Venice Film Festival 2025: Ghost Elephants, Jay Kelly, Bugonia, Concentulation, after hunting | Festivals and awards

Once again, it is my pleasure and my privilege to realize Venice, where the cinema biennial, known to the American trades under the name of Venice Film Festival, is in a way, in a way, but not literally, since more prices are projected from DCP. Among other things, Celluloid’s death deprived us of several fun metaphors.

I also work again with Bennale College, the big program that finances adventurous cinema each year. I will write on the four films there after having participated in a panel for the college on Monday. I would say that this year’s programming is the most remarkable that I have seen in nine years to cover the work. (My first Venice rodeo took place in 2015, which would be ten years, except Covid, who closed the procedure in 2020.)

The evening I arrived, I saw “Ghost elephants”, A new documentary by the great German director Werner Herzog. Formerly considered eccentric according to conventional documentary standards, his work in this category, which almost always presents the vocal narration often imitated by the director, has obtained sufficient acceptance in the context that he is now supported by the National Geographic Cinema Arm. As with so many of his other films, “Ghost Elephants” focuses on an obsessed man: Dr. Steve Boyes, research by working with the Smithsonian, in Angola, following the Pachyderm, a possible recluse subspecies, much larger than the average elephant. Unlike most Herzog’s motivated protagonists, Boyes is not crazy. There are proofs that these guys exist: footprints, piles of manure and the stories of Kalihari Bushmen, whose culture is the fascinating sub-theme of the film.

I liked more the “ghost elephants” than many of my colleagues; They have the impression that they were there and did this with Werner Herzog, and also, they complained, where were the elephants? “Well, they are” ghost elephants “, I reminded these dissidents, but their hearts were hardened and they did not leave their chic. I thought the film was fine.

Director Noah Baumbach “Jay Kelly” It was a long -awaited kick -off for the festival, and if you follow the commercial coverage, you have undoubtedly seen how its starry casting turned out to be for its first. George Clooney plays like a cinematographic icon during a sunset (Clooney has only a few years less than this writer, so the subject is sensitive) who has trouble understanding if his sacrifices – friendships, family life, this kind of thing – have been “ worth it ”.

Baumbach co-wrote the script with Emily Mortimer, who also has part of the film as a hairdresser of Superstar Jay. Baumbach and Mortimer have spent the best parts of their life in the arts; Baumbach is the son of an academic and a film critic, while Mortimer’s father was a writer acclaimed with mystery and theater. And their star George Clooney is, of course, George Clooney, whose father is a journalist and television host and whose aunt was the huge singer and actress Rosemary Clooney and whose cousin is Miguel Ferrer and you have the idea. Between these three, there are several generations of traditions which can deposit the machinery of Starmal naked.

The film opens promising by establishing the very special dynamic between Jay and its adored and emotional manager, Ron, played in a spectacular tour with several layers by Adam Sandler. The pair is in Italy, where Jay was chosen to receive an honor from the Arts Festival. The problem is that he does not want it; Another problem is that he intends to not present himself for his next planned shoot, which insists that Ron throws his two worlds in chaos. And so the scene is ready for several re -evaluations and a tense test of friendship between Jay and Ron. A friendship that obliges Jay to give 15% of his income to Ron. This old -fashioned adage “is called Show Business, Not Show Friends” obtains elastic training in this film.

There is a certain seriously frank and frank material here, not only between Sandler and Clooney, but in the dynamics between the Méga-Star de Clooney and an old bitter friend played by an almost unknown Billy Crudup. The remarkable cast includes Riley Keough, Eve Hewson, Laura Dern, Jim Broadbent, Stacy Keach and many others, including even Lars Eidinger, whom I still think of as “this German guy in all Assayas films”. In the end, the dominant register is surprisingly sweet. And a little soft. The film is not entirely a star marshmallow, but it approaches. Call it “Sunset boulevard” for the nice guys.

