01/09/2011

There was a highly erotic opening for the Venice Days at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, with the world premiere screening of US documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s Crazy Horse [+see also:
trailer
interview: Frederick Wiseman
film profile], presented in the Special Events, followed by Chinese helmer Lou Ye’s Love and Bruises [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lou Ye
film profile] (pictured). The first is an extraordinary celebration of the female body and sensuality through a sophisticated portrait of the dancers at Crazy Horse, the legendary Parisian cabaret founded in 1951; the second is a story of impossible passion, at times dark at times romantic, between a Chinese university researcher and a French construction worker, also set in Paris, and partly in Beijing.

In Crazy Horse, co-produced by France and the US, Wiseman follows the preparation over ten weeks of a new show, entitled Désirs, in the temple of beauty and "nude chic", filming rehearsals, backstage scenes, and discussions. This explosion of colours, sinuous dances and physical details captured in an insistent but never vulgar way also highlights the careful work bordering on perfectionism by the show’s director, choreographer, costume designer and set designer. And the girls obviously, those Stakhanovites of seduction, with their two shows per night (three on Saturdays), seven days a week.

French production Love and Bruises, starring Tahar Rahim (Best Actor César 2010 for Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jacques Audiard
interview: Jacques Audiard and Tahar R…
film profile]) and former model Corinne Yam, is a heart-wrenching love story offering another style and shoulder-held camerawork. It is an intense feat of acting, with moments of great intimacy: "Before the shoot, Corinne and I had met each other only once", said Rahim, "and this turned out to be an advantage, since the meeting between the characters we play is also sudden and quick". For Ye – who was exiled from China because of the political views expressed in Summer Palace, in competition at Cannes in 2006 – above all it’s a film shot in French, a language unknown to him: "A challenge for a director’s sensibility and experience", he explained, "which leads you to concentrate on other aspects: intonation, rhythm, gestures. On visual and bodily language".

Besides Crazy Horse and Love and Bruises, the opening day of Venice Days also offered an intimate moment with writer Erri De Luca, who stars alongside Neapolitan actress Isa Danieli in Andrea di Bari’s highly-acclaimed short film Beyond the Glass, produced by Pastificio Lucio Garofalo. It centres on an imaginary, night-time dialogue between a man and his mother who died many years ago. This poetic and moving film interweaves memories of war, fear, political struggles, family memories and reflections on death.

(Translated from Italian)