11 days in Venice

In a few hours’ time, a shiny and sensibly priced orange plane will whisk me off to the city of water, romance and the most expensive fleapit hotels this side of, well, anywhere for my second consecutive dive into the Venice Film Festival. Truth be told, I’m not quite ready for it… a surfeit of pre-travel errands has meant I’m still leafing through the fest’s vast 62-page press screening schedule, still trying to cobble out some semblance of an itinerary.

A neat, contained festival preview, therefore, wasn’t really on the cards: I tried to narrow things down to a “10 most anticipated” list, but I’m far too hungry for the entire buffet to limit myself to that.

In its place, then, I offer an indication of what the festival is serving up on a day-by-day basis; not only will you get an idea of when, in the next fortnight, your own horse in this race will come to attention, but you can also see some of the cineaste’s Sophie’s choices that lie ahead of me.

My scribbly Venice calendar after the cut.

September 1: Most festivals prefer to tease me by dangling my most-anticipated title out of reach for at least a few days. Venice is wasting no such time. The first thing I see on the Lido, bright and early Wednesday morning, will be Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” and if you don’t know why I’m looking forward to it so much — well, you probably haven’t seen that luridly dazzling trailer. If it even comes close to fulfilling its promise, the fest risks climaxing a little early; not that there’ll be much time to reflect on this on a day that also includes first looks at such disparate works as Catherine Breillat’s “Sleeping Beauty,” Tran Anh Hung’s Murakami adaptation “Norwegian Wood” and Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete.”

September 2: A big day for The Weinstein Company: Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” is the big Competition unveiling, while John Woo’s latest historical actioner “Reign of Assassins” (the US rights to which the Weinsteins snapped up in June) follows it later that evening. Ordinarily, I’d be more sincerely excited about a new Schnabel offering, but a tepid trailer and mixed advance word have put me on guard. Less chaotically programmed days like this, however, are ripe for below-the-radar discoveries: I have my eye on “Scorched,” French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to the acclaimed “Polytechnique,” in particular.

September 3: In order to stay ahead of Toronto (and the sizable journalist exodus it causes), Venice must front-load its schedule with the hot US auteurs. This time, it’s Sofia Coppola, whose “Somewhere” has me intrigued and concerned in equal measure: she must have known she was exposing herself by making a fourth feature that filches so many elements from her beloved second, so what tricks are up her (or this year’s career-rehab candidate Stephen Dorff’s) sleeve? Arousing as much curiosity from me, however, is “Robinson in Ruins,” British documentarian Patrick Keiller’s long-in-the-works follow-up to his wryly poetic studies of 1990s England “London” and “Robinson in Space”; Vanessa Redgrave is entrusted with replacing the late Paul Scofield’s inimitable narration.

September 4: Another day, another American biggie, though this one has had me salivating since it first threatened to show up at Cannes. Kelly Reichardt’s period western “Meek’s Cutoff” reunites the minimalist auteur with her “Wendy and Lucy” leading lady Michelle Williams, but reportedly offers her a far larger canvas; early Twitter talk has been glowing. Oddly, my most anticipated films seem to fall on the most crowded days: also on the menu is François Ozon’s “Potiche,” reuniting Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu once more, “Post Mortem” from Pablo Marrain (director of the wicked Chilean black comedy “Tony Manero”), and, surprisingly under the radar, Martin Scorsese’s documentary “A Letter to Elia,” a tribute to Elia Kazan made in collaboration with critic Kent Jones.

September 5: After that pile-up (and it being a Sunday, after all), festivalgoers are perhaps owed a slower day: new Competition titles from Jerzy Skolimowski (“Essential Killing”) and Tsui Hark (the ominously named “Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame“) don’t have the aura of an event about them, though Noomi Rapace’s legions of new admirers can catch her on softer form in Swedish domestic drama “Beyond.” Me, I’m sensing an afternoon of gelato and sightseeing.

September 6: Oh come on, don’t tell me you’re not a little curious to see “I’m Still Here,” Casey Affleck’s much-volleyed documentary/character study/goof-off about his pal Joaquin Phoenix. I know I am, if only to gauge how much mileage this lengthy showbiz stunt can still generate. For all the talk it will likely generate, however, Affleck’s film may not be the hottest ticket of the day: that’d be the Surprise Film, which has some cinephiles still clinging to the hope that “The Tree of Life” may show up in Venice after all, though they’d be advised to remember that one of last year’s surprise slots was filled by a gritty, niche-appeal Brillante Mendoza opus. Festival programmers can be wilful like that. Interesting known quantities, meanwhile, include the latest from Vincent Gallo and Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer.

September 7: Another day on which to delve into the murkier reaches of the festival programme — or perhaps squeeze in some beach time — until the evening brings another film high on my priority list, Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Black Venus.” After his ace “The Secret of the Grain,” Kechiche’s name alone would get me into the screening room, but he happens to be taking on a fascinating chapter of South African folk history: the story of Saartjie Baartman, a black 19th-century slave whose large posterior (and unusually shaped genitalia) landed her on the European freak-show circuit under the name “The Hottentot Venus,” before she fell into alcoholism and prostitution. It’s heady, tragic material for a marvellous filmmaker.

September 8: The big premiere of the day comes from Affleck the Elder, though “The Town” will be in theaters so soon afterward that it hardly feels like a coup. (Trusted sources who’ve seen the film, meanwhile, say it’s solid rather than revelatory.) Beyond that, the day is open to guesswork: some pundits are suggesting that Golden Lion contenders from Alex de la Iglesia and Athina Rachel Tsangari are worth keeping an eye on, while outside the Competition, those still in the Takashi Miike cult have “Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City” to look forward to.

September 9: The race for the Golden Lion swings back to America, as 78 year-old cult figure Monte Hellman presents his first feature since, er, “Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!” went straight to video in 1989. His latest, however, has a title that at least partially recalls his revered road movie “Two-Lane Blacktop”: “Road to Nowhere” is a romantic noir whose cast includes Shannyn Sossamon and Dominique Swain. At the very least, there should be nothing in competition quite like it. The day pairs Hellman with a younger one-time hotshot seeking a return to grace: Tom Tykwer’s “Three” is the “Run Lola Run” director’s first all-German production in a decade.

September 10: On a fairly scattered day of programming, those who prioritize North American titles will make a beeline for the Paul Giamatti comedy “Barney’s Version,” the trailer of which failed to lure me in, though I might take a stab at the bestelling source novel while I’m there; I’ll also attempt to make up my debt to Hong Sang-soo, whose last feature “Ha Ha Ha” prompted one of my Cannes walkouts in May, before vexingly taking the Un Certain Regard award. Happily, he holds no grudges and works remarkably quickly — I hope to get along better with “Oki’s Movie.”

September 11: Before hopping on a sardine-tin flight back to London, I’ll have enough time to squeeze in a viewing of Julie Taymor’s festival closer “The Tempest.” This gender-switched Shakespeare adaptation is certainly one of the lineup’s biggest question marks, given Taymor’s frequently unhinged creative impulses in her previous screen work. Still, if it’s a match for “Titus,” Taymor’s previous barking take on the Bard and handily her best film to date, that question mark could easily straighten out into an exclamation point.

And there you have it: 11 days, a few dozen movies and Lord knows how many glasses of Prosecco await. This, of course, only scratches at the surface of what the programme has to offer: I have no doubt that some exciting discoveries to which I am currently completely blind lie in wait. I’ll be keeping you updated with daily round-ups and full reviews where warranted — hope you enjoy the jaunt with me. See you on the other side.

[Photo: Fox Searchlight]