VENICE FILM REVIEW: Coen Bros’ ‘Burn After Reading’

Posted on September 4, 2008 by admin

Burn After Reading Clooney McDormand x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – When Randy Newman was writing the score for the Mel Gibson western “Maverick,” director Richard Donner asked him if he could write some funny music. “Funny music? What’s funny music?” asked Newman. “I could stick a trumpet up my ass and blow it that way, if you think that’s funny.”

It’s too bad Carter Burwell didn’t say that to the Coen Bros. as his frantic and overbearing score to their lazy new movie “Burn After Reading” shows every sign of trying desperately to be funny.

It’s one more disappointment in an unfunny blackmail caper that involves assorted Washington nitwits. The Coens show that even accomplished performers such as George Clooney and Frances McDormand (pictured), John Malkovich, Brad Pitt and Richard Jenkins can be made to look like over-acting amateurs when filmmakers are too self-satisfied and smug to care.

Some critics have have given the film which debuted in Venice and will now play at the Toronto International Film Festival, a bye as it’s the Coen Bros. But anyone who rates “Raising Arizona” as one of the best film comedies of the last 50 years, as I do, or has fondness for “The Big Lebowski” or even “The Hudsucker Proxy,” as I do, will wonder if the Oscar hasn’t gone to their heads. This film looks as if it was written in haste and filmed with utter disdain for the pair’s many loyal fans.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival; Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Marvel, J.K. Simmons; Writers, directors, editors, producers: Ethan and Joel Coen; Director of photography: Emmanuel Lubezki; Production designer: Jess Gonchor; Music: Carter Burwell; Costume designer: Mary Gophers; Executive producers: Tim Bevan, David Diliberto, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf; Production: Focus Features presents, in association with StudioCanal, Relativity Media, Working Tirle, Mike Zoss Productions; Running time, 96 minutes.

Posted in Comment, Film, Music, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Coen Bros’ ‘Burn After Reading’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Werner Schroeter’s ‘Nuit de chien’

Posted on September 3, 2008 by admin

tonight x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Noir doesn’t get any darker than in Werner Schroeter’s film version of Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti’s “Nuit de chien” (Tonight), a grim tale set in a state-controlled South American city torn apart by competing military factions.

The film is unrelenting in its depiction of cruelty and torture meted out by an unleashed secret police force and the corruption and indifference that terror breeds in people. Bereft of optimism, its portrait of nihilism let loose is frightening and dismaying but it’s a taut and gripping picture and should have a profitable future.

Pascal Gregory is all Bogie as grizzled, seen-everything Ossorio, a doctor who has returned to the war-torn city to find Clara, the woman he loved and left. He also needs to find two tickets that will get them on the only boat out of town before the head of the secret police, a rival strongman, a partisan outlaw and the armed forces combine to blow the place to pieces.

Ossorio’s nightlong trail leads him to a nightclub called the First and Last, full of fading luxury and decadence, and encounters with vicious secret police chief Morasan (Bruno Todeschini), treacherous rival Commander Martins (Jean-Francois Steverin) and the trapped outlaw Barcala (Sami Frey). Once a friend of Ossario’s, Barcala is holed up in a booby-trapped villa wearing a belt of hand grenades and bearing a machine gun.

Ossario knows all the key players and they know Clara but he has a hard job to find her even though he trades information and people as callously as those who emerge from the political twilight to do business with the secret service. His quest seems futile until a contact at the nightclub leads him to his outlaw friend’s young daughter Victoria (Laura Martin) and he is faced with the dilemma of trying to save her or trading her to the sadist Morasan.

The acting is entirely persuasive with Gregory terrific as the disillusioned but determined doctor and Todeschini is a convincing villain. Director Schroeter makes the city a place of constant dread while cinematographer Thomas Plenert creates vivid images that please the eye as they sear the mind.

