Lidokino 5: An “Israeli-Iranian” collaboration and a first highlight at the Venice Film Festival.
Trainer Maryam (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and fighter Leila (Arienne Mandi) Photo: Juda Khatia Psuturi
Football is the number one sport in almost every country in the world. The fact that judo follows in second place seems rather exotic. This unexpected commonality binds Israel and Iran, said Israeli director Guy Nattiv at the premiere of the film “Tatami” in the “Orizzonti” series of the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, which also featured a flash mob on the red carpet in the early evening Solidarity with the people fighting for freedom in Iran.
“Tatami” is also about the fight for freedom – it is believed to be the first Israeli-Iranian collaboration between two directors. Although it must be specified that Nattiv’s Iranian colleague, the actress Tsar Amir Ebrahimi, is banned from working in Iran and lives in exile in France.
In “Tatami” the judo fighter Leila (Arienne Mandi) travels with the Iranian team to Canada for the Judo World Championship. Shortly after arriving and meeting teams from other countries, she encounters one of her potential opponents, Israeli judoka Shir (Lir Katz), with whom she is a secret friend. As Leila progresses victoriously round after round, her coach Maryam, played by Tsar Amir Ebrahimi himself, soon receives threats from the Iranian Judo Federation. Since Leila could face the “enemy” Israel in the final, she should retire early, feigning an injury.
Nattiv and Ebrahimi filmed the drama in high-contrast black and white, which then unfolds at the competition’s restrictedly neutral venue – the Iranian secret services also find their way into terrain reserved for sport. To do this, they chose the “narrow” 4:3 aspect ratio, as old televisions with picture tubes once had. The fight scenes, filmed up close, are painfully immediate, as are the scenes in which Maryam and later Leila are harassed on the phone.
Feminist version of Frankenstein by Yorgos Lanthimos
The Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos also made his competition entry “Poor Things” in black and white, at least in parts. His adaptation of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name is commended as a feminist take on the Frankenstein theme of bringing dead flesh to life. In it, Willem Dafoe plays Godwin Baxter, a doctor with an unscrupulous ethic of research, who is disfigured from the outside and raises the Bella he “treats” at home. This Bella has the body of a young woman, namely that of Emma Stone, but she moves and articulates very awkwardly at first. “Your mind and body aren’t aligned,” Baxter summarizes.
In order not to anticipate too much: Bella does not have her original brain in her body and has to acquire a lot in life first. Which leads, among other things, to an impartial approach to one’s own sexuality and that of others. Baxter’s dubious lawyer Duncan Wedderburn wants to take advantage of this, wonderfully sleazy given by Mark Ruffalo. He will get what he asks for. Just not the way he imagined.
Lanthimos filmed the entire film in extreme wide angles, the fisheye lenses make his strange steampunk interiors with a futuristic-Victorian impression appear all the more otherworldly. In this world, as Emma Stone, who acts with the utmost commitment, reveals in a disturbingly changeable way, Bella finds her way along very well. Even when she finds out who she really is. A first highlight in the hitherto mixed competition.
Great praise also for the film music by Jerskin Fendrix, who makes familiar instruments like the bassoon sound appropriately uncomfortable with alienated low frequencies.
2023-09-03 11:46:20
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