Venice Review: Francesco Carrozzini’s ‘The Hanging Sun’

—or rather, it's more like an interpretation of the movie star's life. Based on a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the film is a that mixes real life and fantasy. Of course, some of the biographical elements in the movie are based on fact—including her relationships with high-profile men like baseball star Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, and a president.

Guy Lodge Film Critic In the little-remembered 1950 noir “The Damned Don’t Cry,” Joan Crawford plays a Texan housewife whose grief for her late son spurs her to make a new life for herself in the urban underworld. Fyzal Boulifa’s exquisite new film of the same title is named expressly for that Crawford vehicle, but is neither a remake nor a direct homage. Rather, it remixes the narrative components of that film and others of its ilk into the kind of new-school-old-school heart-tugger — one might say tearjerker if its characters weren’t, true to its title, stoically dry-eyed throughout — that might have been designed for the shoulder-padded diva were she alive in 2022 and, perhaps more crucially, of Moroccan heritage. 

Jessica Kiang It’s kept deliberately vague where precisely Italian music-video director Francesco Carrozzini has set his feature debut, an adaption of the Jo Nesbø bestseller novel “Midnight Sun,” which closed a prestige-laden Venice Film Festival on an improbable note. One leans toward, maybe, Norway? But it could be Iceland or Greenland or any one of those far-flung, fjordy locales that usually turn out to belong to Denmark. It’s not like the language cues help: The dialogue is in English and the grand, windswept coastal landscapes are carefully scrubbed of signage that might, by so much as a single ‘ø,’ betray their provenance. The actors’ nationalities are less use still. Headlined by Italy’s Alessandro Borghi (“The Eight Mountains”), the rest of the cast is stacked with UK talent (Charles Dance, Peter Mullan, Jessica Brown Findlay), though we do know for sure, by the way the sun never sets and the mood is set firmly to “Nordic despair,” that we’re definitely not in either of those countries. Not to worry: Even without understanding exactly where we are, “The Hanging Sun” will feel familiar as a pair of worn-in pyjamas to anyone who has switched on a TV in the last decade. Because really, we’re in Scandiland, an amalgam location of every movie and television show from the recent “Scandi-noir” wave, a place sinister with secrets, seasonal affective disorders and Sarah Lund sweaters. 

Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern hit the red carpet together for the premiere of their new movie, The Son, during the 2022 Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 7) in Venice, Italy.

Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern are stepping out at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.

Caylee Cowan waves at the cameras after arriving at the airport with Casey Affleck in Venice, Italy on Tuesday (September 6).

Myrmecology is a study of science that looks at the life, society, and hierarchy of Ants. Early Myrmecologists believed that Ant culture was utopian and thought by studying them in encased Ant farms, they could find solutions to human problems. However, in Gianni Amelio’s Italian post-WWII drama, The Lord of the Ants (Il Signore Delle Formiche), flips this idea around. It examines why strict societies foster cultures of oppression where everyone must play their role or be punished. The screenplay by Amelio, Federico Fava, and Edoardo Petti chooses its dialogue with precision. They want us to know they resent post-Mussolini Europe and how not just homosexuals but anyone on the margins is oppressed under fascist rule. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed distribution deals for Italy and Greece following the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The Israeli-Ukrainian co-production plays in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, and will have its North American premiere on Sept. 14 at Toronto Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Rome-based P.F.A Films Srl will distribute the film in Italy, with a theatrical release planned for April 2023. The company’s recent titles include “Fabian – Going to the Dogs” by Dominik Graf, “The Audition” by Ina Weisse, and “Border” by Abbasi Ali.

The phrase “Joanna Hogg’s Shutter Island” is not a line that many critics expect to bust out in their lifetimes, but with her sixth feature the British director has made a fascinating foray into genre cinema that, while firmly in keeping with the rest of her quasi-autobiographical works, makes a surprising departure from the upper-middle-class realism of her signature film The Souvenir.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Francesco Zippel’s Sergio Leone doc, which premieres on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, is the first portrait of the Italian master made with full support of his children Raffaella and Andrea. Titled “Sergio Leone: The Man Who Invented America,” the high-profile doc is premiering in the Venice Classics section for docs on cinema. It features an impressive list of voices holding forth on what makes Leone special for them. Among these are: Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Giuseppe Tornatore, Frank Miller, Darren Aronofsky, Damien Chazelle and Robert De Niro (see clip). But aside from Leone’s visionary talent as a director what emerges is that as his career escalated from the so-called “Dollars Trilogy” to “Once Upon a Time in the West” through to his final masterpiece, “Once Upon a Time in America,” Leone’s life was steeped in two inextricably linked passions: film and family. 

An eccentric 20-something tries to make friends in Amanda, a first feature for Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli. Premiering in Venice’s Horizons Extra section, it’s a comical, stylized character portrait with a strong central turn from Benedetta Porcaroli. 

Florence Pugh had the best red carpet date at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere – her grandmother, Pat!

Florence Pugh made a sparkling statement on the 79th Venice International Film Festival red carpet on Monday. The actress is in Italy for the premiere of Olivia Wilde's forthcoming film  where Pugh stars opposite Harry Styles. Pugh brought her grandmother as her date for the premiere, and the two walked the red carpet in perfect style.

Ana de Armas steals a kiss from boyfriend Paul Boukadakis as they catch a water taxi to their hotel in Venice, Italy.

Florence Pugh looks so stunning at the premiere of Don’t Worry Darling during the 2022 Venice International Film Festival on Monday (September 5) in Venice, Italy

Harry Styles shows off his sharp fashion style on the red carpet at the premiere of Don’t Worry Darling during the 2022 Venice International Film Festival on Monday (September 5) in Venice, Italy

Even before the title flashes up for Venice Film Festival competition entry L’Immensita, we know that Penelope Cruz is the most fun mom – most likely the only fun mom – in town. She doesn’t just set the table for dinner; she puts on music, leads the kids in a choreographed dance and singalong as they pass plates and cutlery, emoting into a passing fork as if it were a microphone. Adults bore her. At a birthday dinner for an ancient relative, she slips under the table to join her children in removing and mixing up everyone’s shoes. “I want to play!” she says, eyes gleaming.

Who would have thought that, of all the top-shelf auteurs in Venice’s big comeback year, the most constrained would be Darren Aronofsky? His new competition film The Whale opens with that very intent — the screen is cropped to 1:33 — which turns out to be most appropriate for a small and intimate movie about a very big man.

Though it sets out on a ghost hunt, Adrian Sibley’s fitfully fascinating documentary works better as an exploration of its subject’s public and private personas, charting Richard Harris’ rise from local sports star to screen legend via an unexpected heyday as a chart-topping pop star in 1968.

A lesbian gym teacher navigates Margaret Thatcher’s Britain under the “Section 28” law in Blue Jean, Georgia Oakley’s debut feature premiering in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival.