Jim Jarmusch leaves the Palestinian film The Voice of Hind, which moved the Venice Film Festival, without the Golden Lion.
Good and bad, as the indecisive philosopher would say. At first, it's hard to fathom that, in the midst of genocide at this time and place, the Venice Film Festival, with the very humanist (as he's known on the critics' boards) director Alexander Payne as president of the jury, has been unable to accept the obvious. If only for, precisely, humanism. Or just humanity. The voice of Hind, by Kaouther Ben Hania, speaks precisely of the genocide the Palestinian people in Gaza are suffering right now. And it does so with unprecedented clarity, emotion, and forcefulness, thanks to a clear, moving, and powerful piece of cinema. Let's say it was enough to connect the dots. But it's within the power of a jury as competent as the one that presided over the 82nd Venice Film Festival to fail. And they failed. And how. Be careful, the rest of the members were actresses Fernanda Torres and Zhao Tao, and directors Maura Delpero, Cristian Mungiu, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Stéphane Brizé. In other words, it's hard to imagine a more qualified panel, on paper. Why then did they choose to be original (and somewhat stingy, to be honest?) And at this point, only speculation is valid. Although, honestly, we can't think of any.
So far, so bad.
But, on the other hand, it's good. Good because Tunisian director Ben Hania's film about the six-year-old girl murdered by the Israeli army—the film that will be remembered when Venice collapses—took home the second most important prize, the Grand Jury Prize. In other words, it was relatively forgotten. And good also because the Golden Lion, the one that grabs the headlines, went to Father, Mother, Sister, Brother ; in other words, what is probably the second most relevant film of a festival packed with notable works, but somewhat far from the level and excellence of recent editions. Furthermore, it's only fair that Jim Jarmusch, one of the key figures of American independent cinema since his debut in 1980 with Permanent Vacation until now, is finally recognized. Jarmusch won a Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for Broken Flowers in 2005, as well as a Palme d'Or for his 1993 short film Coffee and Cigarettes III , but he lacked the absolute recognition (let's say so) of one of the three major festivals for one of his feature films. And it's even necessary that this be the case for a meticulous, precise, and disproportionately minimalist production directly related to the director's previous masterpieces like Paterson (2016) or the seminal Strangers in Paradise (1984).
"Our freedom will not be complete until the Palestinian people achieve freedom... Their survival is not a matter of charity but of justice. The world owes them that."
Kaouther Ben Hania
With a cast that must be put in alphabetical order because there's no way to actually put them in order (Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps...), the director recounts in three almost surgical scenes what amounts to nothing more than three family conversations. But wait, is it even possible to recount a conversation? Yes, it is, and that's what Jim Jarmusch is for. Since his short films, he has been recounting conversations (not just showing them) with an illuminated slowness completely untouched by caffeine, nicotine, or any other stimulant. His characters talk to each other, and while they do so, they recount each other. They recount themselves, they recount the world around them, they recount the very possibility of recounting, and, one step further, they recount us. A departure from his previous and controversial work, The Dead Don't Die (2019), the almost legendary director recovers his voice intact, and if you stop to listen for a moment, you realize it's his own voice, everyone's. Beautiful, despite the contradictions, it wins a Golden Lion.
And speaking of voices, back to Hind's Voice . Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania's is a film that unfolds not so much in the imagination as in the viewer's conscience. All that is seen is the helplessness of a group of professionals in the Red Cross emergency room (everything unfolds there) who are unable to prevent the world from collapsing and a six-year-old girl from dying alongside her two uncles and two cousins after being shot by the Israeli army 355 times. Between reality and fiction, between the drama that reconstructs and the life that is destroyed, the director succeeds in composing a magnificent, brutal, painful, unforgettable work. A great Grand Jury Prize winner.
Upon receiving her Silver Lion, the filmmaker dedicated it to all the professionals who are the voice of Gaza. She also spoke of the power of cinema to capture the story of an entire people, the Palestinians, "who suffer the genocide of the Israeli state with total impunity." She recalled that Hind's mother and brother are still there, in Gaza, and remain in danger. "Their survival," she added, "is not charity, it's justice. The world owes them that." And for the finale, she left a statement that sums up the meaning of all this: "Our freedom will not be complete until freedom comes to Palestine. Free Palestine." Golden words, silver award.
The rest of the award list seemed odd. And not so much for what it leaves out, but for what it so erratically points out. That the Best Director award went to the first solo work by the youngest of the Safdie brothers is understandable, but poorly understood. The Smashing Machine ( with the gigantic Dwayne Johnson in his first role, let's say, not so much serious as not crazy) doesn't live up to the previous films directed by the filmmaker with his family. Good Time and Uncut Gems seem more accomplished, more electric, more Scorsesian . The problem with this new and peculiar version of Raging Bull is the vagueness of a script that isn't clear about what it wants to tell or to whom. It's true that the fight scenes have enough energy and tension to cause a blackout. Perhaps that's why.
And something similar could be said of the Special Jury Prize, which went to the documentary Sotto le nuvole (Under the Clouds) by Gianfranco Rosi, and even the screenplay award that went to Valérie Donzelli and Gilles Marchand for À pied d'oeuvre (At Work), directed by the former. In the first case, the director of major works such as Sacro Gra (2013) and Fire at Sea (2016) creates a work that is as visually impeccable as it is unstructured. The stories that run through the film, forming a portrait blurred by the fumaroles of Vesuvius in Naples, seem as hypnotic as they are disconnected from each other, lacking the breath of metaphor or symbol they desperately seek. It is beautiful, yes, but with a contrived, overly self-conscious beauty. But it's not worth arguing too much. Donzelli's work is no exception. Both the restrained extravagance of its protagonist (Bastien Bouillon) and, if we take a more general approach, the staging itself are superior to a script written by a condescending and overwhelming author. Things happen.
As for the performers, their respective Volpi glasses are spot on. Both Toni Servillo in Paolo Sorrentino's La Grazia and Xin Zhilei in Cai Shangjun's The Sun Rises on Us All literally break the screen and break into it. Servillo also smokes like no one else.
So, Hind's Voice first, and then Jim Jarmusch, all of him. Not the other way around, even if a golden lion says so.
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AWARDSGolden Lion. Father Mother Sister Brother, by Jim Jarmusch.
Grand Jury Prize: Hind's Voice, by Kaouther Ben Hania.
Directed by Bennie Safdie for The Smashing Machine.
Special Jury Prize. Gianfranco Rosi for Sotto le nuvole.
Script . Valérie Donzelli and Gilles Marchand for À pied d'oeuvre, by Valérie Donzelli.
Actress . Xin Zhilei for The Sun Rises On Us All, by Cai Shangjun.
Actor . Toni Servillo for La Grazia, by Paolo Sorrentino.
Marcello Mastroiani Award for Newcomer. Luna Wedler for Silent Friend, by Ildikó Enyedi.
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