Venice: All the Days

Training work has kept me too busy to blog, but there is a lot going on: I saw two movies in the Mostra, BLACK SWAN and SLEEPING BEAUTY, recorded a podcast with Rob Beames, and have been meeting the new trainees from the CICAE workshops. BLACK SWAN is, in my view, Darren Arronofsky's first masterpiece. He blends the techniques from REQUIEM FOR A DREAM with the narrative drive of THE WRESTLER to create a mind-blowing experience, a total cinematic event that will not leave my head. Superb from beginning to start, I really can't think of a flaw. A perfectly constructed and realised piece of work, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hit in the UK< and gathered some Oscar nominations (specially for Natalie Portman, who is at her career best).
Last night we saw Catherine Breillat's SLEEPING BEAUTY, which was an embarrassing mess of a movie (made worse by the director's presence in the Sala Darsena) which starts off as a funny, quirky take on the fairy tale and about 15 minutes in jumps the boat with so many ludicrous and poorly acted turns that we all were checking our clocks to see when the 82 minute disaster would finally and mercifully come to an end.

You can read all of Rob's coverage at the Picturehouse Blog, his own blog and at Obsessed With Film. You can also listen to our special Venice podcast on itunes her, and on the Picturehouse website here.