About monsters

More than a genre or a character, Frankenstein and its myth function almost as a cinematic hypertext: after Whale, Branagh, the Hammer films, and countless variations, Guillermo del Toro’s version competes this year (he won the Golden Lion in 2017 for The Shape of Water), with Oscar Isaac in the title role, Jacob Elordi as the Creature, and Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, and Lars Mikkelsen. Lars is the older brother of Mads Mikkelsen (the extraordinary Bastarden, Venice 80), the prince of Danish actors, who we will also see out of competition in The Last Viking by Anders Thomas Jensen, a very dark comedy about two brothers hunting for a “forgotten” treasure. In Competition, we also find Gianfranco Rosi (Golden Lion in 2013 with Sacro GRA) with his new Vesuvian documentary Below the Clouds, as well as the documentary – though stylistically hybridized with fiction – Broken English (Out of Competition) by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, featuring Tilda Swinton and George MacKay, dedicated to singer Marianne Faithfull, who passed away last January.
Mysterious and isolated atmospheres, sometimes overtly horror, also permeate Rose of Nevada (Orizzonti) by Mark Jenkin, where a boat seems to travel through time, and out of competition in Paolo Strippoli’s The Valley of Smiles (A Classic Horror Story, Piove), starring Michele Riondino, shot in Tarvisio, imagining a village whose inhabitants display a strange, unnatural happiness. In Orizzonti, Kent Jones’ Late Fame, adapted from a story by Arthur Schnitzler, features Willem Dafoe as an elderly poet rediscovered. Also Out of Competition, series take off with episodes 1-4 of Un prophète by Enrico Maria Artale, while difficult coming-of-age stories appear in the SIC section, with Ish by British director Imran Perretta and in the Venice Days with Short Summer by Nastia Korkia.