Venice Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Pascal Gregory, Bruno Todeschini, Amira Casar, Eric Caravaca, Marc Barbe, Jean-Francois Stevenin, Sami Frey, Elsa Zylberstein; Director, screenwriter: Werner Schroeter; Screenwriter: Gilles Taurand, based on the novel by Juan Carlos Onetti; Director of photography: Thomas Plenert. Production designer: Alberte Barsacq. Music: Eberhard Kloke. Costume designer: Isabel Branco. Editors: Julia Gregory, Bilbo Calvez, Peter Przygodda; Producers: Paulo Branco, Frieder Schlaich. Executive producer: Eileen Tasca; Production: Alfama Films, Filmgalerie 451; Sales: Alfama Films; Not rated; running time, 120 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Werner Schroeter’s ‘Nuit de chien’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Haile Gerima’s ‘Teza’

Posted on September 3, 2008 by admin

teza x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – An idealistic doctor returns from years in Western Europe to help his African nation fight poverty and hunger and is caught between a criminal military regime and an implacable resistance movement in Haile Gerima’s film “Teza.”

Filled with scenes of village life in Ethiopia as recalled and witnessed anew by the ex-patriot Anberber (Aaron Arefe), the colorful and imposing film tracks back and forth between his childhood, his years in Germany and his return. Handsomely produced and illuminating in its depiction of tribal life, African politics and European racism, “Teza” should travel widely beyond festivals and art houses.

Writer-director Gerima, who is from Ethiopia and whose best-known film is “Sankofa” (1993), infuses the story of the intellectual’s return with his own experiences. Anberber is first seen as an older defeated man, having returned to his mother’s village in retreat from the perils of the country’s civil strife.

Staying apart from village life, Anberber dwells in memories from childhood and the hopes that led him to go to Germany to study medicine. There, in flashbacks, he becomes involved with ex-patriot socialists and takes part in campaigns to raise awareness of the plight of his countrymen at home.

His brother, Tesfaye (Abeye Tedla) has built a life in Germany but he abandons his German wife and child to go back to help the struggle in Ethiopia. When Anberber follows him, he finds that he cannot remain quiet in the face of all the brutal corruption.

The knowledge of his futile resistance haunts Anberber as he watches armed men from both sides of the country’s conflict come to carry off the village’s young boys to fight in their war. Flight results in death so the youngsters hide in nearby caves, emerging at great risk only to help their families with subsistence farm work.

The film follows Anberber as he slowly realizes that, once again, he is obliged to become involved. Only the film’s slow pace softens its powerful message but trimming some of its 140 minutes would solve that problem. Its important point would become more emphatic and its haunting scenes of beauty and barbarism would grow even more insistent.

Venue: Venice Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Aaron Arefe, Abeye Telda, Takelech Beyene, Teje Tesfahun; Director, screenwriter, producer, editor: Haile Gerima; Director of photography: Mario Masini; Production designers: Patrick Dechesne, Alain-Pascal Housiaux, Seym Ayana; Music: Vijay Iver & Jorga Mesfin; Costume designer: Wassine Hailu. Editor: Loren Hankin; Producer: Karl Baumgartner; Production companies: Negod-gwad Production, Pandora Film Produktion; Sales: Match Factory; Not rated; running time,140 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Semih Kaplanoglu’s ‘Milk’

Posted on September 3, 2008 by admin

milk x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s slow and perplexing feature “Milk” has something to do with how hard it is for young men in rural Central Anatolia to leave their mothers, but its point is obscured in vague scenes and abstract images.

It’s a story of a young man who works as a milkman at his mother’s small farm and spends most of his time writing poetry but it takes far too long to develop any traction. When it does, the pedestrian pace and labored echoes of mother’s milk will leave audiences shaking their heads so that even festival bookings appear iffy.

Melih Selcuk has good screen presence as the young man, Yusuf, who taps away at his manual typewriter when he should be taking care of such things as his mother’s motorcycle and sidecar so it’s safe to deliver the milk and cheeses she produces. His mother, Zehra (Basak Koklukaya), is a widow who harbors a discreet fondness for the local stationmaster (Serif Erol).

