Venice, 9/1.

"If Rembrandt were alive today, he would be like a cross between Mick Jagger and Bill Gates." The Independent listens to Peter Greenaway as he talks about Nightwatching, screening in Venice on Thursday. "At 23, he was well-known, extremely rich and he followed the trends of his time. His paintings were exhibited throughout Europe. But, as soon as he painted his masterpiece, The Night Watch, his career suddenly fell apart; he began to lose everything: his fortune, his reputation, his status. He went completely bankrupt.... The painting is a political satire, but it also conceals a great criminal mystery. There are at least 50 secret questions. I am even arrogant enough to say that we have solved all of them." Via Movie City News.

Updated.

"Asif Kapadia's debut feature, The Warrior, was a visually stunning, elegantly told tale set against the harsh, brutal desert of India," recalls Mark Salisbury at In the Company of Glenn. His third, Far North, "has the feeling of a classic folk tale, a strong, simple human story economically told with minimal dialogue and breathtaking cinematography by Kapadia's usual DP Roman Osin (all blues, greys and whites)." Because, as Boyd van Hoeij notes at Cineuropa, this "not unusual story of revenge and jealousy [is] set in a highly unusual place: the Arctic tundra." More from Alissa Simon, noting in Variety that the "stunning exteriors look great on the bigscreen, but don't serve the mythic nature of the story, which cries out for stylization rather than realism."

Back at Cineuropa, Gabriele Barcaro reviews Damien Odoul's entry in the Horizons program, L' Histoire de Richard O: "A quiet and meticulous artist, who produces and writes the screenplays for his films, the director of After We're Gone here explores the erotic bulimia of Richard (Mathieu Amalric), plunging the viewer into a summertime Paris by night from the very beginning, in which the character breaks his neck in the bedroom due to an unrequited urge (and a broken promise)."

"Forget the Renaissance, Hadrian's Wall and Ferraris," blogs Geoffrey Macnab for the Guardian. "If this year's Venice film festival is taken as the measure, Italy's greatest contribution to world civilisation is the spaghetti western. The festival programme is stuffed with examples - good, bad, and ugly 0 of the genre: Django, My Name Is Trinity and A Fistful of Dollars - it is all here."

Boyd's filing dailies from "the 2007 edition of the oldest festival in the world" at the Film Experience; at european-films.net, he reviews French actor Jalil Lespert's directorial debut, 24 mesures (24 Measures), "a kaleidoscope of gritty interlocking stories set at Christmas time."

"Woody Allen's films are famous for their recurring themes, male neurosis being the most established one," writes Colin Cameron in the Financial Times. "But following next week's premiere at the Venice Film Festival of Cassandra's Dream, London - and, more importantly, London style - can be added to the mix. Alongside last year's Allen-directed Scoop and Match Point in 2005, Cassandra's Dream is set mainly in the UK capital, with the characters' wardrobes sourced from some of its best-known clothing emporia."

Mark Salisbury reminds us why most festival press conferences really aren't worth the time and hassle.

The Telegraph sets up a special section.

Rounding up coverage of the festival in the German-language press are angelaufen.de (days 1, 2 and 3) and Filmzeit.

Online listening tip. The Financial Times' Nigel Andrews.

Update: "If there's a primer on how to make an American indie, then Ed Radtke's The Speed of Life has dutifully checked off every item," writes Jay Weissberg for Variety. "Possible filler for smaller indie fests..."

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Covering the coverage: Venice 07. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at September 1, 2007 11:15 AM