The Venice Film Festival is in its final days. The stars stage the fable of a bright and smiling world on the red carpet. Where cinema can become the cure for all anxieties, the parade of dresses can carpet the web, and the endless applause can move to tears. It’s the festival, baby, and you can do nothing about it, quoting Humphrey Bogart in Deadline. And yet, this year, beyond appearances, beyond the bombastic parade of famous names, the general tone of the event cannot help but reflect a ”mood” that has little to share with cheerful parties. Tales of wars and antagonisms, but also racist and intolerant drifts, snatch inevitably the foreground. It is possible to find this trend not only in plots that directly refer to conflicts – Amos Gitai’s Why War or Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays about the dynamics of two families, one Arab and one Israeli – but also in those mainstream works built on the talent and attraction of global stars. Justin Kurzel’s The Order, starring Jude Law as an FBI cop, determined to foil the bloodthirsty plots of a racist organisation in the heart of the USA in the early 1980s. But also, yesterday, Todd Phillips’ Joker: folie a deux, one of the most eagerly awaited festival titles. The first Joker, in 2019, heralded the rising wave of rebellion and spoke of a rabid discontent ready to subvert the established order of a society based on the marginalisation of the most fragile. In the new chapter, starring Joaquin Phoenix once again, the light of hope is entirely extinguished, and the vitalism of the masses ready to take revenge drowns in despair. And it’s up to Lady Gaga’s voice of a nightingale, terrific and much applauded, to sanction the end of utopia. In love, but not only. The darkest hour is about to return, and cinema tells us that, to overcome it, we must employ all the strength we have left.