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Japan's Takeshi Kitano brings 'cruel art' to Venice
2008-08-28
VENICE, Italy (AFP) - Japan's Takeshi Kitano on Thursday completed his trilogy on the creative process as he unveiled his "Achilles and the Tortoise" at the Venice film festival. Driving headlong towards a validation of art for art's sake, the new film traces a man's lifelong quest to win recognition as a painter. "This is a story about cruel art," Kitano said. The obsession begins when the artist, Machisu, is a small boy, the precocious son of a wealthy collector, who spends nearly every waking hour drawing or painting. Real life intrudes with crushing tragedies, but he perseveres, encouraged by a doting wife who eggs him on in ever more reckless artistic adventures, even nearly drowning him to sharpen his senses. "It's not necessary for an artist to die," Kitano told a news conference. "Nor should he sacrifice his family life." Instead, Machisu's story could be seen as "a side effect" of art, said Kitano, himself an artist who gives away his paintings. "Art becomes a drug for artists, but I'm not sure it applies to all artists." The trilogy began with "Takeshis'" in 2005, a surreal autobiographical look at the conflict between the filmmaker and his persona as an entertainer, and "Kantoku Banzai!" (2007), a comic exploration of his creative conflict as an artist. Producer Masayuki Mori said: "The trilogy concluded the director's story. ... So this end of the trilogy might mean that freedom begins!" Also Thursday, German director Christian Petzold offered an intimate drama, "Jerichow," set in an economically depressed part of east Germany. A love triangle darkened by violence, desperation and betrayal, the plot builds on the characters' lonely personal journeys. "Christian never tries to relate grand themes. He's always on a small scale, observing individuals struggling with their lives," said Benno Fuermann, who plays Thomas, a returning soldier who was dishonourably discharged from the army. Thomas falls in love with Laura, the pretty ex-convict wife of Turkish businessman Ali, also haunted by his past. But all is clouded by the present, and much revolves around money. "That part of Germany, about an hour from Berlin, is not doing well," Fuermann told reporters. "People are struggling to give life meaning, to make life graspable." Their situation is a parable for more fortunate people who "still feel emptiness," Fuermann said, adding that people are attracted to extreme sports because "it's hard to feel yourself." The 65th Venice film festival kicked off on Wednesday with "Burn After Reading," the final installment of another hat trick, what Hollywood megastar George Clooney likes to call his "idiot trilogy" under the direction of the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. Also starring Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand (Joel Coen's wife), the film's world premiere was shown out of competition. Clooney also starred in the Oscar-winning Coen brothers' "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and "Intolerable Cruelty." This year's Venice Mostra will also feature stars such as Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, both Oscar winners who star in "The Burning Plain," Mexican-born screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga's first shot at directing. Of the 52 films selected, 21 will be competing for the Golden Lion top prize, to be awarded on September 6. Both Kitano's "Achilles and the Tortoise" and Miyazaki's animated feature "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" are tipped as favourites for the top prize. Other strong runners include US director Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler", starring Mickey Rourke, and French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder's thriller set in Japan, "L'Inju: La Bete dans l'Ombre" (The Beast in the Shadow). Meanwhile "Silence of the Lambs" director Jonathan Demme will present the much anticipated comedy "Rachel Getting Married", starring Anne Hathaway as a troubled young woman showing up at her estranged sister's wedding. This year's festival is to be dedicated to Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, who died on July 27 aged 82. A career Golden Lion has been reserved for Italian director Ermanno Olmi, 77, whose 1978 neo-realist epic "L'Albero degli Zoccoli" (The Tree of Wooden Clogs) won the Golden Palm at Cannes and many other awards.
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