Mother and son work the small herd of cows and Yusuf delivers milk in the nearby town when he’s not staring at flowers or the sky. Their lives are disrupted when Yusuf is rejected for the military draft due to a childhood illness and he sees his mother and the stationmaster meeting secretly.

The young man is hard to read as he gives a published version of one of his poems to a construction worker friend and fellow poet whom he eyes longingly, but then he strikes up a conversation with an attractive girl in a bookshop.

Kaplanoglu has many scenes in which not a word is spoken and the camera remains stationary. Other sequences involve inexplicable actions such as when Yusuf tracks a hunter in tall dry grass near some water and is about to crack him over the head with a rock when he spots a large fish and grapples with it instead.

The film begins with an alarming sequence in which a young woman is strung up by her ankles over a cauldron of boiling milk and a snake emerges from her gasping mouth. What it has to do with the rest of the film is a mystery, much like the film itself.

Venice Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Melih Sekcuk, Basak Koklukaya, Riza Akin, Saadet Isil Aksoy; Director, screenwriter, producer: Semih Kaplanoglu; Screenwriter: Orcun Koksal; Director of photography: Ozgur Eken; Production designer, costume designer: Naz Erayda; Editor: Francois Quiquere; Production company: Kaplan Film Production. Sales: Match Factory; Not rated, running time, 102 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Semih Kaplanoglu’s ‘Milk’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Adrian Sitaru’s ‘Hooked’

Posted on September 1, 2008 by admin

hooked x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Romanian director Adrian Sitaru’s smart little fable “Hooked” tells of a man and his married lover who go for a clandestine picnic in the countryside and meet a young woman who seriously complicates their relationship.

Sitaru handles almost all duties except cinematography and music, and the film is shot entirely from the point of view of the characters. That is claustrophobic in the opening scenes in which Iubi (Iloana Flora) picks up Mihai (Adrian Titieni) and they flirt and bicker on the drive to the picnic spot.

But Sitaru knows what he’s doing and the tight close-ups serve to enhance what follows, as the lovers’ day out takes a very surprising turn. The film’s style may turn off mainstream audiences but it’s a lively yarn that should thrive at festivals and may catch some enterprising producer’s eye with a remake in mind.

The couple’s encounter with sexy and talkative Ana (Maria Dinulescu, pictured) unleashes all their worries and concerns about their relationship. Iubi is unsure about leaving her husband while Mihai, who has just quit his job as a mathematics teacher over a matter of principal, is having second thoughts about his idealism.

Jealousy, envy and resentment all surface as Ana teases with probing questions and flirts enticingly with each of them. The acting is very good, especially by the bubbly Dinulescu in a difficult role.

Couples will find lots to identify with in Sitaru’s examination of romance, especially as he plants the notion that Ana may not actually exist.

Venue: Venice Film Festival, Venice Days; Cast: Adrian Titieni, Ioana Flora, Maria Dinulescu; Director, screenwriter, producer, executive producer, editor: Adrian Sitaru; Director of photography: Adrian Silisteanu; Music: Cornel Ilie; Producers: Juliette Lepoutre, Marie-Pierre Macia. Production companies: 4Proof Film, Movie Partners in Motion Film; Sales: Reza; Not rated; running time, 84 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Adrian Sitaru’s ‘Hooked’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Yu Lik Wai’s ‘Plastic City’

Posted on September 1, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

VENICE – Yu Lik Wai’s overblown crime story “Plastic City” tells of an ageing Chinese godfather to a crime syndicate in Sao Paolo, Brazil, with a mystical connection to the Amazon jungle. It’s like watching Don Corleone morph into Col. Kurtz.

plastic city x325Part conventional mob yarn and part comic book fantasy, the film’s setting amongst the ex-patriot community of Sao Paolo, said to be the biggest in the world, is fascinating initially but the Chinese director’s indulgence in wild fantasy becomes absurd. Prospects beyond cult festivals appear dim.