Absolutely not nice is the last of Yorgos Lanthimos, “BUGONIA.” It’s a film by Lanthimos, so of course, it’s not nice, but did you know it’s also a remake? Yes, from the Korean image 2003 well received “Save the Green Planet!” Actually. The script of Will Tracy (renowned “succession” and “the menu”, and therefore well versed in the mischropy of Lanthimos too cool to school) modifies a character dynamic; Here, instead of removing a male setting, they believe they are a stranger to conquer the earth, Le lead Doofus removes a woman from a mover and shaker, played by Emma Stone. This is his fourth film with Lanthimos, which rather reminds me of the relationship between Caligari and Cesar in a film over a hundred years ago, but it’s just me.

It is hateful to the extreme, of course, but it is a fairly solid construction in the contents of content and form. Over the years, Lanthimos has lost some of the idiosyncrasies of director who have made his films almost inaccessible (remember the incredibly stowed action in “The murder of a sacred deer”, and the Fisheye objectives dominating its staging in just about all images until and including “the favorite?”); So, overall, if you choose to check this, you will certainly not be bored.

Documentarist Laura Poitras is always engaging and sometimes revolutionary work – her 2022 “All the beauty and effusion of blood” is a masterpiece with several layers on the dangerous intersections of art, society and government.

“Cover,” Codirigated by Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, offers a portrait of the investigation journalist Seymour Hersh, who shattered the galvanizing stories of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in the late 1960s in the torture scandal of the prison of Abu Ghraib at the beginning of the 21st early 21^st century. Poitras approached Hersh to be the subject of a documentary only two decades ago, and he gave him the sign of the head around 2023 when he had reconciled to participate in the commemoration of his inheritance. But he is not entirely comfortable being considered as an inherited subject, and part of the film’s engagement value is his dyspeptic exchanges with the camera.

Luca Guadagnino “After hunting” Delivered at the festival with a lot of “oooh!” Provocative! ” buzz. Located at the University of Yale and describing both the body and the student body as incredibly well -dressed, it tells the story of a fire storm in its department of philosophy. Julia Roberts embodies Alma, who organizes freewheeling seminars with a lot of Cuss and a little adoring quotation, in the original. “You believe that Julia Roberts can speak German” could be a slogan for its theater release. Alma’s colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield), is even freer than Alma, and after a party at Alma one evening, he invites students Melanie, played by Ayo Edebiri, back in his place for a last drink.

The #MeToo scenario that the film built and then dismantling is an orgy (if you will forgive the term) of Glib button. (The script is from Nora Garrett.) The character of Edebiri does not happen for a rape test or does not lend the police, but rather confides with concern by Alma. She is not only black, she is also dirty rich and her billionaire parents have practically endowed the whole school. Wait, there is more! She is also a mediocre student whose thesis she has plagiated a real philosopher, I think, whose name I could not catch. Yowza.

The Hollywood Reporter Tells us that, at the “After the Hunt” press conference by Luca Guadagnino, a journalist asked Julia Roberts’ star if the film “Sapi la Lutage feminist”. Roberts replied, in part: “The best part of your question is that you are talking about how you all got out of the theater to talk about [the film]And this is what we wanted it to feel – that everyone will come out with all these different feelings, emotions and points of view. »»

GOOD. I can only speak for myself and a trio of other criticisms with which I left the film, which all asked questions, such as “how is this film so bad?” And “speaking of foreigners, do you think they wrote and directed this film?” And “is it because the dialogue is so flowery, and the actions so completely disconnected from human behavior?” Or “Is it because the musical score of Reznor and Finch is used as a means of periodically deleting weights of sixteen tonnes (as we see on the Old Monty Python episodes) on the spectator?” And “What is it with Andrew Garfield, and when do you think he will continue Guadagnino for his horrible inadvertance performance, which goes to eleven on the psychotic register with wide-wide eyes the first time?” I could continue, but I think you have the idea.

In my next dispatch, I will discuss a photo that I really liked and, as you will deduce, it will be time. Stay listening.