In Venice, ‘Un bon petit soldat’: Stéphane Briz’s great moral lesson

The starkness of the staging complements the extremely harsh tone the film adopts in certain scenes, particularly when the company’s CEO – played by an excellent Vincent Lindon, who is also superb in the role of an extremely unsympathetic character – is on screen.

Alba Rohrwacher is also outstanding in one of the most intense roles of her career: as in *Le occasioni dell’amore*, the Italian actress reaches truly remarkable heights of acting when directed by Brizé and is a strong contender for the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress. What is certain is that a film like *Un bon petit soldat* deserves a place on the final list of winners, and we hope the official jury agrees.

The competition programme also featured the highly anticipated “DAU”, a film directed by the Russian dissident Ilya Khrzhanovsky, whose participation in Venice had been contested by the Ukrainian government a few weeks before the festival began.

It should be emphasised, however, that this new feature film forms part of a massive multidisciplinary project, conceived by the director himself and straddling the worlds of cinema, art and anthropology.

The first screenings took place in 2019 and subsequently involved various museums and festivals (two feature-length films were included in the programme at the 2020 Berlinale) featuring a vast amount of footage in which the actors and actresses were involved in a sort of Big Brother-style experiment, where they remained in character throughout the entire filming period. As the director himself pointed out, the film presented in Venice is ‘the result of over twenty years’ work: a work that brings together footage shot fifteen years ago and recent scenes in a cinematic experience that is only possible today’.

Inspired by the physicists (in particular Lev Landau) who contributed to the development of the Soviet atomic bomb, “Dau” follows the journey of a brilliant physicist of Greek origin who arrived in the Soviet Union in 1928, through four decades of upheaval. Driven by a desire to uncover the laws of the universe, the idealist Dau is called upon to serve the state in creating one of the deadliest weapons in history. In a secret research institute, life is governed by scientific ambition, power, surveillance and privilege. As his personal freedom dwindles, Dau seeks a form of liberation elsewhere, outside his marriage, through a series of relationships, ultimately losing sight of himself and his capacity to love.

‘DAU’ is a film you either love or hate; it is easier to understand and interpret if you have already had the chance to explore the overall project in depth, but in some respects it is also a standalone film that follows the development of a genius, who is, however, oppressed by a power that allows him no freedom of choice.

Khrzhanovsky depicts the degeneration (not coincidentally the title of an earlier film in the project) of a man in his private life, who is unable to defend his values without compromising, and of a society founded on violence and ideology.

In places, the film feels a little repetitive and there are a few lulls in the second half, but the overall vision is powerful and there are several superbly crafted sequences, starting with a scene featuring a fire in a tower that is even reminiscent of the cinema of a giant such as Andrei Tarkovsky.

The Venice Film Festival was bold to include this film in the competition, but the decision proved to be a winning one.