'Orphan', the search for lost identity in an intense coming-of-age story

Nemes had made his feature film debut in 2015 with 'Son of Saul', still his best work and by far one of the most powerful first works of the last decade.

If that case depicted a concentration camp at the time of the Second World War, 'Orphan' follows the period immediately after, then focuses on 1957 Budapest. After the uprising against the communist regime, the world of Andor, a Jewish boy raised by his mother with idealised narratives about his deceased father, is turned upside down when a brutal man who claims to be his real father shows up.

Once again Nemes chooses a story that can serve as a metaphor for the turmoil and drama of the 20th century in the heart of Europe: in 'Sunset' he spoke of the moments before the outbreak of the First World War, whereas in this case he focuses on the traumas of the past and on those ghosts of wartime conflicts that have not left the memory of those who survived.

There is undoubtedly a line of content in the work of Nemes, an author who continues to reflect on the themes of blood ties, parent-child relationships and, more generally, around the identity of individuals who act as emblematic figures of decidedly more universal and collective processes.

If, compared to his previous works, there are a few moments of tiredness in the latter, there is no doubt about Nemes's great ability to deliver powerful sequences thanks to very elegant photographic choices: the play of light and camera movements are studied throughout the more than two-hour duration, resulting in a product that is at times too difficult but nonetheless endowed with great charm.

One can find references to the cinema of Roberto Rossellini, and 'Germania anno zero' in particular, in this extremely dramatic work that has its best moment in the finale.

The result is an experience not for everyone, but rewarding for those in search of a cinema that still believes in the power of images and sound.

An even more complex film is 'Director's Diary', a documentary that soon turns into a personal diary of Aleksandr Sokurov, the Russian author and one of the most important directors of recent decades.

Author of masterpieces such as 'Mother and Child' (1997) and 'Russian Ark' (2002), Sokurov was awarded the Golden Lion in Venice in 2011 with the beautiful 'Faust', the last chapter of the tetralogy he dedicated to power.

Instead, his new film is entered out of competition this year, and it could not be otherwise given its approximately five hours (!) total duration.

The vision is composed of a chronology describing the second half of the 20th century, basically leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, filtered through the eyes of its author: it can be described as a kind of spiritual biography of the director against the backdrop of thousands of faces of an immense country and thousands of events in the pulsating life of the entire globe. It talks about historical facts, the changes that took place in the Soviet Union during those years, but also about cinema with many references to the films that were released during that period.

The film is admittedly extremely challenging and some passages may be didactic, but it remains a truly valuable, multi-layered work and it is curious to witness the personal diary of one of the great filmmakers of contemporary Russian cinema