West
There was actually a German entry in the Venice competition, 'Silent Friend', a co-production with Hungary and France, written and directed by Ildikó Enyedi. In ‘On Body and Soul’ (2017), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale and was nominated for an Oscar, the two protagonists dream together of deer in a winter forest. In her new film, ‘Silent Friend’, the Hungarian director goes one step further. Now it is plants that communicate with each other and react to humans.
A giant gingko tree in the Old Botanical Garden of the University of Marburg connects three historical episodes. In the first, Tony Leung comes to Germany as a visiting professor. While in Hong Kong the neuroscientist studied the brain waves of infants, in Marburg he devotes himself to the hidden life of trees.
In the COVID-19 year of 2020, alone on the deserted campus, the Chinese researcher uses digital sensors to examine not only the inner world of the gingko tree, but also tests the effects of his own brain waves on the tree. As befits a typical Chinese person, he practises Tai Chi, watched suspiciously by the German park keeper. He comes into contact with a French colleague (Léa Seydoux), who sends him male seeds, as the female tree cannot reproduce on its own. So far, so spiritually pantheistic.
The second episode of the film is more tangible. In 1908, Grete (Luna Wedler) becomes the first female student to be admitted to the university to study botany. Beforehand, she has to endure embarrassing questions from a panel of misogynistic professors. While training in a photography studio, she discovers ‘the secret patterns of the universe’ in the leaves of plants. She too wanders alone through the botanical garden.
The third episode takes us to 1972, to the politically turbulent times at the University of Marburg. Hannes (Enzo Brumm), a boy from the countryside who doesn't smoke joints and doesn't take part in the German studies sit-in, falls in love with the beautiful, politically active Gundula, who measures the emotional currents of a geranium. When she asks him if he wants to sleep with her, he is completely confused and doesn't know how to react. You don't have to have studied in Marburg in the 1970s, as I did, to find this episode unintentionally funny.
With its spirituality and mysticism of nature, 'Silent Friend' impressed many critics and juries, even if at times it feels like an elaborately produced nature documentary, with sprouting buds and meditatively filmed trees. Luna Wedler was awarded the Marcello Mastroianni Prize for Best Young Actress. The film also won both the INTERFILM Jury Prize and the International Film Critics (Fipresci) Prize , as well as three other awards from independent juries.
Albert Camus' novel ‘L'Etranger’ (The Stranger) is one of the great works of world literature. In the early 1950s, Gérard Philippe wanted to adapt the book for the screen under the direction of Jean Renoir, but the project failed. In 1967, Luchino Visconti realised a film version with Marcello Mastroianni in the lead role. Now François Ozon has ventured into this difficult material and found a stylistically consistent approach. Camus, who grew up in Algeria, wrote the novel in the early 1940s and depicts the final phase of French colonisation.
Mersault (Benjamin Voisin), a young man who works in the civil service, shoots an Arab on the beach in Algiers for no apparent reason. The act is clear, but there is no motive, and even Mersault himself cannot give a reason in the subsequent trial. He is an outsider who goes through life with a strange indifference. Even when Marie (Rebecca Marder), the woman with whom he begins an affair, asks him if he loves her, he has no answer. The murder could be understood as a metaphor for France's colonial dominance over the Arab population. This is an interpretation suggested by the film through its use of historical archive footage.
In his commentary on 'L'Etranger', François Ozon writes that the idea of adapting this literary masterpiece for the screen filled him with fear and doubt. ‘But then I quickly realised that immersing myself in L'Étranger offered me an opportunity to explore a forgotten part of my personal history. My maternal grandfather was an investigating judge in Bône (now Annaba) in Algeria and escaped an assassination attempt in 1956, which resulted in my family returning to mainland France.’
The film is set in 1938, but a slogan on a house wall already hints at the uprising against the French occupation. The use of black-and-white images corresponds to the historical era and gives the film a certain austerity and cool distance that the audience has to overcome.
Benjamin Voisin, who was hailed in Venice for his role in Xavier Giannoli's film adaptation of Balzac's ‘Illusions perdues’ (Lost Illusions, 2021) and who played a young right-wing extremist in last year's ‘Jouer avec le feu’ (Lost Son) by Delphine and Muriel Coulin, impresses in the role of Mersault with emotional detachment. François Ozon once again proves his virtuosity in mastering a wide variety of genres.
East
In 2003, South Korean director Park Chan-wook shocked the Cannes Film Festival with his film ‘Old Boy’. A man is kidnapped and held captive for years. When he manages to escape, he has only revenge on his mind. Park Chan-wook is now one of the most internationally renowned Korean directors alongside Bong Joon-ho (Parasite). His new film 'No Other Choice' was celebrated in Venice and was long considered a contender for the Golden Lion. It was all the more surprising that he ultimately walked away empty-handed.
'No Other Choice' is based on the novel 'The Axe' by Donald Westlake, which was originally adapted for the screen by Costa Gavras under the title 'Le couperet' (The Axe, 2005). Park Chan-wook relocates the story to South Korea, where it works perfectly. Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) has been working in a leading position at a paper factory for 25 years. When an American company takes over the factory, he is dismissed. Now he can no longer pay the mortgage on his house, and his perfect existence with his wife, children and dogs is thrown into disarray. After being rejected at a job interview, he fakes his own company in order to identify his competitors. For Man-soo, it is clear that he has “no other choice” and must eliminate his rivals.
Park Chan-wook presents this parable of the struggle for survival in the job market not as a social drama, but as a black comedy with macabre slapstick interludes. As in ‘Old Boy’, the protagonist pulls out a sore tooth with pliers. ‘No Other Choice’ captivates with its complexity and merciless view of social conditions. A film you'll want to see a second time.
The Chinese competition entry ‘The Sun Rises on Us All’ (OT: Rì guà zhōng tiān) by Cai Shangjun is equally complex. The film remains puzzling for a considerable time until the core of the story gradually emerges. Meiyun (Xin Zhilei) is pregnant, and during a gynaecological examination at the hospital, she sees another patient. Who he is and where she knows him from remains unclear for the time being. Her pregnancy comes at an inopportune time for her married lover. He has already pressured her to have an abortion once, and out of consideration for his daughter, another child would be especially inconvenient.
At the hospital, Meiyun meets the other patient again and helps him up when he collapses in the toilet. It eventually turns out that he is her former lover Baoshu (Zhang Sonwen). Years ago, he took the blame for a traffic accident for Meiyun and served a long prison sentence, meanwhile she abandoned him.
‘The Sun Rises on Us All’ is an unsentimental melodrama, masterfully directed and brilliantly acted, dealing with guilt and forgiveness, betrayed love and redemption. During the film, I was so impressed by the way Xin Zhilei moved between different emotional states that I thought she should win the Best Actress award. And that's exactly what happened in the end.
‘The Sun Rises on Us All’ is set in the southern Chinese province of Shandong and shows everyday life in today's China in a quasi-documentary style. Cramped flats, money worries and arrogant men. A woman like Meyin, who has to fend for herself, can often be found in the films of Jia Zhang-ke.