Aleksander Sokurov's 'Faust' wins Golden Lion in Venice

Many critics and pundits had feared rather than predicted that Aleksander Sokurov's take on Goethe's Faust could walk home with this year's top trophy at the Venice Film Festival and, to the dismay of many, it did. The jury, chaired by Darren Aronofsky, chose Faust over much better received films like Steve McQueen's Shame, Yorgos Lanthimos's Alps, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights or Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, all part of a competition strand that Aranofsky himself called "exhilarating and maddening".

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Venice 2011: 'Alps' by Yorgos Lanthimos

Right after Andrea Arnold's take on Emily Brontë's gothic classic Wuthering Heights, Yorgos Lanthimo's fourth long feature Alps is probably the film I'm most looking forward to out of all the official entries at this year's Venice Film Festival, which is no trifle taking into account that the lineup of the competition strand alone includes films by David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, Steve McQueen or Todd Solondz.

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