A Wonderful weekend at my new home

Milano, the city of haute couture, the city of soccer, San Siro, AC & Inter, the city of “angels” and beautiful people is a wonderful place to be visiting. It is the city that is going to be my new home for the next year and so. Though I have been here many times before, this was the going to be my longest stretch, by far, here. And all it needed was a weekend like last, to get things quickly into the groove and kick start a fantastic year ahead.

Venice was a place that I had never visited before and last Saturday was apt for making a trip there as the 64th Mistral Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, better known internationally as the Venice Film Festival was concluding that day. It is by far the oldest film festival still in existence today, and being passionate about movies it would be a crime not to go there when so near. So early Saturday morning, I boarded a Eurostar at the Milano Central and make the 150-odd minute trip to Venice. The first impression of Venice was just what I had read and imagined about it - veritable paradise. Venice is the largest stretch of land in Europe (and possibly in habitated world) where the main transport is on waterways - watertaxis, launches, ferries, gondolas et al. To travel from one place to another, one needed to be on the Adriatic waters half the time - it is sort of like the main road. With clear blue skies and weather in its early 20°C’s, the ambience complemented the mood.

The Venice Film Festival was being hosted at Lido di Venezia, which was the centre of the action, though the screenings take place in cinemas all over the city. The festival was established in 1932, and even in the then prevailing cinematic climate of fascist propaganda films and imitations of Hollywood comedies, it upheld the values of cinema, transcending national boundaries. In 1952, the characteristic Golden Lion prize was introduced. To this day it remains, along with Cannes’ Palme d'Or, one of the few trophies in the film world that compares to Hollywood's little golden man, the Oscar. Although the festival has traditionally sponsored non-Hollywood cinema, there has recently been a rapprochement, making this one of the most glamorous end-of-summer venues in the world. The festival features 4 main sections: In Competition, Out of Competition, Horizons (offering feature-length documentaries) and Corto Cortissimo (short films). With it being the last day of festival, it was a mixed atmosphere as one could not see either many films or celebrities. However, the atmosphere was electric with the international scribes, the bustling junta clicking away to glory, music blaring from the speakers and some people doing impromptu jigs, all lending a marvelous aura to the settling. The beautiful beach and the sea adjoining the venue also made it the place to be in. The Golden lions were all over, multiple replicas lined up on makeshift stages, a huge couple on either side of the main entrance and small ones littered around the main pathway. Outside the mail auditorium, a huge gallery was set up where artifacts, DVDs and festival memorabilia were being sold. I chanced upon some very good movies but the fact that all subtitles were in Italian hindered me from buying.

The festival per se ended on a somewhat sour note with some shock film choices. Ang Lee surprised everyone and won the Golden Lion with his film "Lust, Caution" ("Se, Jie"), two years after he had won the same award for the gay cowboy drama "Brokeback Mountain." In 2005 he was a popular winner. In 2007 he was not. The slow narrative, only excerpts of which I could manage to view, set in World War Two Shanghai, is punctuated by explicit and sometimes violent sex which Lee hinted was real. Reporters and critics in the press room, watching the closing ceremony beamed live on a big screen, booed when Lee's Golden Lion was announced. That, the film was not even thought for one of the lesser awards in all of the pre-award speculation, vindicated the critics’ stance. Although no strong favorite emerged from the 23 films in competition in Venice, critics agreed Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche's "The Secret of the Grain", about an Arab family living in France, would be a worthy winner. In the end a disappointed Kechiche walked away with a jury runner-up prize, as did U.S. film maker Todd Haynes for his conceptual biopic of Bob Dylan called "I'm Not There".

More controversial than the Golden Lion for Lee was the best actor prize for Pitt, who starred as the fabled outlaw in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Critics said the decision was particularly baffling because Pitt's co-star in the movie, Casey Affleck, was widely considered to have stolen every scene, while Michael Caine in Kenneth Branagh's "Sleuth" was also a frontrunner. The disgusted crowd booed even more loudly, when Pitt was named best actor, a far cry from the first day when “Brangelina” walked the red carpet. It makes me wonder whether the jury tries, at times, to only whet the appetites of big names and thereby rendering such huge artistic festivals to lose some of its mystic sheen. After all its festivals like Cannes and Venice that have unearthed such colossal global directors, our own Satyajit Ray included, and not allowing talented film makers to bloom would only make world cinema poorer.

After spending the afternoon there, I headed to the Piazza San Marco in the evening. Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal square of Venice. The buildings around the Piazza are, anti-clockwise from the Grand Canal, the Doge's Palace, St Mark's Basilica, St Mark's Clock tower, the Napoleonic Wing of the Procuraties, the Procuratie Nuove, St Mark's Campanile and Loggetta and the Biblioteca Marciana. The last of these buildings were completed under Napoleonic occupation, although the campanile has since been rebuilt. The Piazza is undoubtedly the most popular tourist destination in Venice and it faintly reminds you of Trafalgar Square and the Milano Duomo with all the pigeons in it. The best part of the Piazza of course is that it hasn’t been corrupted by the automobile, as the only mode of vehicular transport is the waterway. It is a must visit for tourists in Venice.

