The Guardian - 29.08.2019

Section:GDN 1N PaGe:15 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 17:36 cYanmaGentaYellowb

Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •

National^15

Ven ice fi lm festival

 Catherine

Deneuve, centre,

burns as The

Truth’s tainted

star, leaving

Juliette Binoche,

left, and Ethan

Hawke, right, to

trail in her wake

Film review

Deneuve’s

diva drives

chill steel

into quest

for fi lial love

Xan Brooks

T

he sun rises on day

one of the Venice fi lm

festival and it catches

the guests in a delicate

state. They’re still

sleepy and nursing

hangovers from the welcome drinks

the night before. These people

require careful handling, a soothing

introduction.

Specifi cally, they need a fi lm like

Hirokazu Kore -eda ’s The Truth, a

well-appointed family melodrama

that plays out among expensive

plumped cushions. These critics

have only just rolled out of bed.

Now all at once it’s as if they’re being

rolled back again.

Traditionally, Venice likes to open

with a big Hollywood spectacular ,

yet The Truth is quite the most

refi ned curtain-raiser I can recall

seeing here – a picture that likes to

stroll and murmur where others

run and shout. It’s handsome, it’s

amusing, it knows exactly where

it’s going. All that is missing is that

crucial fi fth gear.

Filming for the fi rst time outside

his native Japan, Kore-eda makes

himself comfortable at a plush

Paris home and coaxes impeccable

performances from his regal French

stars. Catherine Deneuve headlines

as Fabienne, a diva-ish actress

trailing clouds of glory (no stretch

there, then). Juliette Binoche plays

the shrewd, sceptical Lumir , so

accustomed to living in her mother’s

shadow that she wears designer

black to blend in. Fabienne, it

transpires, has just published a

self-serving memoir (The Truth),

which glosses over the fractious

relationship between mother and

daughter. “I can’t fi nd any truth in

unrepentant. “I’d prefer to be a

bad mother, a bad friend, but a

great actress,” she declares. Clearly

relishing the role, Deneuve comes

heaving through every scene

wreathed in cigarette smoke,

running on scotch and all but

scattering the supporting cast.

Ethan Hawke plays Lumir’s rackety

husband. Ludivine Sagnier crops

up as a pensive fellow performer.

But they’re struggling to make

themselves heard. Deneuve

dominates, almost to a fault.

If Lumir can’t reach her mother,

maybe the acting still can. Fabienne,

we learn, has signed up to star in

a fi lm with the convenient title

of Memories of My Mother, in

which a spectral parent reappears

The Truth

Venice fi lm festival

★★★☆☆

here,” snaps Lumir, although this is

surely what happens when you have

a parent who lies for a living.

As a director, Kore-eda has proved

himself to be a master of the slow-

build human drama, a conjurer of

small details that bed down and

take root until his pictures burst

into fl ower like late cherry blossom.

The Truth, thank heavens, contains

sprinkles of the reliable Kore-eda

magic and throws in just enough

curveballs to keep the tale honest,

even if it does rather pander to

certain genre cliches. The fi lm

suggests that famous actors are a

bit like Greek gods: capricious and

exasperating but a cut above the

likes of you and me.

Fabienne, for her part, is utterly

Lanre Bakare

Venice

The controversial inclusion of the

director Roman Polanski in the Ven-

ice fi lm festival and the event’s poor

record on female directors’ represen-

tation dominated the competition’s

fi rst day as jury members clashed over

the issue of gender quotas.

At the opening press conference

for the 76th festival, Alberto Barbera

• the outspoken festival director who
  is stepping down after next year – said
  he was convinced he had made the cor-
  rect choice to include Polanski despite
  his conviction for raping a 13-year-old
  girl in 1978.
  “The history of art is full of artists
  who committed crimes but we have
  continued to admire their works of art

and the same is true of Polanski,” said

Barbera. “He is, in my opinion, one of

the last masters in European cinema.

We cannot wait 200 years to decide

whether his fi lms are great or eas-

ily forgotten, an aesthetic judgment

needs to be passed at once.”

Barbera said that he was not a “court

judge” who had to say whether a man

had to go to jail, adding: “[I] only have

the right to say whether or not a fi lm

should be in a festival or not.” The festi-

val director had previously compared

Polanski to Caravaggio , the 17th-cen-

tury artist who is thought to have

murdered a love rival , saying he “was

a killer, but one of the major painters

of the Italian Baroque period. It’s not

so diff erent.”

Lucrecia Martel , the president of

the international jury at Venice, agreed

that Polanski’s new fi lm, An Offi cer and

Polanski and gender rows under spotlight

as jury members clash at start of festival

a Spy , should be included, although

she disagreed with Barbera on the

issue of introducing gender quotas at

the festival. The lack of female direc-

tors in the main 21-fi lm competition

has been criticised, with Venice lag-

ging behind other major festivals such

as Cannes and Toronto. The only fi lms

here this year directed by women come

from the Saudi director Haifaa al-Man-

sour ( The Perfect Candidate ) and

Shannon Murphy (Babyteeth ).

“Quotas are never satisfactory,”

Martel said. “But there are no other

solutions to guarantee the inclusion

of women or give them the position

they deserve.”

Asked the same question, Barbera

said he was “fully against the idea of

quotas for the selection of a fi lm festi-

val”, adding that it would “be off ensive

because it goes against the only criteria

Would the quality decrease or would

it lead to a change in the industry? Per-

haps it would be too bad if we were to

implement an experiment like this?”

Barbera responded by saying that

23% of the fi lms the jury considered

for selection were directed by women,

and until that number increased it

would be diffi cult to get near 50/50.

He admitted that the fact the buildup

to the festival has been dominated by

the gender debate had been “a little bit

damaging”, and said he was “exempt

from any prejudice” when selecting

fi lms for Venice.

The festival opened yesterday

morning with Hirokazu Kore-eda ’s

fi rst non-Japanese language fi lm, The

Truth, the story of an ageing French

actor, played by Catherine Deneuve,

who is coming to terms with her past

and its impact on her daughter (Jul-

iette Binoche) and her daughter’s

husband (Ethan Hawke).

Today sees the premieres of James

Gray ’s space epic Ad Astra and Noah

Baumbach ’s Marriage Story , which is

gathering Oscar buzz for its lead actors

Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson,

and is the fi rst of three fi lms that Net-

fl ix is showing in Venice.

down the years to check in on her

daughter. Performing the role has

a catalytic eff ect on Fabienne. Her

armour drops away. At this point a

more lazy fi lm would veer towards

a Hollywood happy ending. The

Truth, to its credit, understands that

families are complex and that old

grievances die hard.

If The Truth lacks the freshness

and wildness of the director’s

best work, such as his Palme d’Or

winning Shoplifters, it compensates

with a series of elegant twists and

turns as the camera circles Fabienne

and Lumir, observing how they

fi t together. Yes, Kore-eda’s tale is

warm and soothing, but it contains a

hard core of emotional truth, like the

pea that woke the sleeping princess.

that we have to consider, which is the

quality of the fi lm”.

The two then debated the issue,

with Martel asking Barbera whether

he thought that by introducing an

equal gender rule Venice could trigger

a change across the fi lm industry. “Can

I ask Mr Barbera, just imagine a situ-

ation where we have to have a 50/50.

The Truth

contains

sprinkles

of reliable

Kore-eda

magic and

throws just

enough

curveballs

Alberto

Barbera

defended

his choices

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