The must-see films that won at the Venice Film Festival.
“A pigeon sat on a branch, thinking about existence” (2014)
Roy Andersson’s unique psychological film is short excerpts and sketches from the lives of different people. Unlucky traveling salesmen named Sam and Jonathan are engaged in selling all kinds of amazing and unnecessary things.
They desperately try to give unlucky buyers vampire fangs, masks and bags of laughter, explaining that they want to give people fun. The boys travel around the world and systematically witness the most diverse and unusual situations that help them understand all the beauty and fragility of this world and what is really important and valuable.
“The Year of the Calm Sun” (1985)
One of the best works of Krzysztof Zanussi, subtle, intelligent, but a little sad, like a post-war Polish autumn, against the background of which a far from young man and woman are nailing each other.
The war ended, Poland was liberated from the Germans, the American Norman arrives in the country to investigate wartime crimes. Here he meets Emilia, a forty-year-old Polish woman, and she turns to Norman for help. A common cause brings two people closer together, the American feels sincere sympathy for the kind, charming Polish woman, and takes touching care of her. Their love is born gradually, but happiness does not last long.
“Three Colors: Blue” (1993)
The film is part of a trilogy, where each picture in a philosophical manner illustrates one of the mottos of France. Blue is the first color on the flag of the republic, symbolizing freedom.
Julie Vignon-de-Courcy, along with her husband and daughter, gets into an accident. The woman manages to survive. Hardly coping with the loss of her family, Julie takes a long time to recover from physical injuries. Her mental state is also deplorable, in a moment of despair she even thinks about suicide.
Having overcome the first wave of the crisis, the heroine tries to give up the past, to find some freedom from things and memories. She lives in a Parisian apartment and keeps communication with people to a minimum. However, former connections and secrets gradually make themselves known.
“Circle” (2000)
The film directed by Jafar Panahi is based on small stories from the everyday life of modern Persian women who experience discrimination based on their gender.
One of them learns that her daughter has given birth to a girl and fears for the future of her family; another has just been released from prison and has no money for a ticket to her native village, and besides, a trip without a husband can end badly. All the stories intersect, but only in small details, thereby forming a circle.
“The Return” (2003)
The first directorial work of Andriy Zvyagintsev tells about the mysterious journey of a strange man and his two teenage sons, who have never seen him before. For as long as they can remember, Vanya and Andrii lived with their mother, who once told them that their father was a pilot.
But on one ordinary Monday, dad appears at their house and takes the brothers on a hike to a small island in the middle of a forest lake. The boys do not understand what is happening, but blindly follow a man they know only from an old photograph.
“Humpback Mountain” (2005)
An American melodrama directed by Ang Lee about a love affair between two cowboys, which is considered “the first gay Western in the history of cinema.” The scenario was based on the novel of the same name by the writer Annie Prue.
The action of the film takes place against the background of the beautiful spaces of the state of Wyoming. A rancher’s assistant and a rodeo cowboy meet by chance and realize that they can’t even imagine their future lives without each other. In the film, there is an easy interweaving of the tender and at the same time romantic destinies of the main participants.
“Vicious Connection” (2007)
The film tells about the events that began in Shanghai. The period of the Second World War, people are immersed in nervous experiences. No one knows how the confrontation will end. One married couple hosted the wife’s friend. It would seem that people should think about saving humanity, but the main character cannot turn his attention away from the girl who came to visit them.
Neither the age difference, nor the fact that this is a close friend of his wife, nothing can affect the fatal passion. There was already a spark between them. But the mistress is not so simple, she has her own plans for the future. The further, the deeper the hero falls into the nets set by the lady.
“The Wrestler” (2008)
The picture tells about the personality crisis of former wrestling star Randy Robinson. The events of the film take place at the beginning of the 21st century, twenty years after the start of the main character’s rise to fame. With age, Randy Robinson loses his former popularity, gradually turning into an ordinary wrestler, receiving penny fees for fights.
He rents an old trailer, for which he has not paid anything for several months. Interrupted by odd jobs, dragging bags in the warehouse. After another fight, Randy feels strangely unwell. The doctors tell him the tragic news: the last battle may be decisive for him.
“Lebanon” (2009)
In the center of the painting “Lebanon” is a tank crew, whose members were tasked with providing fire cover for the infantry and clearing the city of enemy forces.
But a simple, at first glance, mission turns into real hell very soon. Right in front of the eyes of the tankers actually walled up in the armored car, their comrades die one by one. Having long lost control over the situation and obeying only the instinct of self-preservation, the boys desperately try not to lose themselves, finding themselves in the very hell of a terrible and incomprehensible slaughter.
“Pieta” (2012)
A lonely 30-year-old Kang Do, characterized by cruelty and cold-bloodedness, lives by extorting money from his boss’s debtors in any way possible. But, one day, one of his victims was to become a woman, and everything would have gone as usual if she had not declared that she was his mother.
He decides not to take the last piece of bread from this mysterious woman. She begins to give Kang Do the motherly love he never had. In Kang Do, deep feelings flare up, the brightness of the soul is revealed. Mother and son return lost moments. This continues until the moment when the woman suddenly disappears.