The Damned of Jiabiangou (2010), recounts the harsh conditions of prisoners in a Maoist labour camp in the 1950s). The filmmaker is also known for the fluctuating length of his documentaries, sometimes divided into several parts, such as The Tiexi District (2003), consisting of three chapters (totalling nine hours) chronicling the decline at the dawn of the Third Millennium of a once-thriving industrial complex in northeastern China. Youth: Homecoming is also the third chapter of a trilogy, formed with the previous Youth (Spring) and Youth (Hard Times), presented this year at Cannes and Locarno, respectively. At the centre of the triptych are the young textile workers of Zhili, near Shanghai (who emigrated from rural areas). In Spring and Hard Times, we saw the contrast between their vitality and the difficult working conditions, with frenetic production rhythms, bitter negotiations for pay and tensions with management, one of whom escapes with the money. Homecoming, on the other hand, follows the return home of the protagonists after the factory’s bankruptcy. At the Venice Festival, Wang Bing could thus win another of his many awards, which include two Orizzonti prizes, respectively with Three Sisters (2012) and Bitter Money (2016), and the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2017 with Mrs. Fang.
Emanuele Bucci
Emanuele Bucci
Kjærlighet (Love)
Venezia 81 – Concorso
Kjærlighet (Love), in competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, is the second chapter of the trilogy ‘Sex Dreams Love’ by Norwegian director and writer Dag Johan Haugerud. The three movies are about sexuality, desire and transgression in modern Nordic society. Sex, the trilogy’s first chapter, was presented in the Panorama section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival. The film tells the story of two married heterosexual men, two chimney sweeps in modern-day Norway, whose experiences challenge conventional notions of masculinity and social norms regarding sexuality, orientation and gender identity. With Kjærlighet (Love), Haugerud also extends his narrative exploration to the female sphere with a story starring Andrea Bræin Hovig, a well-known Norwegian theatre actress and singer, in the role of Marianne, a nurse in search of unconventional relationships. During a blind rendezvous on a ferry, Marianne meets Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen); she experiences a freer and more casual approach to love and sexual relationships and begins to wonder if casual encounters without commitment could be a rewarding opportunity for her, too. ‘We are all navigating a landscape in which, through various media, we are encouraged to recognise and embrace our impulses and needs,’ explained director Dag Johan Haugerud.’ At the same time, choosing to experience our sexuality in alternative ways seems like a radical and challenging break from traditional conventions and values. The three films, which have a common queer denominator, aim to discuss this in their way’.
Vania Amitrano
