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      Venice, Day 1: See the Almodóvar, Free the Nipple

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      The director was the toast of a glamorous dinner with Penélope Cruz, Isabelle Huppert and Denis Villeneuve, who talked about “Dune” as if he were a proud parent.VENICE — Denis Villeneuve, the director of “Dune,” wanted to apologize in advance.“This will be a long answer,” he said, “because of the Champagne.”We were at the Hotel Excelsior on Wednesday night for the lavish opening-night dinner of the Venice Film Festival, where the bubbly flowed freely, guests like Isabelle Huppert and Jane Campion supped on pink prawn tartare, and a wide array of major films — including “Dune,” Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” the Princess Diana drama “Spencer” and Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” — all waited to make splashy debuts on the Lido over the next week and a half.Jane Campion x Isabelle Huppert pic.twitter.com/HOsnH9qng0— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) September 1, 2021
      Though Venice was one of the few major film festivals to mount an in-person edition in 2020, this year’s program is significantly more robust. Many consider Venice to be the kickoff to awards season, an expectation goosed even further by the presence on the Venice jury of the last two auteurs to direct best-picture winners: Chloé Zhao, whose “Nomadland” premiered here last year, and the “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho, the jury president.Will Villeneuve’s “Dune” be that kind of contender? The sci-fi drama, adapted from the Frank Herbert novel, has loftier aspirations and a more refined eye than most would-be blockbusters. Villeneuve (whose credits include “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049”) will debut “Dune” on Friday with a starry cast expected to show up to the premiere, including the lead Timothée Chalamet, who arrived in Venice via speedboat on Wednesday.At dinner, Villeneuve told me Venice is “the perfect way to launch the movie and it’s the first time that I’ve had time to really finish — usually, I’m finishing movies and then releasing them three days later.”Instead, the French Canadian director has had the better part of a year to tinker, as “Dune” was supposed to come out in November 2020 before a pandemic-induced delay. Now, on the verge of its Venice premiere (and with a release date rescheduled for Oct. 22), Villeneuve talked about “Dune” almost as if he were a proud, anxious parent about to send his young child off to school.“I think it has a soul,” he said. “I recognize myself in it. It’s my biggest project and still, I have the most intimate relationship with it. I know it can walk by itself, but what will other people think?”Villeneuve paused. “How do I say it in English?” he wondered, before finding the words: “I just have to let it go.”Denis Villeneuve said of “Dune”: “I have the most intimate relationship with it. I know it can walk by itself, but what will other people think?”Ettore Ferrari/EPA, via ShutterstockThough Venice is limiting audiences in each theater and requiring moviegoers to wear masks (and to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test), the festival still offers the most glamorous launchpad for movies since Cannes in July. Still, even in ideal circumstances (or especially because of them), it can be daunting to show your film to an expectant international crowd ready to gauge its award prospects.That goes double when you’re first in line. “You are more vulnerable if it’s the opening,” said Pedro Almodóvar, whose “Parallel Mothers” was selected as the opening-night entry of the festival. How did he feel in the hours before the premiere? Not nervous, he told me. Just a little exposed.Fortunately, reviews were strong. This intimate, precisely judged drama stars Penélope Cruz as a Madrid photographer who suspects her newborn baby was switched at birth with the child of an unwed teenage mother (Milena Smit). Though that logline is outrageous, the film is surprisingly down to earth and accessible, even as Cruz’s character is driven to increasingly desperate decisions.“I didn’t want to ask myself what I would have done in that situation until I had finished the movie,” Cruz said at dinner. “She and I are very different, but when I look back now, I feel I would have done something similar. The way Pedro wrote these imperfect mothers, it makes it impossible for you to judge them.”“Parallel Mothers” is Cruz’s seventh film with the director. “I look at him and feel like he could give his life for the film,” she said. Because of that, Cruz was determined to show the camera her most vulnerable depths as an actor: “The standard is really high and he gives me a character that is a treasure, so I don’t want to disappoint him. I try every day to give him a hundred percent.”Speaking of matters of exposure, Almodóvar was amused at the recent reaction to the poster for “Parallel Mothers,” which crops a lactating nipple as if it were the pupil in an eye shedding a single milk-tear. Upon the poster’s release last month, Instagram banned the image for nudity and then, after an online uproar, promptly unbanned it.“It’s not erotic at all!” Almodóvar protested. “You have to be very dirty to think there’s something sexual about it.”The 71-year-old director doesn’t use Instagram himself, but he knows what he’s up against. “What is very dangerous for all of us is that it’s a machine that decides to reject the poster,” he said. “It’s an algorithm, there is nobody in charge that I can talk to.”But for the time being, at least, Almodóvar has conquered the algorithm. As I left the director, other guests at the dinner swooped in to take selfies with him. You’ll never guess where they posted them. More

