In an industry that is reliant on the fickle vagaries of taste, film festivals exist to establish facts. The reason why film-makers still go through the rigmarole of ferrying their cast to the red carpets of Venice, Cannes or Sundance is the need for empirical evidence of unambiguous quality: a solid-gold prize, a top score on the critics\u2019 grid, a record-timed standing ovation that will convince every doubter that this is a great film.<\/p>\n
The wall also includes illustrations. Photograph: Philip Oltermann<\/p>\n
Film festivals, in turn, need beautiful A-listers to attract coverage and sponsorship, and hence there is a constant risk that these annual events become gigantic hype machines, in which every turkey is a classic and every half-hearted performance a masterclass.<\/p>\n
Which is why there may not be a more important institution in world cinema than the Venice film festival\u2019s Ridateci i soldi (\u201cGive us our money back\u201d): a makeshift chipboard wall erected next to the Palazzo del Cinema on which visitors are encouraged \u2013 with the blessing of the management \u2013 to scribble complaints and hatchet jobs in the most scathing terms possible.<\/p>\n
The wall\u2019s 30-year tradition commands that the festival\u2019s director Alberto Barbera has to personally hand out a prize to the meanest diatribe, making Venice\u2019s wall of shame a barrier against hype, an institutionalised pricking of the film world\u2019s own pomposity.<\/p>\n
On the Lido this year, there were complaints about the rising cost of entry badges, water taxis and local accommodation (\u201cMaybe by 2030 we\u2019ll have to pay for the oxygen we breathe\u201d), queue lengths, uncomfortable seats and ceiling lights going on in the screening rooms.<\/p>\n
Most of the notes dealt with the films themselves, however. There were protests against the inclusion of epic \u201cRussian Oppenheimer\u201d biopic DAU<\/a>, notorious for reports<\/a> of behind-the-scenes coercion and humiliation of cast and crew (\u201cThis is a disgusting, abusive (!!), pointless film!! Look it up!!!\u201d), appeals to Trainspotting director Danny Boyle (\u201cplease make another movie about drugs\u201d), insinuations about Paul Schrader\u2019s child abuse drama The Basics of Philosophy<\/a> so slanderous they cannot be repeated in print for risk of legal repercussions, and many a wordplay on the spoonerist title of Werner Herzog\u2019s Bucking Fastard<\/a>.<\/p>\n The winner of this year\u2019s cup for the best ad hoc review, Cristian Poletti. Photograph: Philip Oltermann<\/p>\n Italian titles in the lineup especially came in for drubbings, such as Andrea Pallaoro\u2019s romantic drama The Echo Chamber, based on a script by Bernardo Bertolucci (\u201cHe will be turning in his grave\u201d), Luca Guadagnino\u2019s seven-hour documentary Joie de Vivre (\u201cArrest him!\u201d), and Gerda Taro biopic The Girl with the Leica (\u201cIns\u00edpido!\u201d). It\u2019s hard to imagine similarly buzz-killing language at Venice\u2019s more po-faced competitors in Cannes or Berlin.<\/p>\n \u201cItalian audiences always interact a little more with films,\u201d says John Bleasdale, an Italy-based British critic and novelist. Just as popular actors or directors are often applauded as soon as their names appear in the credits, boos are considered a legitimate expression of taste, he argues. \u201cThe boos are vociferous, as is ironic laughter and applause. Jonathan Glazer\u2019s Under the Skin got booed at Venice, while other films split an audience and half of them boo while the others cheer.\u201d<\/p>\n Ridateci i soldi was created in the late 90s by Gianni Ippoliti, a former football referee and TV presenter who acts as the prize\u2019s one-man jury, in protest against reviews becoming overly enthusiastic. \u201cIf you read the reviews, you would believe that all 150 films shown at the festival this year are masterpieces,\u201d he says as he stands guard at the festival\u2019s wall of shame. \u201cThat\u2019s not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Arrest him!\u2019 \u2026 a response on the wall to the Luca Guadagnino\u2019s seven-hour long Joie de Vivre. Photograph: Courtesy Venice Film Festival<\/p>\n The rules are flexible, he explains: \u201cOf course people are also allowed to write something positive, but we find most of the time people who come out of the cinema want to vent their negative feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n The Golden Lion, awarded to the winner of the 21 films in competition, is one of the most sought-after accolades in world cinema. But the Coppa Codacons \u2013 a wooden sculpture sponsored by Italy\u2019s consumer watchdog and carved by artist Ferdinando Codognotto that is awarded to the most scathing comment \u2013 is the more beautiful object to put on your mantlepiece.<\/p>\n Festival visitor Cristian Poletti won the cup this year for a review in which he suggested a more suitable title for The Echo Chamber might have been \u201cThe Echo Bathroom\u201d given how many scenes featured characters bathing. If Bertolucci really wrote the script for this movie, it said, perhaps it was intended to be a shampoo advert instead.<\/p>\n A festivalgoer takes inspiration from Herzog\u2019s Bucking Fastard. Photograph: Philip Oltermann<\/p>\n In spite of everything, Poletti says he remains a passionate fan of film festivals. In recent years there have been signs that Hollywood\u2019s big studios are retreating from the festival circuit, aware that social-media campaigns can serve as more effective hype machines and that critical drubbings at Venice or Cannes can establish the wrong kind of irrefutable facts.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been coming to Venice since 2015, and I always see 30 to 40 films,\u201d says Poletti. \u201cEven watching a bad movie is better than not watching a movie at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an industry that is reliant on the fickle vagaries of taste, film festivals exist to establish facts.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-888442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}