Two movies about the Iraq war and its impact on Americans back home are among 22 competition entries at the Venice Film Festival this year, lending political weight to a cinema showcase laden with Hollywood productions.
Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon, is the eagerly anticipated film based on the real-life murder of a young soldier who returned to the United States from Iraq.
It is up against Brian De Palma's Redacted, which tells the story of a US army unit that persecutes an Iraqi family and also examines the way media cover the conflict.
Commentators said the speed with which events in Iraq are making it to the big screen reflected Hollywood's general opposition to the conflict and the technological advances that make film-making faster. But some preferred to wait.
"What is coming out now works with an immediate emotional impact, but I'm really interested in what's going to come out (on the Iraq war) in 15 years' time or so," said Jay Weissberg, a critic with trade publication Variety.
Meanwhile China has three films in competition; Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises, Ang Lee's joint US production Lust, Caution, and Taiwan-based Lee Kang Sheng's Help Me Eros.
Also tackling topical issues in Venice are Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney as a fixer who does a major corporation's dirty work, Italy's Il Dolce e L'Amaro about the mafia, and Egypt's Heya Fawda investigating police brutality.
The annual festival on the Lido waterfront, which opens on Wednesday and ends on September 8, is a key showcase of arthouse cinema and an early marker ahead of the Oscars in February.
Ang Lee's BrokebackMountain won the festival's Golden Lion for best film in 2005, and went on to garner eight Oscar nominations. The long list of stars expected on the red carpet this year will be hoping to generate a similar early buzz.
Six competition films are listed as US productions and four as British, giving this year's festival an unusually strong English-language flavor.
"There is a great feast for more independent side of Anglo-Saxon cinema, but there are also some major absences from the rest of the world," said Lee Marshall, a film critic with Screen International, of the Venice lineup.
He argued that South America, southern Africa and some parts of Asia appeared to be under-represented in the main Venice competition as well as the series of sidebar selections.
The other US productions in competition are The Darjeeling Limited starring Owen Wilson and Bill Murray, The Assassination of Jesse Jamesby the Coward Robert Ford with Brad Pitt and I'm Not There, in which Cate Blanchett is unusually cast as singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
Britain's four entries include opening film Atonement, based on Ian McEwan's acclaimed novel and starring Keira Knightley, and Kenneth Branagh's Sleuth, a remake of the 1972 thriller based on a screenplay by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.
And Lee is back with a Chinese-language World War II spy thriller Lust, Caution.
Big out-of-competition names this year include Woody Allen, Colin Farrell, Richard Gere and Scarlett Johansson.
USdirector Tim Burton will also be honored with a lifetime achievement award.
(China Daily 08/27/2007 page 10)
Questions:
1. What are the titles of the two movies about the current US involvement in Iraq?
2. The films are competing in which international film festival?
3. In the Valley of Ellah deals with what event?
4. In the upcoming film, I’m Not There, Cate Blanchette will play which American singer-songwriter?
Answers:
1. In the Valle of Elah and Redacted.
2. Venice Film Festival.
3. The murder of a US soldier who returned from Iraq.
4. Bob Dylan.
（英语点津 Linda 编辑）
About the broadcaster:
Jonathan Stewart is a media and journalism expert from the United States with four years of experience as a writer and instructor. He accepted a foreign expert position with chinadaily.com.cn in June 2007 following the completion of his Master of Arts degree in International Relations and Comparative Politics.
