Feature: Venice Int'l Film Festival arouses reflection on WWI, WWII memory

World War I and World War II were an elegy for Europe here at the Venice International Film Festival running on Sept. 2-12, where two films presented this week drew attention to the two 20th century conflicts.

"There is a reflection on cultural roots taking place across Europe amid the ongoing global crises, and this film is an evidence of it," Marinella Pomarici, president of cultural association A Voce Alta (With a Loud Voice), , told Xinhua on Saturday soon after watching Francofonia.

Francofonia by Russian director Alexander Sokurov, winner of the Venice Golden Lion with his film Faust in 2011, is the story of two remarkable men during World War II, Louvre director Jacques Jaujard and Nazi Occupation officer Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich.

Enemies then collaborators, these two not very influential men of almost the same age, through their shared vocation to protect works of art, were able to halt aggression and preserve the Louvre's great art collection.

"Sometimes big historical events are deeply influenced by people who have not great roles, we are not able to figure out how much every individual can do in history," Sokurov told journalists at the Lido of Venice, where the festival is taking place.

Even if he attached great importance to factual details, the filmmaker said he did not take a scientific approach. "In my mind's eye, I saw this film as a path, a path we have all been on, a path that we are traveling again... a path that will enable us to shift between past, present and future, in our own way, guided only by thoughts, reflections and associations," he explained.

In fact art, with its eternal value, plays a fundamental role for historical memory, a cinema critic at La Nazione newspaper, Andreina Sirena, highlighted after watching Francofonia.

Art and war, Sirena told Xinhua, are felt to be particularly joint together in a present world which is witnessing the destruction of artworks in conflict situations. "Culture means identity and values, and when it is attacked, the possibility of dialogue and creation of peace are menaced too," she said.

Another film, The Childhood of a Leader, presented on Saturday in the festival's Orizzonti section, dedicated to the latest cinema trends, is focused on the rise of authoritarianism in the 20th century.

The film by American director Brady Corbet tells the story of a young boy living in France in 1918 whose father is working for the U.S. government on the Treaty of Versailles. What he experiences helps to mold his beliefs and spectators witness the birth of a terrifying ego.

"For me, the film is about where thoughtless, personally interested agendas blur into political agendas, how easily abusive hierarchical powers can form as a result," Corbet told journalists.

In fact The Childhood of a Leader was inspired by the early childhood events of many of the great dictators of the 20th century. "There are no definitive explanations provided for their actions, only scattered clues, which I think is true to the feeling we are often let with when trying to retrace the steps of the last century's most barbarous tyrants," Corbet added.

According to Umberto Mortelliti, another spectator amid the audiences in Venice, the war-themed films are "very educational" as they "highlight the disasters brought by conflicts and their threat to the world's peace and development."

Two young filmmakers at Filmap cinema project agreed. "This edition of the festival seems to pay special attention to war and memory themes. Besides Francofonia and The Childhood of a Leader, other films have been presented so far that also touch the issues of conflicts in various parts of the world, from Africa to Ukraine," one of them, Dario Cotugno, told Xinhua.

By some coincidence, Francofonia and The Childhood of a Leader were presented in Venice just hours after China put on a massive military parade Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory of Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and of the World Anti-Fascist War.

In an interview with Xinhua conducted earlier this week, Davide Rossi, director of the Locarno-based ISPEC Institute of History and Philosophy of Contemporary Thought and a cinema critic at the Venice film festival, underlined the continuous need for historical memory.

Referring to the speech of Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered at the parade, Rossi underlined China's "clear message of peace." He called it of "extraordinary importance" that the Asian country celebrated Sept. 3 in the most solemn way, inviting heads of state from across the world to join the commemoration. Endit