The 2020 Venice Film Festival Bravely Defied the Pandemic

It wasn’t that there weren’t any good movies, no, as you will read below, there were highlights, but this year’s 77th Venice Film Festival bravely taking place during a pandemic resulted in obvious limitations and most definitely hampered the quality of the usually stellar lineup Festival boss Alberto Barbera is known for churning out year after year.

You already weren’t going to get the films that were stamped with a Cannes-label this past May, Venice prides itself in only showing world premieres, that meant no Wes Anderson (“The French Dispatch”), Pixar (“Soul”), Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”), Steve McQueen (“Small Axe”), and François Ozon (“Summer of 85”). And that’s not even counting the directors who were supposed to be part of Cannes 2020, but instead opted to wait it out to win the Palme d’Or at next year’s edition, those included new films by Paul Verhoeven, Leos Carax, Nanni Moretti, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Nadav Lapid, Mia Hansen-Love.

And so, with productions halted since March, what was Venice truly left with? A skimp amount of quality, that’s what. Sure, you had Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” an organic beauty of a film, winning the coveted Golden Lion, no less, but that movie was part of a pact between TIFF, Venice, and New York to re-launch film festivals in the fall.

Among the competition titles, there was Andrei Konchalovsky giving us “Dear Comrades,” a USSR-era downer about the 1963 Novocherkassk massacre, it was met with more admiration than love. Shot in beautiful black and white, and featuring an ice-cold narrative, its strengths laid bare in the way Konchalovsky never adhered to formula, despite the viewer always being left at an icy distance. Regardless, Konchalovsky won the Best Director award for the most personal film of his career.

Mona Fastvold’s pretentious, but admirable “The World to Come,” a lesbian love story starring Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby was met with some admirers, but it was totally shut out of the awards picture. Conspicuously absent from the NYFF, Telluride, and TIFF lineups, the fate of Fastvold’s film was sealed when it was finally picked up for distribution on the last of the fest by -yikes- Bleecker Street. Despite all that, one hopes it could make some kind of dent in the stifling indie market of 2020.

One movie that did make New York, Toronto, and Venice was Gianfranco Nosi’s documentary “Notturno,” a slow-as-molasses tackling of the middle-east crisis, presented through stilted frames and a random assortment of imagery that failed to truly result in a cohesive whole. A real shame if you ask me, since Nosi’s last film (‘Fire By the Sea”), which won the top prize at Venice in 2016, was a far superior effort in every way. Still, despite its narrative lulls, there are moments in this film endowed with the hauntingly silent demons of war.

And how about Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s “Never Gonna Snow Again,” the most unwatchable entry in this year’s Venice competition — a Polish film filled with socio-magical surrealism as Zhenia, a Russian-speaking masseur in Poland, becomes a guru-like figure in a wealthy gated community where his clients live. Hopping from client to client, this was a directionless film that thought it was more important than it actually was. Contrary to what a few of its champions compared it to, this is no “Under the Skin,” Englert could only wish he had a twinkle of Jonathan Glazer’s visual panache.

Another non-essential competition entry was Julia von Heinz’ “And Tomorrow the Entire World,” a bold and favorable take on a young German woman radicalized by “social justice” with an Antifa. The ideological confusion of not just its main protagonist, but the film itself was bewildering to behold, it kept mulling over whether the use of force for the sake of struggle was the righteous thing to do — all while its director kept romanticizing the acts of violence.

So what was actually good?

Jasmina Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis Aida” tackled the true story of a U.N. translator in the small town of Srebrenica during the Serbia-Bosnia conflict. The horrors shown onscreen were impossible to shake as a Serbian army takes over the town, threatening the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp, which includes Aida’s father and two brothers. Featuring an indelible performance by Jasna Đuričić, and, although stagnant at first, the film slowly builds its power with each ensuing scene until its devastating finale crescendo. This was also a surprise audience hit at this past week’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Also playing about both Toronto and Venice, Michel Franco’s polarizing “New Order,” which had a high-society wedding interrupted by the arrival of a social justice militia. The resulting effect was a bleak state of the union address from the Mexican director, who saw social unrest and the aims of anti-establishment movements as more than just about positive change or smooth democratic transitions of power. The protestors in “New Order” are filled with rage and youthful anarchy but without a contingent plan to manage the nation peacefully. They want the rich purged, abused, and ruined.

“The Disciple,” Chaitanya Tamhane's masterfully composed second feature, after his excellent “Court,” examined the journey of a man who has devoted his life to becoming an Indian classical music vocalist, diligently following the traditions and discipline of old masters, especially his guru (Arun Dravid). But as years, even decades, go by, Sharad starts having doubts about his talents, can he sustain a lifetime of worship to a discipline he may never perfect? The word transcendent comes to mind when describing Tamhane’s dreamy character study, which has the power to immerse you into its unknown world of spirituality.

Finally, Vanessa Kirby won the Best Actress prize for her masterful turn in Kornel Mundruczo’s “Pieces of a Woman.” As Martha, a high-powered executive who loses her child during a harrowing home birth, Kirby mesmerizes us in every frame by showcasing the human frailty and devastation that happens when tragedy comes knocking at the door. Her acting tour-de-force reminded me of Gena Rowlands’ masterful work in John Cassavetes’ 1974 classic, “Woman Under the Influence.” Mundruczo proves to be a director of a very high caliber, this is a major step forward for him after 2017’s disappointing “Jupiter’s Moon”

And so, the show went on, but with a few adjustments: Masks were mandatory, not only throughout the socially distanced screenings but everywhere within the festival vicinities. Hand sanitizer stations were everywhere, and Temperature checks were performed at every entry checkpoint. There were also far fewer journalists accredited than in previous years, with many of the older veterans aiming to stay at home and hoping to reconvene at the Lido next year.

Venice may not have had the cultural impact it desire pre-pandemic, but what it did succeed in was, somehow, someway, reigniting our curiosity for cinema. Every day we were excited for the next big title to premiere on the Lido, and even if those expectations were not always met, it made us realize just how important the communal power of cinema truly was.