Attentive observers had warned: Yorgos Lanthimos never leaves a festival without having won a prize! And this is true, CanineUn Certain Regard Prize at Cannes in 2009, The FavoriteGrand Jury Prize in Venice in 2018, via The Lobster, Jury Prize at Cannes in 2015, etc. This time, it is the consecration: Saturday September 9, at the end of the 80e edition of the Venice Film Festival, the Greek director, at the age of 50, received the Golden Lion for his eighth feature film, Poor Things (Poor Creatures), which will be released in France on January 17, 2024, adapted from the work of the same name by Scottish writer Alasdair Gray (published in 1992).
The jury chaired by Damien Chazelle was perhaps seduced by the overflowing imagination of this genre film, bizarre like Lanthimos but also feminist and entertaining, revisiting several myths (Pygmalion, Frankenstein, etc.). The heroine, Bella, played by Emma Stone (also co-producer of the film), is a creature brought back to life by a strange doctor (Willem Dafoe). Bella was in her mother’s womb when her mother committed suicide. The mad scientist embedded the baby’s brain in the mother’s body…
From there, Yorgos Lanthimos imagines the journey of a creature who grows up in a separate world, devoid of barriers. And asks this question: if a woman could live her life however she wanted, what would she do? Bella doesn’t care about any prejudices, lives a thousand adventures, loves sex. Emma Stone, who received the acting prize in Venice as well as the Oscar for best actress for La La Land (2016), by a certain Damien Chazelle, delivers an astonishing, even transgressive, performance in this film which still remains in tune with the times, and whose garish aesthetics can be regretted.
There is always that Poor Things couldn’t have dreamed of a better way to get into orbit for the next Oscars. The other winning works will also be able to position themselves on the launch pad. In a political gesture, the jury distinguished two films on the tragedy of migrants: the Italian Matteo Garrone received the Silver Lion for best director for Io Capitanoa cruel tale which follows the fate of two young Senegalese people deciding to try their luck in Europe – the main actor, Seydou Sarr, received the prize for best young actor.
One of the most daring forgotten films
For her part, the Polish Agnieszka Holland won the special jury prize for her shocking black and white film, Green border : a documented fiction which follows the drama of a Syrian family trapped on the border of Poland and Belarus. By taking the time to portray (a Belarusian border guard, a woman who moves into activism), the director paints a precise, implacable picture of political cynicism, its devastating effects among border guards, while examining their possible rebellion and humanity. On X, formerly Twitter, the Polish Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro, reacted by comparing Green border to Nazi propaganda, like the time when “the Germans, during the IIIe Reich, produced propaganda films showing the Poles as bandits and murderers”. The special jury prize also sounds like support for the filmmaker, who plans to take legal action against the minister.
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