Elvis Presley’s widow came to Venice to present a film about herself

Among the closing screenings of the film festival is a biography of Leonard Bernstein and the love story of a man with dementia.

On September 9, the results of the 80th Venice Film Festival will be announced. The day before, the final competition screening took place, which was attended by Hollywood stars Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard. They presented the film “Memory” by Mexican-American director Michel Franco, which talks about how dementia is not an obstacle to love.

The heroes of the film – Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) and Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) become lovers, and this is an almost incredible event for each of them, especially for him, since at 50+ he suffers from senile dementia and lives an almost vegetative life. Each of the heroes has their own burden of psychological trauma. In Sylvia, he goes back to childhood, where he was abused by his father. And Sol is a physically healthy and handsome man, deprived by illness and an overly caring son of the right to a full life. Sol still somehow remembers the past, but what happened recently does not remain in his memory. He is almost always at home, unless he runs outside and, as a result, breaks his face. Meeting Sylvia, who by profession takes care of people with mental disabilities, changes everything. It turns out that dementia is not a barrier to love.

The laurels of “The Father” do not shine for Michel Franco. The success of his predecessor Florian Zeller, where the world is shown through the eyes of a man suffering from dementia, played by Anthony Hopkins, and where a strong duet was formed with Olivia Colman, cannot be repeated. Although the acting in “Memory” is excellent, the story itself is like molasses.

The festival has really faded in the last two days. Many of his guests and representatives of the film business left. It is generally accepted that this is connected with the beginning of the largest industrial film festival in Toronto. However, not everyone went there together. It’s just been the way it’s been arranged in Venice for years that shock forces and high-profile premieres (which doesn’t mean the best) occur in the first half.

So it was this time. One of these hyped premieres is “Priscilla” by Sofia Coppola, based on the book “Elvis and Me” by Elvis Presley’s wife Priscilla, who came to the festival as part of the film crew. Her daughter, singer Lisa Marie Presley, recently died. She was married for a time to Nicolas Cage, and he is the nephew of the American director of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola, and the cousin of Sofia Coppola. That’s how it all came together. Sofia Coppola wrote and directed a sweet-as-candy movie about a Barbie named Priscilla. Elvis Presley was played by handsome Jake Elordi, Priscilla – Cailee Spaeny, who so far looked timid on the star path. But Elordi drove schoolgirls crazy, who shed tears when he signed autographs for them and allowed them to take selfies together.

Not long ago, the film “Elvis” by Baz Luhrmann was released with Austin Butler in the title role, where the artistic career of the king of rock and roll, his relationship with the producer, and all his addictions were shown in detail. Priscilla liked the picture, but it was time for her version. In her book, she described her childhood, meeting Elvis, and their family life. Her stepfather was a US Air Force officer, and the family moved from one military base to another. In Germany, where her stepfather served, in 1959, 14-year-old Priscilla met Elvis, who served in an armored division. The army leadership tried to use his name to popularize military service. However, Presley chose to go through it normally. Soon he left Germany, and two years later the timid nymphet came to him in the USA. It’s amazing that her patriarchal family allowed her to do this. Already there Priscilla graduated from school, and then they got married. The story of this union itself is amazing, and on the screen it is one step away from vulgarity. Sometimes you don’t understand why you need to stir up the biographies of great people, so as not to say anything in the end. Coppola made a movie for little girls, where there is no passion and sex, just bright pictures. The most interesting thing is that there is no music in it.

Another biopic that didn’t work out is Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” – about the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, whom the director himself played, tritely imitating genius. Cooper constantly rolls his eyes, and looking at him, you can only think about the false nose that caused so much noise even before the film was released. Bernstein’s family defended Cooper’s nose, but strangely accepted the way their father’s intimate life was portrayed. As in Coppola’s film, where Presley does not sing, his compositions were practically dispensed with. Privacy comes first. .

Behind the noise around this kind of opus, other paintings remained in the shadows, which the jury will surely notice. “Evil Does Not Exist” by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who won an Oscar for the film “Take the Wheel of My Car,” talks about new construction near a patriarchal village that can destroy the forest and lead to the disappearance of deer. Residents meet with developers, but their strengths are far from equal. The Japanese are absolute aliens, and they are able to talk about the simplest things so metaphorically and figuratively as no one else can do. Everyone can make guesses after seeing with their own eyes the missing girl and the deer on the forest path. They are the natural force of the Earth, and all the destructive efforts of man will not be able to change the course of life in its global dimension.