ON THIS PAGE:
- Les enfants des autres
- The Whale
LES ENFANTS DES AUTRES
France, 2022. Director Rebecca Zlotowski With Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira. Running time: 104′ Production Les Films Velvet
A personal story that becomes universal. In Les enfants des autres, in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Rebecca Zlotowsky tells her slightly disguised private parable with her life partner, director Jacques Audiard. Rachel (Virginie Efira) loves her life, her students, her friends, her ex-partner, her guitar lessons; she is a fulfilled woman when she falls in love with Ali (Roschdy Zem), father of four-year-old Leila, with whom she bonds deeply. She tucks her in, she protects her and loves her precisely like the biological mother she is not: Rachel is a woman in her forties, the desire to have a family of her own intensifies, but the biological clock runs fast and merciless. Is it too late? French director, screenwriter and actress Rebecca Zlotowsky, born in 1980, co-wrote with Cyprien Via Dans le rang (2006) , a feature selected for the Directors’ Fortnight. Her directorial debute Belle épine (2010) was selected at the Semaine de la Critique and received numerous awards. Grand Central (2013) was presented in Un Certain Regard. She was in Venice in 2016 with Planetarium, selected Out of Competition, while the following year she was a member of the Orizzonti jury. In her fifth feature film, the French director and former student of the Paris film school La Fémis, where she met many important filmmakers including Teddy Lussi Modeste, JeanClaude Brisseau, Philippe Grandrieux, Antoine d’Agata and Lodge Kerrigan, brings on screen a female affresco and shares her private past that can be the present of many women. Roschdy Zem will find himself in the uncomfortable position of fighting against himself as director of the film in competition Les Miens.
Mattia Pasquini
THE WHALE
USA, 2022. Director Darren Aronofsky with Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton, Duration 117’
It’s five years since Darren Aronofsky last visit to Venice. It was 2017, and the festival audience was surprised by Mother!, a hermetic rewriting of the Testaments (Old and New) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. The director philosopher has always been faithful to Venice Film Festival. His first time was in 2006 when he was invited for the controversial The Fountain. 2008 was the year of Golden Lion for The Wrestler (his outstanding protagonist Mickey Rourke didn’t win Coppa Volpi because the festival rules do not allow a movie to win both awards). Natialie Portman mesmerized the festival in 2010 with Black Swan, and a few months later she would have raised her Oscar for Best actress. And now it’s the fifth time, and once again Aronofsky gives a second chance to an actor who has lost his way after a huge success. Brendan Fraser is the protagonist of The Whale, based on the piece written by Samuel D. Hunter. The film is about Charlie, an English teacher who, after the death of his partner, became bulimic to ease his pain. He weighs 266 kg and lives isolated from the world. He has only one desire, to build a new relationship with his 17 years daughter Ellie, who was abandoned by her father when he discovered himself to be gay. Charlie just wants a chance to show her who really is her father and how important she is to him. Ellie is played by Sadie Sink, a.k.a. Max Mayfield from Stranger Things.
The Wrestler also stars two times Academy award-nominated Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins (the young protagonist of horror saga Insidious) and Golden Globe-nominated Hong Chau.
Alessandro De Simone
