Woody Allen sang in Venice the delights of betrayal

The 87-year-old classic came to the film festival with his new and, possibly, last picture

Dozens of fans waited for the boat with Woody Allen on the island of Lido, who stood on the pier for several hours. At the 80th Venice Film Festival, an American classic, and now a wanderer, persecuted in his homeland as a rapist and seducer, came with a new painting, The Great Irony (Lucky Chance). In the evening, the fans chanted “Woody, Woody!” at the star track before the premiere.

The urban neurotic, as he calls himself, is 87 years old, and he vaguely stated that, apparently, this is his last and 50th film in a row. Allen is a professional long-liver. Rarely does anyone at such a mature age make a movie filled with energy. We remember other examples when the Portuguese classic Manuel de Oliveira came to Venice, and he was about 100 years old. Woody Allen is a potential long-liver not only in the movies. He has good genetics. Mom lived for almost a century, her father outlived her. Woody Allen once said that family roots should be sought in St. Petersburg.

His previous film, The Rifkin Festival, premiered at the 2020 San Sebastian Film Festival. Then she was positioned almost as the 56th in his track record. But these are the little things in life, because many of Allen’s worthy colleagues have 5-6 paintings. And he is prolific and could take off more if he could easily find funding. And now they helped in France, and the film was shot in Paris, with French actors.

As always, the film is short – just over an hour and a half. During this time, you can say everything, if you, of course, Woody Allen. Sometimes it seems that a park bench is enough for him to make a movie and talk about the main thing, to give the viewer hope and faith that every moment is priceless.

It would seem that this is an old-fashioned comedy about nothing, stuffed with minor events. 30-year-old Fanny, played by Lou de Laage, is a successful woman. She has an interesting job in the auction house, a caring and respectable husband – Melville Puro Allen’s acting abilities worked out luxuriously. Fanny has no material problems, except that the lack of true love and romance makes itself felt. She accidentally meets on the street an ardent classmate (Niels Schneider), whom she has not seen almost since her school years spent in New York. He became a writer, and in their youth, as it turned out, he was crazy about her. The Parisian romance begins with an innocent meeting in the park at lunchtime. Eating sandwiches together will turn into serious events. The husband will feel something is wrong and will begin to act.

Woody Allen filmed about the delights of betrayal, but the result was a satire, a sentence to the bourgeois world. It is impossible to predict each subsequent step. People think one thing, but life gives them something completely different.

Woody Allen spoke about his own life in Venice as a series of luck. Everything was fine with him: his parents loved him, he was a little sick, he has a loving wife and children. At the same time, Allen is accused of seducing a young adopted daughter, who became his wife back in 1997. Korean Soon-Yi Previn constantly accompanies her “rapist” at festivals. In the wake of MeToo, not all countries are ready to show the new film by Woody Allen.