When Challengers was initially announced as the opening film of the 80th Venice Film Festival, it felt like an absolute no-brainer. For such an anniversary edition, ideally you’d get a filmmaker from the home country to do the honors and Luca Guadagnino might well be the most popular Italian director working on the global stage right now. As a first taste of the program, the film selected should preferably have some zest to get people excited. And let’s just say it doesn’t hurt to have Zendaya on your big red carpet.
Well, when the SAG strike put a stop to that dream scenario, the replacement chosen by the festival isn’t quite the obvious pick. Directed and co-written by Edoardo De Angelis, Comandante is a WWII maritime drama that doesn’t shout sexy or star power. It’s a sturdily made, angelically minded film that gets the job done even if – for its old-fashioned subject matter and storytelling – it likely won’t excite a large part of the opening night audience. And the aspect of the story that may have sealed the deal for its status bump might prove moving or off-putting, depending on who you talk to.
The film centers on marine officer Salvatore Todaro (Pierfrancesco Favino) who’s in charge of the submarine Cappellini of the Italian Royal Navy. From the start we’re made to see that Todaro is a reluctant soldier, more a “man at sea” than a “man at war”. When his ship returns fire at an unknown enemy and sinks what turns out to be the Belgian vessel Kabalo, he decides to save the Belgian crew by bringing them on board and taking them to a safe location. Despite the sabotage attempt by some of the Belgian guests and the real risk of being struck down by a British warship, Todaro persists and brings all 26 men to safety, a selfless deed that finally gets the big-screen treatment.
So this is a very Italian story that shines a light on a dark chapter of the country’s history. Its Italian-ness, complete with post-film title cards that round out the bio of a compassionate hero, may have earned it the opener distinction but I, for one, feel slightly uneasy about a narrative that glorifies one individual while dancing around a whole fascist regime. The lack of historical context aside, De Angelis’ direction is moodily efficient. He communicates a sense of existential crisis in the film’s first hour leading up to the Kabalo incident. The tension surrounding the face-off with the British navy is also successfully conveyed. Not sure if this needs to be in competition but, as the first film out of the gate, it’s painlessly diverting enough.
Now if you are to see one festival opener by an Italian filmmaker today, I’d recommend checking out Tommaso Santambrogio’s debut feature Oceans Are the Real Continents, which kick-starts the Venice sidebar Giornate degli Autori. Shot in glorious black and white, it tells the stories of three generations of Cubans who are either leaving or left behind, and announces the arrival of a formidable filmmaking talent.
Alex and Edith are a young couple who seem passionately in love, except her dreams as a performer seem too big for the place she’s born into. Milagros is an old lady who spends her days cleaning the house and reading ancient letters she keeps finding. Or maybe she never lost them to begin with? Frank and Alain are two 9-year-old boys who have the best time horsing around the neighborhood, but one of them may already know their perfect little world won’t last much longer. The characters from the three narrative strands are not directly related except they all live in San Antonio, Cuba. They walk the same dilapidated streets and get hit by the same torrential rains. In switching his focus from one part of town to the next and back again, Santambrogio weaves together a beautifully naturalistic portrait of melancholy that packs true emotional punch.
It might take a beat for the casual viewer to find the groove with this deliberately, instinctively paced film, which only seems to collect scattered impressions of everyday life at first. The boys play baseball, the couple make love, the old lady reads one more letter and goes sit at the train station. There’s no attempt to connect them through plot and yet something more visceral and genuine is found in these moments that evoke or become memory. When Alex writes Edith at the end of the film, you feel his longing, his loneliness, his fear of being forgotten with the weight of someone who’s lived through this relationship. When Milagros reads the final letter and breaks down in tears, your heart aches as you realize everything that’s unexplained.
My favorite shot of the film is one that catches Frank overhearing his mother talking about plans of moving away. The camera zones in on the boy’s innocent profile as he takes in this piece of life-changing news. Again, Santambrogio feels no need to explicitly address what it means for the character, but the pathos within this frame can hardly be contained.
Lensed by Lorenzo Casadio Vannucci who captures an incredible sense of place through his crisp, evocative images and edited by Matteo Faccenda who somehow makes you forget you’re constantly jumping between stories, Oceans Are the Real Continents is a dazzling film to look at and – better yet – to lose yourself in. Now, basking in the afterglow of having seen such a treat, #Venezia80 can officially begin.