There are some major surprises in the competition lineup for next month’s Venice Film Festival, not the least of which are the global flavour and soberness of the lineup itself. In previous years, the Lido has proved a launchpad for starry, surefire awards vehicles (“Atonement” and “Michael Clayton” both made successful bows there last year, while recent festival hits include “Far From Heaven,” “The Queen” and Golden Lion winner “Brokeback Mountain.”)
Looking down this year’s list, it’s difficult to find much that has quite the same cache – and the competition looks all the more intriguing for it. Artistic director Marco Mueller has commendably narrowed the English-language contingent, and has taken greater risks within that selection, most notably nabbing an unexpected “wet premiere” (as in straight from the lab) of Darren Aronofsky’s latest, “The Wrestler.”
The film, about a retired pro wrestler struggling to make a comeback, sounds like an interestingly low-key change of pace for Aronofsky after his beautiful folly “The Fountain” (another Venice debutante) fell foul of pretty much everyone two years ago. This project finds the former wunderkind working from someone else’s screenplay for the first time, which could prove a healthy change, and there are some interesting changes of the guard elsewhere too – most notably swapping regular cinematographer Matthew Libatique for the exciting Maryse Alberti (continuing what might be a banner year for female DPs). With an almost too perfectly cast Mickey Rourke in the lead, and support from the ever-terrific Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, a warm festival reception could put this on the Oscar charts.
There will be fewer megastars parading the Venice carpet than in previous years, but when one of them is Charlize Theron, how many do you need? Together with Kim Basinger, she will be at Venice to promote the competition title that, together with the new Miyazaki, I’m personally most excited about: Guillermo Arriaga’s helming debut, “The Burning Plain.”