Cop thriller brings Venice Film Festival to a close

By Peter Mayer Sep 9, 2011, 15:39 GMT

Venice, Italy - The 68th edition of the Venice Film Festival confirmed the status of the world's oldest film contest not only as a showcase of art-house cinema, but also as a launching pad for potential Oscar winners and box-office hits.

The main in-competition section closed Friday with the screening of Ami Canaan Mann's Texas Killing Fields, which joined the 22 other films vying for the festival's top Golden Lion award for best movie.

The Golden Lion and other prizes - including best female and male actors - were to be announced at a Saturday night gala ceremony at the lagoon city's Lido.

Texas Killing Fields deals with the discovery of the bodies of dozens of murdered girls and young women and how this engages three detectives - a local officer, his former wife and a New York transplant - in an often frustrated hunt for the killers.

The film's conventional narrative, complete with good cop/bad cop interrogation scenes and car chases, is unlikely to place it among the prize winners in a festival that traditionally reserves its honours for more unconventional works and performances.

There are plenty of contenders for the awards, whose winners are to be decided by a jury headed by US director Darren Aronofsky, himself a Golden Lion winner for The Wrestler in 2008.

Among the favourites for the Golden Lion is British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen's Shame, a bleak tale of the dysfunctional relationship between a brother and sister set in New York.

The film's male lead, German-born Irishman Michael Fassbender, made a strong claim for the best actor award with his portrayal of Brandon, the 30-something whose routine existence of one-night stands and an obsession for internet pornography is disrupted when his sister comes to stay with him.

Proving his versatility, Fassbender also stars in another in-competion film - David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method - where the actor delivers a more restrained performance as pioneering psychologist Carl Jung.

A five-film strong Asian presence, including the late addition 'surprise' movie, Chinese director Cai Shangjun's Ren Shan Ren Hai (People Mountain People Sea), also delivered possible prize winners.

Taiwanese-born We Te-Sheng's historical epic Saideke Balai (Warriors of the Rainbow), which examines, often in bloody detail, the so-called 1930 'Wushe Incident,' a native Taiwanese rebellion against Japanese colonial rule, is a possible Golden Lion contender.

Deanie Ip's role as elderly, but feisty, domestic worker Ah Tao in fellow Chinese Ann Hui's Tao jie (A Simple Life) could see her win the best actress award.

Another possible contender in the same category is Greek actress Aggeliki Papoulia, who plays an emotionally detached nurse in compatriot director Yorgos Lanthimos' offbeat Alps. Papoulia's character is part of a group who offer their services as stand-ins for dead people.

French-born Pole Roman Polanski's Carnage could also be among the prizes, although the 78-year-old director is unlikely to be in Venice to collect them, since he is the subject to a US extradition request on charges of unlawful sex with a minor in a case that goes back to the 1970s.

Almost entirely set in a Brooklyn apartment, Carnage revolves around two couples who meet to discuss a playground fight between their sons. The initially polite encounter escalates into a trading of insults in which the characters expose their own hypocrisies.

The film's stars, including Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster and Christopher Waltz, delivered a much-applauded performance at the film's Venice premiere.

Directed by and also starring George Clooney, The Ides of March's mix of political intrigue, betrayed loyalties and sexual impropriety received a favourable reception at the festival, with its standout performance by Canadian actor Ryan Gosling.

The film's accessible appeal may, however, mean it is more suited for Academy Award nominations than for the prizes up for grabs in Venice.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a 1970s-style Cold War espionage potboiler could also be headed for Oscar success. But Gary Oldman's thoughtfully subdued performance, as protagonist British MI6 agent George Smiley, could win him a best actor award in Venice.

Another outsider for the best actor award is Italian Gabriele Spinelli who, in L'Ultimo Terrestre (The Last Earthling), plays a shy, misogynist waiter whose mixture of fear and hatred for women dates to his childhood when his mother abandoned him and his father.

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