Strong female figures in Venice: their bodies are on fire

Jury President Maggie Gyllenhaal criticized the fact that there were few female directors in the competition at this Venice Film Festival at the beginning of the festival. However, it cannot be said that there are too few strong female figures among the contributions. These characters have some rough edges, especially because their actresses work them out so delicately.

Like many of his films, Stéphane Brizé's drama “Un bon petit soldat” is about the social abysses of the working world. The setting is the high-rise office building of an insurance company, whose sober, cold rooms the camera almost never leaves. Carla has just started there as HR manager. She is ambitious, willing to adapt and absolutely ready to do everything for the good of the company. At the same time, she is under a lot of pressure; any small slip-up could mean the end of her career with her new employer.

When she learns that a department head has misbehaved with a subordinate, she informs her superior, but he wants to downplay the matter. Carla then begins to contact those affected in order to fulfill her responsibilities. Which after a short time begins to seriously jeopardize her own position.

Alba Rohrwacher plays Carla with controlled objectivity, her facial expressions betraying the fears as well as the frustrations that she constantly has to shoulder. And in a brilliant scene in which she has to defend a drastic personnel decision, she lies so convincingly that you could almost believe her words.

Angela doesn't need this kind of hide-and-seek game in “Il fuoco che ti porti dentro” (The Fire in You) by Edoardo De Angelis. Or rather: She probably couldn't do something like that. The mother of the family in blessed old age gathered the family together on Christmas Eve or everyone who was willing to come to her. Because, regardless of her name, she is not an angel, at most she is an archangel. As soon as the first children arrive in her apartment, she starts to swear, gossip and humiliate practically everyone around her in one form or another.

Actress Vanessa Scalera, who was made up to be several decades older for the role, is the powerhouse of this story, which is far too funny for a drama. The joke is so cutting and caustic and without regard for losses that you need your own laughter as a protective shield while watching. Confined to the short period of time from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning, this claustrophobic chamber drama never leaves the apartment; the camera lurks around the family members as if it were selecting the next victims. A pitch-black meditation on the destructive side of love and a remarkable ensemble performance.

Speaking of ensemble: A lot could be said about the continuation of director Ilja Chrschanowski's "DAU" project: about the criticism that the working conditions during the shoot caused at the Berlinale in 2020, when his film "DAU. Natasha" was shown in competition there, or about its current leading actor, the conductor Teodor Currentzis, who is accused of being close to the Russian state. About the three-hour film “DAU”, which is now being shown in Venice and revolves around the life of the Soviet physicist Lev Landau, it can be said that the obsessively accurate set with its sometimes absurd details such as a huge airplane overwhelms you.

The permanence of violence and sex in this reconstructed USSR is more exhausting than frightening. Chrschanowski always surprises with absurd images. In one scene, for example, people wade through deep mud and look as if their bodies are tilted 45 degrees to the left. How did he do that?