The 74th Venice Film Festival has kicked off in fine style with the well-received latest offerings from American indie director Alexander Payne and Mexican fantasy moviemaker Guillermo del Toro.
The opening film of the 74th Venice Film Festival, Payne's Downsizing, was met with warm applause Wednesday night.
The audience hailed the American director and the cast, led by Matt Damon.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella was among the pleased spectators.
The Guardian gave the film five stars and called it a "miniature masterpiece".
"Damon stars as a man who shrinks down to the height of five inches in Payne's sci-fi comedy, a winningly inventive tale of masculinity in crisis", it said.
Variety said the fest opened "on an upward trajectory" with Payne's sci-fi comedy "eliciting plenty of praise and bolstering the Lido's status as a prime awards-season launching pad".
"Payne and stars Matt Damon, Hong Chau and Kristen Wiig pranced down the red carpet on a balmy evening promoting the Paramount pic in which humans agree to get shrunk down in order to live luxuriously in a government resort as part of an effort to save the planet from overpopulation. "The paparazzi had a feeding frenzy." Variety also praised jury chair Annette Bening's "stirring speech" on the magic of cinema.
On Thursday del Toro's in-competition fantasy horror film The Shape of Water got a warm press reception.
The poetic offering tells the love story between a dumb girl (Sally Hawkins) and a mysterious amphibious creature over which Cold War America and the USSR are fighting.
The film was presented by the Mexican director, Hawkins, costars Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins, and score author Alexandre Desplat.
Of the top-notch cast, only Michael Shannon was missing.
Giving it four stars, the Guardian said Del Toro's fantasy has a "monster-sized heart".
"Sally Hawkins stars as a cleaner smitten with a scaly underwater beast in this cold war-era creature feature that melds ravishing romance with B-movie thrills," the British daily said.
The fest runs through September 9.
photo: Downsizing cast and director
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