As is customary since 2018, part of the Venice Film Festival takes place a literal stone’s throw from the Lido, on the neighboring island known as Lazzaretto Vecchio, a former healthcare facility turned into the so-called Immersive Island, home to the Venice Immersive program. The selection boasts fairly conventional VR experiences (some of which we’ve already covered in our reviews of What If…? and Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom), but also some newer, bolder takes on the concept of immersive, augmented and mixed realities.
On the more traditional side, this writer was drawn to experiences like Pierre Gable’s Un soir avec les impressionnistes, Paris 1874, which does exactly what it says on the tin: it guides the viewer on a virtual tour in a building on Boulevard des Capucines, on the evening of April 15, 1874. Here, the various Impressionists have gathered together to present some 165 of their works, some of which receive detailed explanations from the painters themselves. This may be of interest to art aficionados who cannot travel to physical exhibitions, although the English-language dub is not always up to snuff.
The museum concept was also part of this year’s David Attenborough offering, after 2023’s 360 degrees documentary. This time, the great naturalist serves as the narrator of Museum Alive Immersive with David Attenborough, a project developed for the Apple Vision Pro headset, where the user moves from one exhibit to another with their fingers. Specifically, three different fossils turn into living 3D dioramas, with the authoritatively entertaining voiceover to accompany the experience. Interesting in theory, although it’s unlikely to gain much traction outside of the circle of Attenborough completists.
The Biennale College Cinema sidebar featured the oddest, most intriguing installation concept: The Gossips’ Chronicles. It starts as a real-life museum tour, three visitors at a time, with a suitably creepy-sounding guide recounting the history of various instruments of torture (horror fans will undoubtedly recognize the iron maiden). The second half involves the use of visors, as animation and voiceover take us back centuries to hear the history of the Gossips, a now extinct people whose name has been perverted into its modern use, while their tools, used to communicate with nature, are now known as utensils of death. Illuminating, but not for those with a weak disposition.
Also in Biennale College Cinema was Below Deck, a VR play where documentary meets fiction to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the happenings aboard a luxury cruise ship. Two users, wearing flip-flops, walk inside a room, at the center of which is a space where virtual curtains periodically open to offer a glimpse into the lives of the ship’s underpaid staff, hailing almost entirely from the Philippines. Basically the mid-section of Triangle of Sadness without the in-your-face satirical excess, and with a much shorter running time (a brisk 23 minutes).
Finally, the main competitive strand was home to the two most emotionally resonant experiences yours truly got to attend during this year’s trip to Immersive Island. Hailing from the UK, Mammary Mountain offers an intimate glimpse into the world of dealing with breast cancer. Structured like a real clinic, the installation space consists of a waiting room and a consultation room, where the “patients” are fitted with mammogram outfits and a specially designed tactile garment, as well as a more conventional headset. The virtual world visualizes the headspace of women whose testimonies describe the ordeal of the diagnosis and treatment, with the suit sending shocks to the areas usually affected by pain during chemo and radiation therapy. One of the finest examples of VR as an empathy machine, similar to experiences that were part of the inaugural Immersive program in Cannes this year, where one could have the vantage point of people dealing with visual impairment of cognitive decline.
Similarly intimate was the French installation Ceci est mon coeur, whose creators Stéphane Hueber-Blies and Nicolas Blies spoke to TFV after the experience. Six visitors are fitted with special outfits that light up periodically at different intervals, effectively turning the six users into a single organism with the luminescence matching a body’s heartbeat. As this happens, images play on a screen, and narration heard through headphones talks in general, yet powerful terms about trauma.
Stéphane wrote the narration, while Nicolas composed the music, which go hand in hand. At least in the original French (which I listened to), because the English adaptation, having different rhythms and vocabulary (“It loses some of the alliteration,” says Stéphane), doesn’t sync up perfectly. The two creators also emphasized the importance of the shared experience: “We tried a version with headsets, but it took away from the intimacy. It’s important that the six users be able to look at each other, because you can’t really see the lights on your own suit.”
As for the universal quality of the voiceover, that was very deliberate: “The experience is rooted in our real-life trauma, but we don’t specify what it is, so everyone can project their own life experience onto the narration.” As this writer can attest (I picked the experience based solely on the title, as I’ve been dealing with a heart condition for the past year and a half), they pulled it off beautifully, bringing people together in a meditation on what it means to accept one’s own body.