Anthony Wong plays Yuda, the crime boss who’s looking for a way out so that his adopted son Kirin (Joe Odagiri) can take over. There are the usual complications and run-ins with rival hoodlums, resentful cohorts, and crooked cops and politicians.

Yuda has a beautiful mistress, Ocho (Huang Yi) and a good life but he pines for the rainforest. Kirin is a resourceful and dangerous criminal with a gorgeous stripper girlfriend, Rita (Taina Muller), who wants him to leave his life of crime and go away with her.

Instead, a gang war breaks out and both Yuda and Kirin do spells behind bars before a plan of revenge is worked out. For this, the director turns to comic-book action with lots of hacked limbs and gore.

The story becomes interminable with Yuda in and out of jail and Kirin forced underground until they both end up facing assorted fears and demons deep inside the jungle. It’s bound not to end well and Kirin should really have left with Rita.

Venice Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Joe Odagiri, Anthony Wong, Huang Yi, Taina Muller; Director, screenwriter: Yu Lik Wai; Screenwriter: Fernando Bonassi; Director of photography: Lai Yiu Fai; Production designer: Cassio Amarante; Music: Fernando Corona, Yoshihiro Hanno; Costume designer: Cristina Camargo; Editors: Wenders Li, Andre Finotti; Producers: Fabiano Gullane, Caio Gullane, Chow Keung, Jia Zhang-ke, Yuji Sadai, Siuming Tsui, Debora Ivanov, Gabriel Lacerda. Executive producers: Tom Cheung, Rui Pires, Sonia Hamburger. Production companes: Gullane, Xstream Pictures; Sales: Celluloid Dreams; Not rated, running time, 118 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Yu Lik Wai’s ‘Plastic City’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Fabrice du Welz’s ‘Vinyan’

Posted on September 1, 2008 by admin

Vinyan x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – A metaphor for the inexpressible grief a woman feels after she loses her only child in the great Asian tsunami in 2005, Fabrice du Welz’s “Vinyan” turns into a murky, wet jungle picture. It tells of a desperate journey up river into a hot and sweaty land populated with what might be the offspring of those weird looming figures in “Apocalypse Now.” As Chef Hicks says in that movie: “Never leave the boat.”

The film turns from a heartfelt examination of loss into a would-be horror tale filled with drunken dreams and hallucinations, and loses its way to leave stars Emannuelle Beart and Rufus Sewell, who do the best they can, to wander lost in a morass of thick forest and missed opportunities. As the drama is not dramatic and the horror is not horrifying, the film will be difficult to sell.

The intriguing opening shows Jeanne (Beart) and Paul (Sewell) as they still struggle with the loss of their son Joshua, who was swept away in the tsunami in Thailand. It’s been six months, but they’ve stayed on in Phuket, where Paul works as an architect.

At a charity fundraiser, social worker Kim (Julie Dreyfuss) shows video of her work with children in Burma, where dire poverty drives parents to sell their children. It sounds like a buyer’s market but Jeanne thinks she sees her son in his Manchester United shirt pictured among the rootless kids and becomes convinced that he’s been literally sold up the river.

She determines to find the Burmese operator, Thaksin Gao (Petch Osathanugrah), who helped Kim enter the country, and go to find her child. The film’s credibility takes another hit as, rather than simply getting Gao’s number from Kim, Jeanne plunges into the chaotic and dangerous world of Phuket nightlife to ask if anyone knows the man. Paul goes after her and Du Welz portrays a maelstrom of images before a man named Boomsong (Joey Boy) tells them to forget Gao and he will take them into Burma.

What follows is a predictable tale of bribery and treachery as they finally find Gao and foray into an almost impenetrable part of the world. Paul tries to keep a cap on Jeanne’s increasingly frenetic and impulsive behavior while Gao leads them from one island to another in deep mist and heavy rain.

The final act sees Paul and Jeanne alone in a world of lost children with lots of mystical references to death and spirits, as Jeanne’s pain and guilt erupts in hatred and madness after she concludes that Paul was responsible for losing their son. Never leave the boat!

