Michael Mann’s Ferrari film gets pulses racing in Venice
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American actor Adam Driver (left) and director Michael Mann at the photo call for the movie Ferrari in Venice.
PHOTO: AFP
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VENICE – The race for the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion stepped up a gear on Thursday, with a widely praised biopic about sports car impresario Enzo Ferrari starring Adam Driver.
The latest from Michael Mann – known for stylised and glossy thrillers like Heat (1995), Collateral (2004) and Miami Vice (2006) – zooms in on a difficult period in the 1950s for the Italian mogul as he tries to keep his company and relationships afloat.
Driver gives a typically charismatic performance as the lead, alongside Penelope Cruz as his hard-nosed wife and business partner.
The film also delivers high-octane racing action, including one of the most shocking crashes put on screen.
There were some strong early reviews, with Variety calling it a “gripping and masterful drama” and The Hollywood Reporter saying “admirers of the director’s high-intensity, muscular film-making will not go unrewarded”.
American actor Driver is one of the few stars able to attend the Venice festival, the ongoing strike by Hollywood writers and actors.
Ferrari was given an exemption by the unions as it was made outside the studio system.
“We stand in total solidarity with the actors’ and writers’ guilds,” American director Mann told reporters in Venice.
Driver said: “Why is it that smaller distribution companies like Neon and STX International (which funded Ferrari) can meet the dream demands of what (the Screen Actors Guild) is asking for... when big companies like Netflix and Amazon can’t?”
Pinochet the vampire
Venice also saw the premiere of Netflix film El Conde, a biting satire that reimagines Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher as bloodthirsty vampires.
It is directed by Chile’s Pablo Larrain, known for biopics of former United States first lady Jackie Kennedy (Jackie, 2016) and Princess Diana (Spencer, 2021).
He said the horror-comedy approach was the only way to tackle Pinochet, who oversaw a brutal regime of executions, torture and corruption between 1973 and 1990, and was a close ally of Thatcher.
“If you avoided the satire, it could easily take you to some form of empathy, and that’s not acceptable,” Larrain said.
It is one of several Netflix productions at the festival, which also include a short Roald Dahl adaptation from Wes Anderson, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, premiering on Friday, and David Fincher’s The Killer, with Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton, on Sunday.
There are 23 films competing for the Golden Lion at Venice, now in its 80th edition.
The world’s longest-running film festival has become a favoured launchpad for Oscar hopefuls in recent years.
But the strikes by actors and writers in Hollywood – primarily over pay in the streaming era and the threat of artificial intelligence – has caused several major stars including Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper to cancel their appearances.
Besson’s Dogman
Also premiering at the festival on Thursday is Dogman by French director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, 1997; Leon, 1994).
The tale of an abused boy finding refuge with a pack of dogs and a drag show is said to feature a standout performance from Caleb Landry Jones, who won Best Actor at Cannes two years ago for Nitram, about a mass shooting in Australia.
Besson, 64, is hoping for a comeback after a massive flop with 2017’s Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, which all but bankrupted his production company, EuropaCorp.
The losses wiped out the fortune it had made with the Taken series and knocked Besson’s hopes of competing with the Hollywood behemoths.
He has also been fighting a rape allegation since 2018, which was finally thrown out by prosecutors in June. AFP
