Into the Alps

After two weeks devoted to cinema I can now turn my attention to getting my legs ready for following The Tour de France, just five weeks and a day from now.  There could be no better way than plunging into the Alps, just out the back door of Cannes.  It was ninety miles, much of it climbing, to Digne-les-Baines, Ville Départ for stage 17 on July 22, the first of four stages in the Alps culminating on L'Alpe d'Huez before the final stage of The Race finishing on the Champs Elysees. 

Though it is nearly two months until this historic town of 17,000 will be on center stage of the cycling world, it had already set up markers on its prime street, lined by plane trees, indicating the spot where the peloton will start the stage that will take it over five passes before finishing with a final four mile climb to the ski resort of Pra Loupe up from the ski town of Barcelonnette.

Before I set out for Pra Loup I had a feast of sculptures by the British landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy.  There are nearly twenty of them scattered in the vicinity, including a serpentine figure of clay on a wall in the Gassendi Musuem in Digne.  Several of them are installed in ancient stone buildings in the surrounding countryside and are part of a ten-year project referred to as "Refuge d'Art."  The only one of those that was within my range was two miles out of town past the thermal spring spa that earned Digne its name.  It was a fifteen minute hike from the road to the cairn that Goldsworthy had constructed in an abandoned stone structure not much bigger than a shed.

A couple miles out of town in the opposite direction were five more cairns, all comprised of flat stones in contrast to these rounded ones.  They resided in a large outdoor park called the Musée Promenade with an admission fee that included the work of a dozen other sculptors who specialize in using natural material for their work.  Walking trails through the woods on a high embankment linked all their work.  Goldsworthy's had their own "Cairn Path."

 One would walk for a few minutes and then another would pop up, each mysterious and regal, a cross between a Mayan ruin and an object left by visitors from outer space.

The final one stood in a clearing high above the others in a position of prominence looking down upon Digne and out over the spectacular mountain-framed valley.

Behind it was the ancient three-story Rampart Mansion that now housed a museum celebrating the geographical uniqueness of the region.  Twenty million years ago it was under the sea.  The surrounding mountains and valleys abound with all manner of fossils--mollusks and dinosaurs and even a creature resembling a mermaid.  The park is part of a world-wide network of Geoparks, a concept that was launched in 2000, and has been sanctified by UNESCO.  There are 111 of them.  France has five.  There are two in Canada, but none in the US.

Ten miles further up the road climbing through a narrow gorge with a boulder-strewn fast-rushing stream stands another Goldsworthy.  It is known as the "Sentinelle de la Vallée du Bés."  It resides in a small recess along the narrow road facing the stream, standing at attention as if on sentinel duty.  This was his first in the region, created in 1999.

There was hardly room along the road for Goldsworthy to work, carefully piecing together his mosaic.  I could imagine his presence and could envision the process of his craftsmanship as portrayed in the magnificent documentary on his work, "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time" from 2001, one of my all time favorite documentaries.

I had a particular interest in these cairns, as Janina and I have been gathering rocks on nightly raids from a former golf course near her home that had recently been bullldozed preparing the area for a housing project of mini-mansions.  Lots have all been staked out and roads laid through the property, but fortunately construction has begun on just two of the many lots, so there are still rocks a plenty to harvest for a cairn of our own.  One of our piles in Janina's front yard has already begun to resemble a cairn.

The Tour route doesn't include any of Goldsworthy's works, but I was happy to include those I did on mine.  I wasn't able to visit all of them, as they are scattered far and wide, but I will be sure to make the others a part of my routes to and from Canne in the future, especially the "Sentinelle de la Vallée du Vançon" that stands out in the open on a sharp bend in the road off in another valley.

