‘Wild Horse Nine’ Wins Venice Golden Lion in Upset Over Boyle’s ‘Ink’

VENICE — Martin McDonagh did not enter the 83rd Venice Film Festival as the betting favorite. His film left as the winner.

“Wild Horse Nine,” McDonagh’s Cold War procedural set during the days after the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile, won the Golden Lion on Saturday night at the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, ending the competition in a result that separated jury preference from critical consensus more sharply than most Venice ceremonies in recent memory. The film received 14 minutes of sustained applause at its premiere last week, the longest standing ovation of the competition, but the critical mass of attention had gathered around Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” the Rupert Murdoch biopic that opened the 83rd Venice Film Festival on September 2 with a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal announced the prizes, and the distribution was pointed. “Ink” won the Silver Lion for Best Director, awarded to Boyle, along with the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for Guy Pearce’s performance as Murdoch and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Claire Foy. “Wild Horse Nine” received the Golden Lion and no other competitive award. The top prize went to the film that had generated the room, not the one that had generated the reviews.

“I’ve been trying to make this film for four years,” McDonagh said backstage at the Hotel Excelsior. “John and Sam understood what silence can carry in a political film. They never asked for it to be explained.”

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play CIA operatives present in Santiago as the Pinochet government consolidates power in September 1973. The film runs 158 minutes and refuses to orient the viewer: who these men are before this assignment, what they believe, what their country has asked them to do. That refusal had divided some critics at the premiere. It may have been what the jury was looking for. Venice juries tend toward work that generates genuine disagreement, and “Wild Horse Nine” had produced both disagreement and devotion.

McDonagh’s previous feature, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” earned six Academy Award nominations. Festival prizes and Oscar outcomes run on separate tracks, but the trajectory the Golden Lion signals is not obscure. A film from an established filmmaker with two recognizable leads that wins Venice in September tends to find itself in the awards conversation by January, whether or not the prize converts to a nomination.

A24’s “Primetime,” directed by Lance Oppenheim and starring Robert Pattinson, received the Special Jury Prize. The film had earned a Metacritic score of 76 and seven minutes of applause at its premiere and had been discussed as a possible dark-horse contender. The Special Jury Prize positions it just outside the top tier, which may suit A24’s campaign strategy better than a prize requiring direct comparison with the Golden Lion winner.

Casey Affleck’s “Company” did not appear on the prize podium Saturday. The film had drawn significant attention during the festival’s second week and generated genuine audience response. Not appearing among the winners at Venice does not foreclose an awards season, but it changes what the season looks like.

Ellen Burstyn, 93, received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the ceremony. The actress, whose work spans six decades of American cinema, accepted the honorary award to a standing ovation. Her Oscar-winning performance in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and her nominated role in “The Exorcist” are the conventional reference points; Saturday’s ceremony asked the industry to consider the body of work those films precede.

The question of what happens next for “Ink” is one the awards season will answer. No US distribution deal has been announced. The Silver Lion for Best Director and two Volpi Cups are a strong Venice result regardless, and they position the film for the New York Film Festival, which opens next week, and for distribution conversations that the prize package makes easier to have. As Eastern Herald’s coverage of the Venice Golden Lion race tracked throughout the festival, “Ink” entered Saturday as the dominant critical choice. It leaves with the individual awards and without the top prize.

The TIFF People’s Choice Award, which has a substantially stronger Oscar-prediction record than Venice’s competitive prizes, will be announced next Sunday. As Eastern Herald’s coverage of the TIFF People’s Choice vote has noted, several Venice competition films are screening simultaneously in Toronto. What that audience selects will add another variable to a fall awards picture that Saturday’s ceremony clarified in some respects and complicated in others.

As The Hollywood Reporter noted when “Wild Horse Nine” had its premiere, McDonagh’s film generated the kind of sustained enthusiasm that festival observers describe as a different register from critical approval. Saturday confirmed what ten days of conversation had been pointing toward.