Going on less than five hours of sleep after the Malick movie kept me up until two a.m., I nodded off a few times today, never for long, but when I returned to the waking world I wasn’t always sure what world on the screen I had been submerged in. Today it had been Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Belgium and France.
I began the day with Isabelle Huppert at a family gathering in Portugal in Ira Sachs’ “Frankie.” Huppert is an actress who only has a few months to live stricken by a cancer that she has once put into remission returning without hope. She is well enough that only those in the know are aware of her situation. Marisa Tomei, who has worked with Huppert on various movies and has become a good friend, doesn’t know the reason for the gathering until Huppert passes out while they are off on a hike. Huppert was trying to play matchmaker hoping Tomei and her son would hit it off. Meanwhile her step-daughter is in the midst of breaking up with her husband, one of nine subplots in this theatrical piece rich with articulate dialogue. A lot is packed into the single day this movie covers. Greg Kinear is on hand for awhile accompanying Tomei on a break from working on a Star Wars movie as the second DP. He oozes sincerity. Both he and Tomei, as well as Huppert, shined, effortlessly practicing their craft. After seeing over fifty movies the past week their natural performances stood out.
“Fire Will Come” opened and closed with a raging forest fire in Galacia. A local farmer is just being released from prison for having been convicted of setting the fire. He has distinctive chiseled features that the director is continually drawn to along with lingering on the rustic scenery. Cinematography is the keynote to this minimalist, brooding tale of an alienated loner.
Vera is an aspiring dancer in Paris who has just gained admittance to the dance academy, though she tells her mother and lover she wasn’t among those selected. She prefers for the time to work with an artist’s coop of dancers and painters, one of whom features bicycles in his painting. The director has an affinity for the bicycle, as she has Vera get around Paris on a bike, but evidently the actress playing Vera in this film that takes it title from her name wasn’t very adept on the bike as she’s only seen pushing it or dismounting from it, other than one scene along a canal where she is very wobbly riding the bike. Her dance too, ranging from ballet to modern, is less than stellar. Half a dozen people in the audience fled the theater when a man, who is a benefactor for the dance troupe, forces Vera to remove all her clothes in his car then precedes to masturbate.
Three young sisters living with their father in a remote village in the mountains of Turkey take turns working as a servant for a doctor in the city who is a friend of their father. The sisters are all very headstrong and contentious. The two eldest have both been dismissed from the job, one for getting pregnant and the other for being belligerent. The youngest is about to be given the chance at this opportunity to escape the tedium of their existence even as her sisters both hope to be given another chance on the job. Former Palm d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan could have had his hand in on the dialogue of some of the confrontational scenes of various members of the village that escalate to high drama. This spellbinding film, “A Tale of Three Sisters,” had already played at Berlin and was seeking more distribution, which it richly deserves.
The Dardene brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, can always be counted on for a film of contemporary relevance. “Young Ahmed” takes on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Belgium. Thirteen-year old Ahmed has fallen under the spell of his iman, castigating his mother for her drinking and his sister for his attire. He has been given reason to abhor his teacher and shows up at her apartment intending to kill her with a knife. She thwarts him. His iman tells him to turn himself in, as he’ll only have to do nominal time. The bulk of the movie is his time in dentention where he is upset at how nice everyone is. As with his going after his teacher, he continually acts on impulse. The Dardenes don’t reveal much about his thought process, nor his conversion to this half-baked fanatic. There is no rhetoric to be alarmed by offering any kind of insight into any of the characters. The confidence one has in the Dardenes that this will all be satisfactorily explained is never realized.
This is no threat to become the Dardene’s third Palm d’Or. None of Screen’s panel of ten reviewers gave it more than three stars. There have been only fifteen four-star reviews of the dozen Competition films screen so far. Seven have received at least one such review. Almodovar’s had four and “Portrait of a Lady” three. My favorite “Les Miserables” received none, though was picked up by Amazon for one-and-a-half million dollars, their largest acquisition ever with hopes that it will be France’s Oscar nomination. It is being called this year’s “Copernaum,” last year’s Lebanese film that received an Oscar nomination and won the Jury Prize. It has easily been the most intense, energetic film so far.
It could exceeded by Tarantino’s film, which played in the Palais this evening for only those with formal attire. Neither Ralph nor I were granted an Invitation to the next day screening for commoners and it has no extra screenings, the only film with such a treatment. All day people were walking around with signs hoping to get a ticket for one of its two black-tie screenings. We just have to hope Sony allows it to be shown Saturday when all the Competition films are repeated before the Awards Ceremony.
I was kept out until after midnight once again ending with “An Easy Girl” a French film that takes place in Cannes. It follows the shenanigans of two teen-aged girls, one promiscuous who sun bathes topless and let’s guys feel how soft her skin is, and her ugly duckling companion. They end up on board a luxury yacht with the easy girl spending the night with its owner and the other sleeping on a couch. I had not an iota of interest in any of these characters. Not a sole though walked out on this “Director’s Fortnight” entry.
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