Vanessa Kirby, at the gala premiere of 'Pieces Of a Woman'.ETTORE FERRARI / EFE
The descent into hell of a couple facing the death of their baby became yesterday's highlight of the day at the Venice Film Festival.
Pieces Of A Woman, the
acclaimed English debut of Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, tells the drama of a couple, played by Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBoeuf, who disintegrate after watching their daughter die in a hellish home birth.
The film marks access to the American cinema of Mundruczó, who triumphed at Cannes a few years ago with
White Dog,
before being booed with his next film,
Jupiter's Moon,
a story about a refugee with superhero features who, even so, had such famous admirers as Will Smith.
Apparently, Mundruczó has the favor of Hollywood: after viewing a first cut of his new film during confinement, Martin Scorsese, another declared fan, agreed to appear in his credits as executive producer.
Greta Thunberg, portrait of the teenage activist
The discreet monsters of the 20th century
Pieces Of A Woman
opens with an electrifying 25-minute sequence shot that reflects that childbirth that will not end well, and that Mundruczó films as torture or exorcism.
The director once again proves that he is a virtuoso of the image, but also that he has a tendency to sterile bombast and a loaded visual metaphor.
After that brutal start, admirable for its rawness, the film falls into more hackneyed schemes as it reflects the disintegration of the couple and the crisis that opens in a family that does not accept the decision of the mother - a Kirby with metallic coldness - not to take the midwife to trial for negligence.
Set in a dirty and stale Boston, the film nevertheless introduces some stimulating note in the description of the social differences that separate its protagonists, often absent from American cinema or only portrayed with miserabilism.
Faced with the crisis opened by mourning, the interests of her family - the wealthiest, headed by an incombustible Ellen Burstyn - will go above love.
Marx's daughter
Miss Marx
also aspires to talk about class differences
, a
biography of the youngest daughter of the father of socialism, directed by the Italian Susanna Nicchiarelli, who in 2017 already tried her luck in this genre with a film about the singer Nico.
Her new film starts from a commendable objective: to displace the classic point of view with respect to a great historical person to portray someone who lived in her shadow.
Eleanor Marx, played by a hard-working Romola Garai, fought for the rights of workers and women, according to the credits of the film, although on screen she is only seen doing salon politics.
Nicchiarelli signs a
childish
biopic
about a woman
ahead
of her time, a factor that she insistently underlines through various anachronisms, the most ridiculous of which consists of making her protagonist dance to the rhythm of
punk
.
The question of social class is not entirely alien to
Mainstream,
presented yesterday out of competition.
Directed by Gia Coppola - Francis' granddaughter and Sofia's niece - the film describes a new bourgeoisie, the
one made up of
millennials
who make
money
by creating viral videos on YouTube.
Two broke waiters and a young homeless man (an impressive Andrew Garfield), with self-confidence in front of the camera and a talent for that caustic humor that reigns in the networks, triumph with a
new generation
talk show
, before the glory takes over their moral sense.
Despite a certain virtual effect, Coppola shows that he has a good eye for recounting an era and a generation that has already operated an ethical and aesthetic revolution in our present.
