Romantic Deneuve dazzles Venice

France's leading lady, Catherine Deneuve, looks happy and relaxed at the Venice Film Festival where her film Au plus pres du paradis is vying for the Golden Lion award.

Deneuve, however was critical of the industry, saying that interesting characters and good acting were losing out to effects-filled films.

'Sometimes it seems the soul has been taken out of things,' Deneuve told reporters, smoking one long, thin cigarette after another. 'The love of technology is bigger than characterisation these days. I'm not sure that's what I like but the public certainly seems to.'

In Au plus pres du paradis, which translates as 'Nearest to heaven', Deneuve's character Fanette lives out the love story between Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember. 'There are still actors with the quality of a Cary Grant or a Katharine Hepburn but films today are different and the roles ask very different things of them,' she said.