El Joaquin Phoenix joker It's revolutionizing everything and it hasn't even opened at the box office yet. And it is that if a few years ago the most purists of cinema were told that a movie based on a superhero comic was going to win the top award at the Venice Festival, they would not have believed it. But here it is the guason, ready to change things.
Joker wins the Golden Lion of Venice
Joker, Directed by Todd Philips and starring Joaquin Phoenix, has become one of the films of the year without having yet reached the cinema. We are not saying it - we would like to have seen it already to be able to give an opinion - but a large part of the critics who seem to have a practically unanimous opinion on the film: it is the most complete, complex and impressive vision that we have ever seen of the great villain of DC Comics.
Although he already trailer of Joker made us anticipate something different and very attractive, the confirmation did not arrive until the recently held Venice International Film Festival. There it already drew attention that a film of this type -remember that we are talking about a character from the world of superheroes with Warner behind it- was submitted to the competition, although the real noise was generated when the experts in the field went to the screening and were able to verifying that the great expectation was more than justified: not only were they clapping for 8 minutes in a row at the end of the film, something never seen at the Mostra; Articles praising the idea, Philips' execution, and Phoenix's performance filled front pages.
Criticism surrenders to #joker:
IGN - 10/10
IMDb-9.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 87%
The Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix film has received an 8 MINUTE standing ovation at #Venezia76. pic.twitter.com/YF679zzxBs
— the fourth wall (@CuartaParedCine) September 1, 2019
Even with it the capital surprise of everything that happened in Venice has come with the awards: Joker has taken neither more nor less than the León de Oro, the highest possible award from the official section in the best film category of the festival. Joaquín was left at the gates - the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor went to Luca Marinelli for Martin Eden-, but the good reviews of an actor who is described in a "state of grace" and in whose interior "the Joker himself seems to live" is undoubtedly a guarantee that we are going to have a good, very good time at the cinema.
what a movie like Joker having won the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival is worth mentioning. Never has a film in the superhero genre reached these levels within this type of festival and it is undoubtedly a change of course, an opportunity for this genre and, above all, the recognition of the risk that Todd Philips decided to take when he set out to direct this title. We don't know how long it will take to see something like this again due to the cinema event, but it is likely that this will help take this issue more seriously. And that is certainly a gigantic step.
The next stop of Joker -which, remember, opens on October 4- is el Toronto Film Festival, where he will compete for the People Choice Award. Will he surprise us again?