"The Unknown Woman": The Anatomy of Postwar Duplicity
The triumph of the drama “The Unknown Woman” at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where the film won the “Golden Lion”, and the lead actress Matilda Arcel – the Volpi Cup for the female role, looks like a natural step for modern European cinema. And at the same time – a logical choice of the jury, which was headed by actress and director Maggie Gyllenhaal. Egyptian-born Danish director Mai El Tuki (the only female director in the festival’s Main Competition) has taken on one of the most inconvenient and hushed pages of European history, turning it into a tense psychological thriller about survival, physicality and power.
The triumph of the drama “The Unknown Woman” at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where the film won the “Golden Lion”, and the lead actress Matilda Arcel – the Volpi Cup for the female role, looks like a natural step for modern European cinema. And at the same time – a logical choice of the jury, which was headed by actress and director Maggie Gyllenhaal. Egyptian-born Danish director Mai El Tuki (the only female director in the festival’s Main Competition) has taken on one of the most inconvenient and hushed pages of European history, turning it into a tense psychological thriller about survival, physicality and power.