Saturday over, the next day was one of the biggest in the annual Italian sporting calendar. It was time for Grand Prix and Formula 1. The F1 circuit had, in recent weeks, assumed additional significance due to the Mclaren Ferrari espionage imbroglio and at the autodrome at Monza, the home crowd was baying for blood. Strangely the leaders from Mclaren, Hamilton and Alonso were facing the crowd chagrin when to me it should have been Ron Dennis, the Mclaren boss. But such is passion in sport that instead of the scheming administrators, it is often the gladiators who face the wrath. The Italians are mad about F1 and it was just crazy being there, an experience in itself. People wearing the traditional red, many having made the trip from all over Italy and Europe and camped in tents outside the stadium, some with trumpets, some perched on tree tops, many families with children too, the men and at times even the women guzzling beer. The crowd was shouting for the home team, most of the people with general tickets, the lowest in denomination costing a decent 60 Euros J, having made their own personal spaces on the grass and hilltops, the luckier ones having found seating on the makeshift galleries that the organizers had planted at few places. Our strategy (I had gone with another colleague) was not to stick at one place, but roam around and explore the entire course before and during the race. It surely wasn’t a bad strategy because not only we were able to view the entire course – famous curves like the parabolica but it was also not boring to sit at one place and view the cars zip by you, at times at blinding speeds over 350 kmph. Besides we were able to soak in the atmosphere and enjoy the emotions of the crowd, which to me is as important besides viewing the sport itself inside a stadium. Alonso had pole, followed by teammate Hamilton, and then the reds, Raikkonen and Massa followed suit. The remaining field was destined to be the bridesmaids any which way, such is the domination of machine over men in this fiercely competitive sport. The sea of red were already chanting curses, many hoping and even praying that the Mclaren duo would crash out. True to their desire, there was an early crash in the second lap itself but it was ex-champion David Coulthard on a Red Bull who had an early collision with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault, leading to the safety car to come out and lead the race for some time. The Torro Rosso team's young German driver Sebastian Vettel also suffered an early accident. Soon after disaster for the home team as Felipe Massa’s car had some technical problems and he was forced to drop out as early as the 11th lap. The frenzied crowd went quiet and some feared the inevitable early in the race. But fantastic Kimi had other ideas. The Scandinavian drivers have scorched the track over the years from the phenomenal Keke Roseborg to the more recent Mika Hakkinen and surely Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Roseborg and company will keep those flags flying high in the years to come. Within a few laps, Kimi had crossed Hamilton into the second position and was closing in on Alonso. The crowd suddenly got excited and were shouting hoarse. The intoxicating smell of burnt rubber was all over the place and tyres flew sparks, what with the drivers peaking close to 350 kmph quite often. The sound was deafening with the roaring engines of the machines as they whizzed past you. Close to the halfway stage, aided by an Alonso pit stop, Kimi had slipped into position one and frenzy of the Italians was palpable. The crowd was blowing trumpets and shouting and egging its lone driver on. However, the one stop strategy backfired on Ferrari when fresh tyres and Mclaren’s persistence paid off with Alonso crossing Raikkonen soon after at the latter’s only pit stop and in a fantastic and daring maneuver, even Hamilton who till then was lying low, managed to slip past Kimi. That’s how the podium finished with Alonso’s win cutting down Hamilton’s lead to less than 5 points in the driver’s championship. The home team had to be content with Raikkonen 3rd place and this was the first time in 5 years that Ferrari had failed to win the race at Monza.

After the race, the track was opened up to the audience and it was a dream to walk on the track at Monza, supposed by many as the Holy Grail of Formula 1. People of different countries, of race, colour and creed were walking on the track with flags of the constructors and even the various countries being flown. There was a Polish contingent with the biggest flag that you would ever see, shouting Kubica’s name. There was a queer sight of an over-zealous fan lying flat on the turf kissing it with gay abandon, a sight his wife surely had been amused about has she seen it. There were ladies and children posing on the track and the adjoining green, which at places had been artificially multi colored by main sponsor Martini. Being a sporting maniac, I had seen some of the greatest stadia and sporting spectacles at the venue, the cricket world cup, US Open tennis, Confed Cup and Serie A soccer, even international beach volleyball, but this one stood right up there if only for the manner in which emotions went wild and tempers frayed. We have seen such stuff in cricket matches in India, but in an altogether different sport in a different continent, it was an experience worth being a part of and enjoying. Sadly Ferrari lost the battle that day, but aided by an FIA decision deriding the Mclaren team and fining them 100 million USD just days after Monza, would go on to win the war and the subsequent F1 constructor’s championship for 2007.