Standing ovation for Joker: Folie a deux, at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival
A dark pit of madness opened up at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday with the premiere of Joker: Folie a Deux, a film in which the criminal clown and his beloved Harley Quinn, played by Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, sing as they descend into madness to win back the Golden Lion.
“Releasing the second part in Venice seemed like the most correct and logical thing to do,” said director Todd Phillips at the press conference for the presentation. Phillips is returning to the race for the top award at the Venice Film Festival five years after winning it with the first part of this successful psychological portrait of the villain.
The sequel maintains the gloomy tone of the previous installment, as it is about questioning a debased and sick society that gives birth to monsters, but this time it does so with the air of a musical, with the disturbed couple revealing through songs the last glimmers of light that their souls harbor.
“It’s the only way the characters have to express themselves,” explained Phoenix, who reprises his role as the comic book character that earned him his first Oscar in 2020.
But the Joker—or his human counterpart Arthur Fleck—is no longer alone. The film’s title, “Folie à deux,” refers to a rare—real—psychiatric case in which two people share a psychotic symptom, such as paranoia or delusions, fueling it between them.
In the previous film, Fleck, mistreated and humiliated by the world around him, accepted his madness and unleashed the monster with the painted face that nested inside him to kill and plunge Gotham, a city eaten away by corruption, into chaos.
Now his bones rot in a violent asylum awaiting trial, while from outside the clamor begins to arrive at the division that his arrest has caused, between supporters and detractors. In short, he understands his enormous popularity.
In this limbo between a life behind bars or death in the electric chair, the villain will lose his head for an admirer named Harley Quinn, discovering that there is still some feeling in his heart and expressing it through the songs of his life.
Gaga, who preferred to be called by her first name, Stefani, at the press conference, joined the project after being “moved” by the first part with its look at “the misunderstood in society” (she is precisely the “mother monster” of her fans).
“It helped me understand things I hadn’t understood before,” the singer acknowledged.
So much so that rehearsing classic songs by Frank Sinatra and other idols during filming taught him how to sing for the movies: “For me it was like unlearning the technique, forgetting about breathing, and simply allowing the song to come out,” he confessed.
In this story, Phoenix undergoes a major physical transformation to adopt the Joker’s build, losing a lot of weight. And although he assured that this process “is not that dangerous,” he said with a laugh that he “probably” won’t do it again at 49 years old.
However, the actor can rest easy because the director has ruled out a third installment since Venice: “For me, the story of Arthur Fleck/Joker has already been told with this film,” Phillips said.
The arrival of Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix to Lido, the Venetian island that hosts the festival, has caused a real stir, and dozens of fans, especially of the singer, seek her autograph in the vicinity of the Palacio del Cine.
The author of Bad Romance has returned to the Mostra, where she already performed with A Star is Born (2018), dreaming of an award, while finalizing the release of her seventh studio album, the first since the Chromatica era (2020). The single will arrive on a day in October yet to be determined.
A completely different situation awaits his co-star, Joaquin Phoenix, who recently left a Todd Haynes project just days before filming was due to begin in Mexico.
The American actor avoided controversy, and at the presentation in Venice he refused to give his opinion with the rest of the creators of the project present to give theirs: “I don’t think it would help,” he concluded.
In any case, the Joker’s laughter has shaken up the competition for the Golden Lion on Wednesday, but at the same time has reminded us that hope is within everyone’s reach, even the most deranged monsters.
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