Venice Film Festival, Out of Competition; Cast: Emannuelle Beart, Rufus Sewell, Petch Osathanugrah, Joey Boy; Director, screenwriter: Fabrice du Welz; Director of photography: Benoit Debie; Production designer: Arin Pinijvararak; Music: Francoise-Eudes Chanfrault; Costume designers: Geraldine Picron, Pensri Boonjareon; Editor: Colin Monie; Producer: Michael Gentile. Executive producers: Peter Carlton, Adrian Politowski, Nadia Khamlichi, Jeremy Burdek; Production companies: Michael Gentile, Film4; Not rated; running time, 96 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Fabrice du Welz’s ‘Vinyan’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Bernard and Trividic’s ‘L’autre’

Posted on September 1, 2008 by admin

the other one x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – A snapshot of a woman who must deal with being alone in her late 40s, “l’autre” (The Other One), written and directed by France’s Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic, fails to offer anything new on the topic of loneliness.

Lackluster and missing information about key characters, the film’s attempts at surrealism misfire leaving star Dominique Blanc (pictured) stuck with an under-written role. The set-up involves a woman dumping her lover but then becoming threateningly jealous of the new woman in his life. That peg might spark initial interest in the picture but as the plot never catches fire, it won’t take it far.

Blanc plays Anne-Marie, who takes her work as a social worker seriously but cannot resolve her own feelings after she ended an 18-year marriage and now breaks off with her much younger lover, Alex (Cyril Guei).

She encourages him to find someone else but when he does she reacts badly. The impressionable young man, who clearly likes older women, continues to meet Anne-Marie even though she pesters him for information about his new love.

Despite a good and sometimes sexual relationship with an old lover named Lars (Peter Bonke), Anne-Marie’s fears of growing old alone drive her to increasingly odd behavior. Not odd enough, however, to hold very much interest.

Venice Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Dominique Blanc, Cyril Guei, Peter Bonke, Christele Tual, Anne Benoit; Directors, screenwriters: Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic; Director of photography: Pierric Gantelmi D’Ille; Production designers: Daphne and Axel Deboaisne; Music: Rep Muzak; Costume designer: Anais Romand; Editor: Yann Dedet; Producer: Patrick Sobelman; Production company: Ex Nihilo. Sales agent: Films Distribution. Not rated, 97 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Bernard and Trividic’s ‘L’autre’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Patrice Toye’s ‘Nowhere Man’

Posted on August 30, 2008 by admin

nowhere man x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – In Belgian director Patrice Toye’s “Nowhere Man,” an apparently comfortably off and happily married man sees a raging house fire and on the spur of the moment walks into it in order to fake his death and disappear. The rest of the film details the many ways he regrets that decision.

Intriguing and insightful, the film shows that while the fantasy of abandoning everything and everyone, and assuming a completely new identity, might sound appealing, the wisdom remains true: Wherever you go, there you are.

Toye, who co-wrote the script with Bjorn Olaf Johannessen, uses dream sequences and surrealism to illuminate her points and the result is a satisfying blend of drama and social comment. Frank Vercruyssen and Sara De Roo (pictured) make lively combatants as a duo whose rather odd notion of commitment is tested with keen imagination, and Toye demonstrates much skill in exploring their self-induced dilemmas. “Nowhere Man” will make a mark at festivals and should find its way to broader audiences.

A long opening scene shows Tomas (Vercruyssen) and a neighbor discussing the relative merits of their wives and lives with a growing sense of unhappiness. Still, it’ a surprise when Tomas makes his move and winds up on a Pacific island where a bug infestation has ruined tourism and caused widespread unemployment.

He cannot escape who he really is, however, even with a new name and a new home on a far away island. His longing for wife Sara (De Roo), the woman he loved but left, proves overwhelming and so his return is inevitable.

He tries to turn the island house he bought into a bar but lacking any customers at all he takes an unpleasant job painting trees with disinfectant. Robbed of his only photograph of his wife, he suffers a beating when he tries to retrieve it. In a bizarre incident he also loses the use of his right hand.

