The Oscar -winning director brings to the Lido a high voltage political thriller (and humanity), his spur to disarmament. “How can we think that destroying the world is a defense method?”
High voltage, like Kathryn Bigelow He knows how to do it with skill. In a powerful mix of detailed military dynamics and touching human drama. After seven years without a film, the American director with A House of Dynamiteintense political thriller that holds the heart, in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2025. Applause in the large room after the first for the press.
The message is powerful and evident. «Several nations have sufficient nuclear weapons to put an end to civilization in a few minutes. Yet you breathe a sort of collective torpor », the words of Bigelow. “How can we think that destroying the world is a defense method?”
A House of DynamiteNetflix film, develops on any day, in which women and men engaged in the defense of the United States live their lives between private and work, who fighting with their girlfriend on the phone in a cut of time, who takes care of the son before going to the office. And here is the unthinkable. Attention, immediately spoiler: an unreserved missile is launched against the States. A race against time begins, orchestrated on multiple action plans, to find out who the manager is, how to avoid the inevitable and how to respond.
Highly engaging, A House of Dynamite It is a return in style for Bigelow, First woman to win the Oscar for best director in 2010 for The Hurt Lockerwho conquered four Oscars including Best Film.
“Why do I miss for seven years? For me it is important that I am passionate about a topic: if I really believe in the material, at that point I feel I can do anything and I commit myself totally in a story, “said Bigelow to Lido. «The situation in which we are today with nuclear weapons is of global importance. One day maybe we will be able to reduce this type of weapon but we are currently really living in a house full of dynamite ».
The exciting and careful script is of the former international reporter Noah Oppenheimalready the author of the script of Jackieso he won the Osella Prize for the best screenplay in Venice 2016.
In A House of Dynamite we enter the Situation Room of the White House together with Rebecca Fergusonwho is the commander Olivia Walker, we observe the floating radar station in the Pacific, we browse the book of nuclear decisions … and above all, we live the desperate tension of all the characters, in a compelling chorus made of brushstrokes all scored. Until the sum of the final final decision that must take Idris Elbaor the Potus, the President of the United States.
The cure in military details and settings is extraordinary without being pedantic. “We were in Stratcom and that in the film is an exact replica,” explains Bigelow, who has relied on the scenographer Jeremy Hindle who had already collaborated with her for Zero Dark Thirty. The photograph that infuses a strong realism is of Barry Ackroyd. “The editor Kirk Baxter He managed to put these details together simultaneously but also the human side, as if it were a three -dimensional activity. An extraordinary assembly supported by the soundtrack: Volker created something never heard before. I am a lucky director because I had an extraordinary team ».
The soundtrack that hammers on suspense from the first sequences is of the German Volker Berttelmannalready Oscar winner for the poignant Nothing new on the western front.
The United States, a world giant with a fire power, seem unassailable and ready to prevent any danger. But on 11 September he already showed us that this is not the case. A House of Dynamitepowerful warning that invites to disarmament, underlines once more the fragility of this world launched by a wind of dynamite. It will be released by Netflix on October 25th.