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      In-Person New York Film Festival Unveils Lineup

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      Opening with Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” the event will include the body horror tale “Titane” and the Harlem Renaissance adaptation “Passing.”The Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Titane,” about a serial killer with rather unorthodox sexual tastes, and the Sundance critical hit “Passing,” an adaptation of the Harlem Renaissance novel by Nella Larsen, are among the highlights of the 59th New York Film Festival, organizers announced on Tuesday.After last year’s virtual edition, screenings will be held in-person with proof of vaccination required, although there will be some outdoor and virtual events. (More details on pandemic protocols will be released in the coming weeks.)As previously announced, “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” Joel Coen’s solo directing debut, will play opening night, Sept. 24. A take on the play by Shakespeare, it stars Denzel Washington in the title role and Frances McDormand, the director’s wife, as Lady Macbeth. The centerpiece of the festival will be “The Power of the Dog,” the first Jane Campion film in more than a decade, and “Parallel Mothers,” from Pedro Almodóvar, will be the closing-night title.The main slate will feature a mix of premieres and highlights from earlier festivals. The body horror tale “Titane” made headlines last month when its director, Julia Ducournau, became only the second woman (after Campion in 1993) to win Cannes’ top prize. Other titles from the French festival heading to New York include “Benedetta,” Paul Verhoeven’s 17th-century lesbian nun potboiler; “The Souvenir Part II,” Joanna Hogg’s follow-up to her 2019 semi-autobiographical drama about a film student in 1980s London; and “The Velvet Underground,” Todd Haynes’s documentary about the band synonymous with Andy Warhol’s New York.From Sundance, “Passing,” directed by the actress Rebecca Hall, who adapted Larsen’s 1929 novel, stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as childhood friends who reconnect from opposite sides of the color line. Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated “Flee,” which won the Sundance world cinema documentary prize, focuses on a gay Afghan refugee in Denmark.Other titles of note include Mia Hansen-Love’s “Bergman Island,” starring Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth; the comic-drama “Hit the Road,” from Panah Panahi, son of the Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi; and two films from the Korean director Hong Sangsoo, “In Front of Your Face” and “Introduction.”Passes are on sale now; tickets to individual films will go on sale Sept. 7. Go to filmlinc.org for more details. More

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      ‘The Human Voice’ Review: Almodóvar Meets Cocteau Meets Swinton

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      The first English-language film from the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar stars Tilda Swinton and adapts Jean Cocteau to sublime results.A woman is brought to the end of her rope by a recalcitrant former lover. In what could be their last exchange, she speaks to the man over the phone. She cajoles, she feigns composure, she sneers, she renounces — things get kind of crazy.Sounds like a Pedro Almodóvar movie. It was, and it is again. It’s a little complicated.This movie, a mere 30 minutes in length but as fully fleshed out as almost any feature by the dazzling Spanish filmmaker, is an adaptation of the venerable 1930 monodrama “La Voix Humaine,” a magnificent actress’s aria by Jean Cocteau. Back in 1988, Almodóvar borrowed its narrative elements for his film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” which helped the director advance into the mainstream. Previously, he’d been a near-underground cult figure.Almodóvar had been planning to make an English-language film for some time, and now he’s done it, working with the British actress Tilda Swinton. Does this sound like a match made in heaven? Yeah, it pretty much is. Almodóvar’s sense of cinema design — the décor simulates a luxe apartment and lays it bare as a soundstage illusion — is acutely keyed to Swinton’s performance here, which projects mercurial emotion with Swiss watch precision.The credits specify that this is a “free” adaptation of the Cocteau work. One factor of that freedom is that the monologue doesn’t begin until about 10 minutes in — unlike Cocteau’s work. But Almodóvar’s own poetic spirit meshes nicely with that of the old master’s throughout. Hardly surprising.The Human VoiceRated R for language. In English and Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 30 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More