Desperately alone and unhappy, Tomas returns to Belgium after five years away intent on confessing and begging forgiveness from Sara. She, however, has other plans and her designs for turnabout lead the film into a fascinating examination of modern relationships.

Venice Film Festival, Venice Days; Cast: Frank Vercruyssen, Sara De Roo, Muzaffer Ozdemir; Director, screenwriter: Patrice Toye; Screenwriter: Bjorn Olaf Johannessen; Director of photography: Richard Van Oosterhout; Production designer: Vincent de Pater; Music: John Parish; Costume designer: Margriet Procee; Editor: Nico Leunen; Producers: Vincent Tavier, Philippe Kauffmann; Production: La Parti Production; Sales: Funny Balloons; Not rated; running time, 96 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Patrice Toye’s ‘Nowhere Man’

VENICE FILM REVIEW: Marco Pontecorvo’s ‘PA-RA-DA’

Posted on August 30, 2008 by admin

PA-RA-DA x650By Ray Bennett

VENICE – The combination of a do-good clown in a red nose with street kids badly in need of help causes a “Patch Adams” shudder but filmmaker Marco Pontecorvo’s engaging first feature “PA-RA-DA” steers clear of the sentimental pitfalls.

The film is based on real events following a visit by French busker Miloud Oukili to Romania in 1992. He was so moved by the numbers of orphaned and abandoned children in Bucharest that he formed a circus company in which they could perform to earn money and self-esteem. The troupe performs in that city’s main square to this day, and tours around Europe putting on shows as part of the Parada Foundation, which also provides assistance to kids in need.

A winning performance by Jalil Lespert as the idealistic clown and some captivating youngsters help former cinematographer Pontercorvo tell the story of how the circus came about with few overt tugs on anyone’s heartstrings. The film’s open goodwill and honest storytelling will attract audiences far and wide.

It’s a moving tale but it’s also funny, and more important it does not skirt the fact that in many cities around the world there are endless numbers of children living in poverty who will never see a red nose or a circus, let alone perform in one.

Told in straightforward fashion, the film shows Miloud as he responds with a magician’s flare to the wide-eyed but fearful expressions of the street kids who pester and solicit at the train station and live in the most appalling squalor underground.

Slowly, he befriends Cristi (Robert Valeanu), a proud and resourceful but vulnerable kid who tells the others in his pitiful gang about the magician who eats ping-pong balls. With the help of local social workers and an NGO operative, Miloud gets a small amount of funding to work with the children and earns their trust.

Far from angels with dirty faces, the anonymity of cruelly deprived and criminally minded children gradually gives way to reveal individuals with personality and character, and filled with longing. Miloud’s goal of providing them with self-respect and hope puts him at odds with both corrupt authorities and organized criminals before his determination wins through.

Pontecorvo’s cinematographer’s eye informs many starkly impressive images, some of which are truly jarring. In one, a young girl dances ballet in her underwear in a disused railway car, a picture of innocence until the camera draws back to reveal a man masturbating.

The director draws some wonderful performances from the youngsters aided by Lespert’s considerable laid-back charm, but the sadness of the children’s plight is always taken seriously to the film’s great benefit.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, Horizons; Cast: Jalil Lespert, Evita Ciri, Gabriel Rauta, Patrice Juiff, Bruno Abraham Kremer, Robert Valeanu, Cristina Nita; Director, screenwriter: Marco Pontecorvo; Screenwriter: Roberto Tiraboschi; Director of photography: Vincenzo Carpineta; Production designer: Paola Bizzarri; Music: Andrea Guerra; Costume designer: Sonoo Mishra; Editor: Alession Doglione; Producers; Marco Valerio Pugini, Ute Leonhardt; Production: Panorama Films; Sales: Beta Cinema; Not rated; running time, 100 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Reviews, Venice International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on VENICE FILM REVIEW: Marco Pontecorvo’s ‘PA-RA-DA’