Venice Film Festival: ‘Pieta’ and ‘The Master’ Come Up Winners

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Fittingly for a festival where about half the titles in the official competition had religious themes, the 69th Venice Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden Lion, to “Pieta”, a mother-and-son drama with a sadistic streak from the prolific Korean director Kim Ki-duk. The film sharply divided critics — as do most of Mr. Kim’s confrontational movies — but it was deemed the best of the 18 competors by a jury led by the filmmaker Michael Mann. Other members of the jury included the actress Samantha Morton, the filmmakers Matteo Garrone and Pablo Trapero and the artist Marina Abramovic.

There was some confusion at the awards ceremony Saturday evening, at which the special jury prize and the Silver Lion for best director were apparently presented in the wrong order — and to the wrong people. A festival press release confirmed that the best director prize went to Paul Thomas Anderson for his hotly anticipated new film, “The Master.” The film’s leads, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix , shared the best actor prize. (Mr. Seymour Hoffman accepted both awards, his collaborators having already made their way to Toronto, the next stop on the festival circuit.)

 “The Master” was the only American winner this year, despite a competition stacked with American names; Terrence Malick, Brian DePalma, Harmony Korine and Ramin Bahrani were all shut out. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter , “The Master” would have won the Golden Lion but for a rule that prohibits any title from winning more than two major awards, requiring the jury to deliberate a second time.
The special jury prize went to “Paradise: Faith,” the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s darkly comic drama about a self-flagellating Roman Catholic woman married to a paraplegic Muslim. The film made headlines in Italy earlier this week when a Catholic organization accused the festival and the filmmakers of blasphemy — which has been decriminalized in Italy but is still punishable with a fine — citing a scene in which the protagonist masturbates with a crucifix. “Faith” is the second installment in Mr. Seidl’s “Paradise” trilogy on Christian virtues (and their perversions). The first, subtitled “Love” and about a sex tourist in Africa, had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival; the concluding part, “Hope,” about an overweight teenager at a weight-loss camp, is expected to be shown at the Berlin Film Festival next year.
Continuing the religious motif, the best actress prize went to Hadas Yaron, who plays a Hasidic teenager struggling with a difficult decision in the Israeli film “Fill the Void.” The French filmmaker Olivier Assayas picked up best screenplay for his autobiographical coming-of-age drama, “Something in the Air.”

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