Lately, when Pray, Mariano de Santis falls asleep. And he never dreams. Impossible for such a man to grant fantasize. Jurist, author of a famous private manual of 2,046 pages, now president of the Italian Republic: pure concretion. Not for anything they nickname Armato cement (Reinforced concrete). The weeks spend, the end of their mandate is approaching, just like the sunset. But he doesn’t even flinch. He refuses to decide. Actually, hardly lives. “I am the most boring argument I know,” he says in the movie. He just removed returning to the first time he saw his beloved Aurora, who died eight years ago. Remember to walk, he says that his feet rose from the ground. Blessed lightness: Every day it seems to fade a little more. For the protagonist of Graceby Paolo Sorrentino, who opened on Wednesday the Venice Film Festival. But also on the other side of the screen, in the seats. At least, for two hours, the spectators laughed, cried and reflected. They forgot the nightmares, maybe they even felt a little milder. Blessed cinema.
A huge mystery surrounded the new work of the Italian director, who will arrive in Spain on January 16. It had only been announced that it would be performed by Toni Servillo, in his seventh collaboration with Sorrentino. And that would have to see “with love.” TRUE. Now it is also known that there is much more. He talks about duel, obsession, uncertainty and forgiveness; of euthanasia and macho violence; to try, advance or stagnate; of sensitivity, the same that permeates the whole length. “Who are our days?” The daughter asks the president. And, incidentally, to the public. The film amazes because it leaves puso, stays to the skin of leather, but some laugh is also released. The sublime and the ridiculous, the fascinating brand alliance of the house. “I don’t believe it,” said a projection assistant to the press at the peculiar portrait of the Pope in the film. He repeated it on another pair of occasions. The first round of applause took only 10 minutes to listen. In the end there was a second, longer.
A third, even greater, was heard in the press room when the filmmaker and his team appeared. “The film was born from an event: I read that Sergio Mattarella (current president of the Italian Republic) granted grace to a man who killed his wife, sick of Alzheimer’s. For years I have thought that the moral dilemma is a formidable narrative engine,” said Sorrentino. From there, he filled the entire film with grace, far beyond his specific sense. And he placed on the screen a politician who increasingly throws into real life: “He loves the law and values that politics should embody and seem to be missing in many, although our President of the Republic is interviewed.” There were more hooks with today: Sorrentino and Servillo did not reveal who they were inspired for the character and the filmmaker wishes that his film returns attention to euthanasia, object of the nth design of the law that languishes without reaching the finish line in the Italian Parliament. There was talk, of course, also of the most current theme of all: Israel’s killing in Gaza.
Sorrentino was asked about Mubi, one of the film’s distributors, questioned for accepting investments of a company that also allocates money to a start-up Israeli specialized in defense technologies. The director bounced the issue to a company representative in the Sala, who refused to answer. When, a couple of hours before, the press wanted to know the opinion about Palestine of the filmmaker Alexander Payne, president of the jury of the competition, did not enter the rag: the witness passed to the director of the festival, Alberto Barbera. It is clear that the matter will return. Because the show starts, but the massacre in Gaza continues. Hence, the V4P movement (Venice for Palestine), promoted by about 1,500 names of Italian and international cinema – as Marco Bellocchio, Matteo Garrone, Alice Rohrwacher, Ken Loach or Céline Sciamma -, asked the contest to condemn Israel more clearly and not invite Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, interpreters who have positioned them Please of the Netanyahu government. “The Venice Biennale (organized by the Festival) is the most important cultural institution in Italy, an open space for dialogue. Making political statements is not a work that corresponds to us. We welcome everyone, we have never censored an artist nor will we do it now. Nobody can doubt our attitude, or believe that we are not sensitive to what happens,” Barbera replied this Tuesday Barbera to El País.
Today, Wednesday, the artistic director cited the speeches of the pre -opening ceremony, yesterday, as another unequivocal sign of the contest’s position. “The tomb of this child will be a monument to shame,” said Pietrangelo ButtaFuoco, president of the Biennial, citing Euripides. And Nandino Capovila, priest expelled from Israel on August 2, spoke of “genocide plan.” The religious recalled the famine officially declared in Gaza, requested justice by the victims – both the 62,000 Palestinians such as the 1,205 Israeli – and added: “This scaling Bankrupt any principle of humanity, proportionality and distinction. ”The oldest festival in the world has seen wars, revolutions, a pandemic. Its 82nd edition wants to be that of the amazing flood of stars. But it is, of course, also that of Gaza. On Saturday, the Lido, the island where the show is celebrated, will host a protest in favor of Palestine that were planted before the Palazzo of Cinema with flags and banners against “the genocide.”
Namely how Venice will live a parade so different from those who usually witness. The festival knows more about red carpets; of consecrating myths, such as Werner Herzog, which today collects the Golden Lion of Honor at the opening gala; or to discover what one day will be. Right here, in 2001, Sorrentino began his career, with the celebrated and restrained The most man. From there, he drew a very personal trajectory: self -taught, always faithful to himself, unique, sometimes even too much. A visionary who, paradoxically, dazzles when he puts on his imagination. There they are The consequences of love either The Divo To prove it. The delicacy with which he recreated on the screen the death of his parents in It was the hand of Godawarded four years ago in the Mostra, it is a master class of film. If so much talent can be taught, or learn.
“Each film requires a style. It was the hand of God We started to make fireworks and realized that it should be more sober. It has also happened now, ”said the director. However, Silvio and the otherssome chapters of the series The young Pope And especially, Partyepe, They warn that there is another sorrentino: the one that becomes baroque and, finally, empty. Your masterpiece, The great beautystands out as a great exception: a visual and narrative prodigy.
Gracelike its protagonist, it is contained. Nothing of the empty aesthetics of Parténope. Nor of the immobility suffered by the young protagonist. A priorifew characters as blocked as the President concrete. And yet, his paralysis has a lot to tell, also thanks to a great script. Sorrentino is usually defined, first of all, as “a writer.” He has published novels, his films always leave his own pen. And in this case I was especially inspired: quality, intelligence, irony and depth. It is also known as a teacher in the use of music: confirmed is left. Now it tracks possible sound bands even on Instagram, as revealed in the press conference. The only one who disagrees turned out to be Toni Servillo, with a smile: “We’ve never fought. We only divide music.” The filmmaker is omnivore. The actor, apparently, prefers the classic.
I may Grace Just deserve a justified criticism: some more cutting cut, so as not to exceed two hours. Also because the film himself underlines the relevance of the passage of time. Little ones, in any case. Because, when leaving the room, pleasure, thoughts and questions were left. After all, as they say in the film, grace is “the beauty of doubt.” One, at least, is resolved: the Venice Festival has started wonderfully.
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