Venice Dispatch – Joker: Folie à Deux / Harvest

Todd Phillips winning the Golden Lion in 2019 for Joker (from the jury chaired by Lucrecia Martel, no less) is probably still the biggest shock of my years covering film festivals. I did not see that coming at all. The film went on to gross over 1 billion dollars, received 11 Oscar nominations and won two. I’m not sure if the anticipated sequel can repeat that incredible success but I do appreciate that they didn’t coast on formula and tried something quite different this time around.

Premiering in competition, Joker: Folie à Deux takes place two years after the events of the first film. Arthur Fleck aka Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) is held in a corrections facility awaiting trial for the murder of five people. He’s a model inmate and, thanks to heavy medication, seems sedate, withdrawn. For his good behavior, he gets to join music therapy sessions where he meets Harley “Lee” Quinn (Lady Gaga), a fan of Joker who has lived a traumatic childhood herself. Feeling seen and in love, Arthur stops taking medication and the Joker in him starts to come out as the trial begins.

As suggested in the trailers, the film is a musical. There are at least a dozen sing-and-dance numbers throughout. I applaud the filmmaker’s audacity to commit to such an unlikely approach for a dark film like this. One can argue whether all the musical numbers (most of which are fantasy/dream sequences) succeed in terms of conception/execution, but it’s a great idea not only for its novelty but how it serves the main plotline of split personalities. The defense of Arthur’s attorney is that, in order to cope with the abuse in his life, he has invented the separate personality of Joker who is to blame for the murders. It’s not Arthur who committed the crimes. This theme of a repressed self is conveyed as early as the opening scene which is, somewhat surprisingly, an animated short about the Joker and his shadow.

Every time Arthur breaks out into a song, then, it really is showcasing his escape into a fantasy world with less scorn and horror. I’m particularly impressed the first time this happens, where the meek, emaciated Arthur suddenly lights up and dances through a room of prisoners with manic energy. Phoenix portrays this transformation well, and you can’t help feeling a bit sorry for his character when the song ends and he goes back to being the butt of everyone’s jokes. Gaga doesn’t have as much to work with (although her character has also re-invented herself in a certain way) but her Grammy-winning vocals do help propel the biggest set pieces to explosive heights.

My favorite moment in the film comes when Arthur is about to deliver the closing statements at his own murder trial. The judge reminds him that they’re not at a comedy club and he is not on stage. It’s real. For an extended beat the incriminated man, in full clown makeup, simply stares into the camera without speaking. In that moment Phillips and Phoenix managed to say something quite poignant about truth and performance in a crazy world that we don’t always understand. Which perhaps also explains why, over decades and different iterations, Joker has remained such a fascinating pop cultural icon.

Also premiering in competition is Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s English-language feature debut Harvest. Adapted from the award-winning novel by Jim Crace, it’s a nightmarish parable for the horrors of fascism, xenophobia and what happens when good people stand by and do nothing.

Set in a remote medieval village where a close-knit community leads an isolated, self-sustained existence, the story begins when three outsiders show up uninvited. Immediately suspicious of their intentions, the villagers chain the two men and cast out the woman with brute force. But peace is soon disturbed again when a new village master arrives to claim title and restore order to the land.

The film addresses timeless and, sadly, timely issues mostly through the eyes of Walter (Caleb Landry Jones), a gentle young man beloved among his fellow villagers. In Walter we have a hero who seems kind-hearted and open-minded. He has reservations about the treatment of the outsiders and, while others warn him about it, befriends the dark-skinned chart-maker commissioned by the master to map their land. Which doesn’t stop him from reminding the chart-maker of his otherness, however, having grown up with the sanctity of borders firmly instilled in him. He’s also prone to submit to authority and, when the new master begins a reign of terror that threatens the life of his friends, he freezes. In a similarly passive role, the viewer is asked to witness the aftermath.

Tsangari effectively created a surreal atmosphere surrounding the events as they escalate out of control. There’s a trance-like quality to the way things look and how the story unfolds that recalls Aronofsky’s Mother!. You get the sense of being trapped inside a bad dream and having no control over the madness happening around you. Contrasted with the idyllic village life portrayed at the beginning, the violence – both physical and psychological – that befalls the characters towards the end is quite shocking.

While the themes of inhumanity triggered by xenophobia and the complicity of bystanders may have been dealt with more inventively in films such as Lars von Trier’s Dogville, they are essential topics of our times. I’m glad that, in a visually striking if not-so-subtle manner, Harvest provided an unsettling update.