At the Venice Film Festival, sex, pleasure and politics at the heart of many scenarios

Trouble in sexuality, one could say to paraphrase the “trouble in gender” theorized by the American philosopher Judith Butler: because pleasure, the exploration of other relationships with the body, as well as the desire to break taboos have fueled a certain number of scenarios, throughout this Venice Mostra, which will end on Saturday, September 7 with the presentation of the Golden Lion and other awards. Will the jury chaired by Isabelle Huppert be sensitive to these new amorous dialogues or will it prefer to devote works more connected to current political events, in particular on racism and the extreme right, other strong themes of this edition?

The competition was sometimes laborious, with few excellent films, and durations often exceeding two hours. The expected works, Mariaby Pablo Larrain, The Room Next Doorby Pedro Almodovar, The Joker. Madness for twoby Todd Phillips, Queer, by Luca Guadagnino, etc., have been generally disappointing. Ultimately, it is less well-known filmmakers, particularly women directors, who have emerged. At least a handful, since only six films out of a total of twenty-one competing for the Golden Lion have been directed by women.

The erotic thriller Babygirlby Dutch director Halina Reijn, opened the show, marking the return of Nicole Kidman in a racy role. The Australian actress plays a big boss who forms a submissive sexual relationship with a young intern. This film with its precise suspense questions buried desires and dynamites power relations, with the big boss not being immune to a denunciation of this illicit adventure within the company. While it throws a spanner in the works in the polished cinema of the post-#metoo era, Babygirl does not stab women in the back. On the contrary, it acts as a form of resistance: to a colleague who threatens her with blackmail, Nicole Kidman’s character delivers this reply, which will remain as a punchline of this edition: “If I want to be humiliated, I can pay someone to do it.”

Likewise, one will remember this line of dialogue, in solar Future Diva, by the Italian Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, who revisits the rise of porn cinema in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, under the leadership of Riccardo Schicchi (1953-2012): “We are amoral, not immoral”explains the photographer and director (played by Pietro Castellitto), who defends sex films as an art and a culmination of free love – one of the actresses, Ilona Staller, will enter Parliament under the name of “Cicciolina”. But this imagery « peace and love » Porn will be short-lived, with the industrialization of X and the exploitation of actors and actresses. On the program, fire and melancholy.

You have 64.84% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.