I camped just a few miles beyond the Sentinelle in the recess after I had climbed out of the gorge and found a meadow that was like a mini-amphitheater with mountains, some still snow-capped, all round. When the sun peaked over a ridge in the morning and shown on my tent, the temperature inside rocketed from the 40s to nearly 60.  I still had some more climbing to do, helping to keep me warm in the early morning chill. Then it was down and then up over another pass, then down, then up, finally reaching the ski resort of Pra Loup and the finish of the stage at the end of the day.  Banners announcing The Tour were hung on light poles as I neared the summit.

Fans of the French rider Bernard Thevenet, who won The Tour forty years ago, had erected a monument to him complete with a bike bearing the number (51) he wore during the race.  Just as Greg LeMond "Slayed the Badger" (Bernard Hinault) in 1986, Thevenet much more shockingly slayed the Cannibal (Eddie Merckx) eleven years before.  Thevenet is one of The Tour announcers for television, so this is a site for his eyes.

It is these gestures reflecting the deep passion the French have for The Tour that make riding the route such a meaningful and uplifting experience.  Whether a mere decorated bike hung from a post or an ornate art project, they all gladden the heart.

Cannes Day Twelve--The Awards

The Coen brothers and their seven fellow jurors surprised the prognosticators and awarded Jacque Audiard the Palm d'Or for "Dheepan,"  a choice I was most comfortable with, especially after finally seeing the prime contenders for the award, "Carol" and "Son of Saul," earlier in the day.  They were both fine films, but didn't fit the profile of a Palm d'Or as cutting edge cinema that would stand the test of time.  

"Dheepan" may not quite measure up either, as such was the cinema this year, but Audiard is an auteur who has been in the on deck circle for a Palm d'Or for several years, especially since his "A Prophet" was denied it by the Isabelle Huppert jury in favor of Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon" in 2009. Joel of the Coens recognized the award went to a director more than a film, as when he announced the winner,  he didn't say "Dheepan," but rather "Jacques Audiard."  Audiard's two Sri Lanka co-stars joined him on stage.

It concluded a nice evening for France, as the two acting awards went to the French as well.  Vincent Lindon won the best actor award for his role as an unemployed factory worker in "The Measure of a Man."  He was the only award winner to go over to the jury box and personally thank each juror with kisses and hugs while all the while the delighted audience continued their applause. The shared best actress award went to Emmanuelle Bercot as an overwhelmed wife in "Mon Roi."  The other recipient was American Rooney Mara as the lover of Cate Blanchett in "Carol."  The division of this award was almost as surprising as the Palm d'Or, not only that it wasn't shared with Blanchett, but even more that it was the award given to "Carol," rather than one of the bigger awards.  But those will come in the future.  Todd Haynes was all smiles in accepting the award, as his movie will be strewn with Oscar nominations.  It could easily win  the Best Picture Oscar, but is too conventional of a movie to be worthy of the Palm d'Or.

The Hungarian Aushwitz film "Son of Saul" by first time director Laszlo Nemes was awarded the Grand Prix for the second best film.  It had been touted for the Palm d'Or, but it wasn't  as fully accomplished of a film such as "Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days," the Romanina film by a young director that was a consensus Palm d'Or in 2007.  If Nemes fulfills his promise, there is a Palm d'Or in his future.

The best director award went to Hou Hsiao-Hsien, a good choice, for "The Assassin." Michel Franco won the best screenplay for "Chronic." His star Tim Roth was sitting beside him in the audience.  Some thought he might win the best actor award.  He is the fourth Mexican to win an award in the last few years. The Jury Prize, for the third best film, went to Greek Yorgos Lanthimos for "Lobster," full of strangeness right up the Coens' alley.

And once again Paolo Sorrentino was overlooked by a Cannes jury.  I saw his "Youth" for the second time earlier in the day and appreciated its richness and depth and pizzazz even more.  So did my audience in the packed Debussy. ("Carol" and "Son of Saul" were the other two movies replayed in the largest of the theaters on repeat Sunday, indicating Thierry Fremaux thought they were the movies with most appeal.)  It responded to it with much more laugher and enthusiasm than the audience of press I had seen it with five days ago.  I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been awarded the Palm d'Or, just as "Great Beauty" could have been, but was totally ignored by the Spielberg jury.

