"Fittingly for a festival where about half the titles in the official competition had religious themes, the 69th Venice Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden Lion, to “Pieta,” a mother-and-son drama with a sadistic streak from the prolific Korean director Kim Ki-duk. The film sharply divided critics — as do most of Mr. Kim’s confrontational movies — but it was deemed the best of the 18 competitors by a jury led by the filmmaker Michael Mann. Other members of the jury included the actress Samantha Morton, the filmmakers Matteo Garrone and Pablo Trapero and the artist Marina Abramovic.

There was some confusion at the awards ceremony Saturday evening, at which the special jury prize and the Silver Lion for best director were apparently presented in the wrong order — and to the wrong people. A festival press release confirmed that the best director prize went to Paul Thomas Anderson for his hotly anticipated new film, “The Master.” The film’s leads, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, shared the best actor prize. (Mr. Seymour Hoffman accepted both awards, his collaborators having already made their way to Toronto, the next stop on the festival circuit.)"

"[A] sickeningly violent film... it’s not an exaggeration to say there’s not a single pleasant moment in the film’s first half." — Hollywood Reporter

"[Kim's] most commercial pic in years... [featuring] brutal violence, rape, animal slaughter and the ingestion of disgusting objects" — Variety