Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival overnight, has been described as a tragedy with a tinge of farce involving two brothers who get in over their heads thanks to the machinations of their wealthy uncle.
"I've always been interested in murder and the dark side of drama," Allen told a news conference.
"Murder and guilt are classic ingredients of drama ... and murder is one of the tools that playwrights and film-makers have used for centuries."
The uncle, played by Tom Wilkinson, gets the brothers - Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor - on board for the murder plot. He preys on their weaknesses - one for a woman and the other for gambling.
Guilt - both comic and pathetic - enters the mix to deepen the tragedy in this out-of-competition selection at the Venice Film Festival.
The 71-year-old creator of Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanours and Match Point said : "I've always worked with guilt. It's a subject that lends itself to both sides of the coin," whether comic or tragic.
"Life itself ... is a tremendously tragic event, I mean a real mess, but it has its comic moments," he said.
'The Assassination of Jesse James'
Murder was also centre stage at the premiere overnight of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck.
The two-and-a-half-hour saga, which Pitt says was "meant to be a throwback to the great films of the 70s," explores the complex relationship between the charismatic outlaw and his admirer turned traitor.
A snivelling Affleck as Robert Ford gives fear every dimension possible in the scenic piece, while Pitt manages some humility along with the bravado.
Pitt says his character, drawn from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel, "is more human to me than this black and white characterisation" of the celebrated outlaw.
Iraq war
Sunday's selections marked a sharp change of mood from the last two days of the festival, which were dominated by two films on the Iraq war.
On Saturday, Oscar-winning Canadian director Paul Haggis unveiled In the Valley of Elah, showing the harrowing toll the war is taking on returning US soldiers.
It came just a day after Redacted, Brian De Palma's dramatisation laying out the shocking facts of a rape and multiple murder in Iraq for which Private First Class Jesse Spielman was sentenced last month to 110 years in prison.
Both films explore the conditions, attitudes and stresses experienced by US soldiers in Iraq, and both directors said they felt the US public was being kept in the dark about the war.
Saturday's line-up also included British director Ken Loach's It's a Free World, about a young woman - Angie - who gets sacked from an employment agency and decides to set up one of her own along with her flatmate Rosie.
Set in a down-and-out section of London plagued by gangs and full of job hungry migrants, the film paints a dual portrait of determination and desperation.
Angie starts out making a better life for herself with apparent empathy for the workers, but greed catches up with her.
"Angie's logic is the same logic of every business: get the cheapest labour, maximise your market and cut every corner you can to make a profit," Loach told AFP in an interview.
"You start off liking her, and then you are drawn into the choices she makes and gradually you realise 'This is bad'."
Scarlett no muse
Meanwhile Allen says rising star Scarlett Johanssen is "not my muse," despite working on three of his most recent films.
"Scarlett is a wonderful actress, she reverberates off anyone she plays with, and she has a great future ahead of her," Allen told a news conference.
"But I never think of her as my muse."
Asked to compare Johanssen with long-time film partner Diane Keaton, Allen said: "There's a very strong chemistry between Diane and myself."
He also noted that they had acted in "eight or nine" films together. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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