80th. Venice Film Festival

Festival Reviews

Pet Shop Days

Pet Shop Days

by | Sep 3, 2023 |

Olmo Schabel’s directorial debut succeeds as a delivery system for ’90s-indie vibes, but it fails to elicit empathy for its spoiled, obnoxious lead characters.

The Killer

The Killer

by | Sep 3, 2023 | ,

David Fincher brings his considerable style and craft to this procedural about a professional assassin, but not even Michael Fassbender can make the character distinguishable from a thousand other cinematic hired guns.

The Beast

The Beast

by | Sep 3, 2023 | , , , ,

The inability to open oneself to love is the main beast of Bertrand Bonello’s striking and cerebral film that follows a stalled relationship over three time periods, though the message in the central portion doesn’t have the same resonance as the other two.

Arni

Arni

by | Sep 3, 2023 | ,

Hungarian director Dorka Vermes’ feature debut ‘Arni’ is a slow-burn slice-of-life drama with an exceptional lead performance from newcomer Peter Turi.

Maestro

Maestro

by | Sep 2, 2023 | ,

Bradley Cooper’s ambitious sophomore directorial effort, about Leonard Bernstein’s married life, soars and sweeps in some passages while falling flat in others.

Adagio

Adagio

by | Sep 2, 2023 | ,

Stefano Sollima delivers the kind of gritty, testosterone-driven underworld drama we’ve come to expect, boasting exceptional performances and location work, but a highly problematic undercurrent of homophobia can’t be brushed under the soiled carpet.

Finally Dawn

Finally Dawn

by | Sep 1, 2023 | ,

Saverio Costanzo’s use of “La Dolce Vita” for a 1950s loss-of-innocence story set in Rome’s film world feels locked in its period charms, and despite excellent performances fails to resonate beyond the surface.

Stolen

Stolen

by | Sep 1, 2023 | ,

The rich/poor divide in India is staggeringly vivid in Karan Tejpal’s first feature ‘Stolen’, the desperate search for a stolen baby that is powered by exciting chases and the constant threat of violence.

Dogman

Dogman

by | Aug 31, 2023 | , ,

In a multi-faceted role, Caleb Landry Jones dazzles as the survivor of an inhuman childhood who believes only dogs can love him, in Luc Besson’s calculated, over-the-top yet poignant shaggy-dog story.

Ferrari

Ferrari

by | Aug 31, 2023 | ,

In his first feature film in eight years, director Michael Mann passionately captures a life where the drive for success and the threat of disaster were intricately intertwined.

Lubo

Lubo

by | Sep 7, 2023 | , ,

Part survival-revenge drama, part love story, Giorgio Diritti’s ‘Lubo’ addresses the Swiss state’s forcible removal of Jenisch children from their families beginning in the 1930s, and while Franz Rogowski’s magnetism keeps his morally complex character sympathetic, the film feels too much like a miniseries cut down to a very long feature length.

The Summer with Carmen

The Summer with Carmen

by | Sep 7, 2023 | ,

A queer filmmaker in a funk despite his pink-blue hair needs to come up with a treatment for a film that’s “fun, sexy, Greek and low budget” in Zacharias Mavroeidis’ The Summer with Carmen (To kalokairi tis Karmen). The resulting meta film succeeds on three of those...

Malqueridas

Malqueridas

by | Sep 7, 2023 | ,

Women in Chilean prisons record motherhood and the raw pain of separation in Tana Gilbert’s empathetic and impressionistic, mobile-shot doc of solidarity.

Awards Corner

VENICE 2023

  • No awards yet.