Postcards from Venice

Every festival needs an authentic weirdie, an affront to cinematic decency, and Venice had Vinyan, from Belgian writer-director Fabrice du Welz. Jeanne (Emmanuelle Beart) and Paul (Rufus Sewell) lost their young son in the Indonesian tsunami of 2004. Jeanne believes the boy is still alive, and, though Paul is skeptical, the two spend their life savings and their common sense on a trip into the Thailand-Burma jungles. Madness and murder await them. The later scenes of a disemboweling, and of Asian lads in white face (to simulate the missing son) surrounding the nude Beart, account for most of Vinyan's what-the-hey? reputation. But the whole movie is an assault, from the wild overplaying by the two attractive leads to the ear-damaging score. It will play in the Toronto Film Festival's Midnight Madness section, but at any time of day, this film is nuts. We emerged into the Venice sunshine happy to be out of this jungle of implausibilites.