“Wild Horse Nine” is the Golden Lion – right now! We prefer Herzog to Clooney

All our admiration—and not just today—goes to Martin McDonagh. The Irishman won our hearts with ‘Fuckin’ Belgium Fuckin’ Bruges’, muttered by Colin Farrell in response to Brendan Gleeson inviting him to visit Bruges. He was a Dublin gangster in Belgium after getting himself into a bit of a mess at work – when you’re killing people, you can’t get the wrong person. Then came “Three Billboards”, followed by the banshees in “The Banshees of Inisherin”. We expected nothing less. “Wild Horse Nine” is a masterpiece of screenwriting, entertainment and comic audacity, as well as acting: the odd couple formed by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, CIA agents stationed in Santiago shortly before the coup in Chile, never miss a beat. Not even in the skit about gay people and democracy – and this is 1973.

They are spending a week on Easter Island, among the statues—which, for the sake of political correctness, are called ‘moai’, as the locals say. It appears to be a reward trip; John Malkovich is no longer entirely in his right mind—he spots two young women and immediately blurts out, ‘We’re from the CIA’. Sam Rockwell acts as his carer, keeper of secrets, confidant and the person tasked – as if there were any need – with carrying out his last wishes. The date is no mere pretext, and in the meantime the old spy confides all the dirty work he’s done to a mini-recorder, whilst his boss, Steve Buscemi, trembles. A Golden Lion straight away; he’s already got the other awards at home.

As expected – this is what happens when only two women are entered in competition, and one of them turns out to be the controversial case at the end of the Festival (need I say ‘Gaza’?) – all the talk at the Lido is of this major snub. Alina Marazzi, for example – who ended up in the ‘Orizzonti’ competition, let’s call it the second division without hiding behind terms like ‘experimentation’ or ‘new languages’ – could easily have been in the running for the Golden Lion with her biopic about Gerda Taro and Robert Capa, the photographers in love in Paris. The narrative then shifts to the Spanish Civil War, where Taro died, and her photographs later ended up at the Magnum agency, mixed with those of her boyfriend. The director draws inspiration from Helena Janeczek’s novel La ragazza con la Leica (Feltrinelli). She is not the only one; this year, many Italian directors at the Festival are very ‘bookish’ and struggle to tie things together. Even the film about Gerda Taro – in the same section is Edoardo Gabriellini’s La città dei vivi, based on Nicola La Gioia’s Strega Prize-winning novel – falters in its conclusion, which feels drawn out and muddled.

George Clooney was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. His acceptance speech – if not that of a future President of the United States – was that of a noble father. To his colleagues, the audience, and even his twin sons: from now on, he will simply be an actor so as not to spend too much time away from home. We prefer the old-school approach, embodied by Werner Herzog, who journeyed to the Amazon and, on a dare, ate a shoe (boiled with spices and duck fat). At the Venice Film Festival, the German director is presenting "Bucking Fastards", the story of twin sisters who speak in perfect synchrony—throughout the entire film, a real tour de force. They make the same gestures and even have the same dreams. In love with the same man—their neighbour, who takes advantage of the situation to sleep with both of them, one on this side and the other on that—we see them in court at the start of the film. When he announces he’s getting married to a third girl, the two of them set fire to his car. A mad story inspired by two real sisters from Yorkshire: Greta and Freda, whose surname was Chaplin. Fortunately for us, there are still some people who haven’t lost their grit. Werner Herzog is 20 years older than Mr Clooney – he turns 84 on 5 September – and he was rejected by Cannes.