It was one of three Italian films in Competition, none of which received an award.  An Italian journalist in the press conference after the awards ceremony asked how that could be.  Ethan Coen said, "We had enthusiasm for more movies than we were able to recognize."  As it was, eight of the nineteen films were given an award.

Chaz Ebert asked the best question of the press conference even though it was long-winded and paid homage to her husband.  She wanted to know if this jury experience would make them better at their craft as actors and directors.  Xavier Dolan was the first to respond.  He said he was going to begin shooting a movie in twenty-four hours.  He didn't expect this experience to effect him as a film-maker, but acknowledged he'd never had such a great time continually discussing cinema.  He felt it had changed him as a human being and then added he thought it had made him a better person.  Joel Coen quickly piped in, "You're not," but then grew serious and said that it been an amazing experience for him as well and would "profoundly effect" him in the future as an audience member.

The first questions were why the jury gave the Palm d'Or to "Dheepan."  Ethan knew it hadn't been favored by the critics and said, "We are a jury of artists, not critics.  We found the film beautiful."  That was an unexpected description.  "Important," or "significant," or  "powerful," would be more obvious choices.  Jake Gyllenhaal liked the plot contrivance of three strangers becoming a family.  Dolan had nothing to say on the topic, but despite being the youngest on the jury by far at twenty-six, he spoke more at the press conference than anyone but the Coens.  He will no doubt be a jury president in the years to come and could well be accepting the Palm d'Or next year for the movie he will begin shooting tomorrow, "Its Only the End of the World" starring Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassell.  I am already looking forward to it.  And I'm also looking forward to processing the seventy plus films I've just seen as I head to the Alps and begin conditioning my legs for The Tour de France commencing on July  4.

Cannes Day Eleven

Its hard to remember at times what an extraordinary privilege it is to be at Cannes getting a first look at the best the world of cinema has to offer when I am too often preoccupied with the worry of getting into a screening or thinking about the rush after the movie to the next one and having a backup plan if I'm turned away from it.  Years of seeing a movie that I was delighted to have seen thanks to being turned away from another movie does not ease the frustration of not greeting into something I might have been waiting an hour or more for.  So when I arrived at the Palais a little after eight this morning and was kept waiting for twenty minutes, even though I had an Invitation in hand, I was  nervous rather than exhilarated and expectant of what I was about to see, as I would have been if I had been able to walk right in and take my seat.  

When I was able to take my seat moments before the theater went dark I barely had time to gather myself before being swept into the spectacular highlands of Scotland and the world of "Macbeth."  The cinematagrophy grew more and more astounding, not only the breathtaking landscapes, but the battle scenes in slow motion and close-up.  And heavyweights Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard are more than up to the task playing the principals. Harvey Weistein knew what he was doing putting Australian Justin Kurzel at the helm of this project.   But this is Shakespeare and since my brain has never processed him very well, the words coming out of the mouths of the characters didn't always register, preventing me from liking his movie as much as I would have liked to.

If one of the seven awards the Cannes jury dispenses was for cinematagrophy, giving it to "Macbeth" would be the one sure thing of all the awards. As it is, there is no clear favorite for any of the awards, only that "Carol," "Son of Saul," and "The Asssassins" will receive something.  Usually the list is longer, but nothing else has particularly distinguished itself.  Certainly not "Valley of Love," the other Competition film I saw today.  Isabelle Huppert and Gerard Depardieu play factionalized versions of themselves in Death Valley as a divorced couple hoping to reunite with their son who recently died .  In his suicide note he tells them he will reappear at one of several scenic sites there during a one week period.  

The critics who savaged Gus Van Sant's movie ought to have had at this as well, as the European faction of the press had to forgive the film for its portrayal of the Americans they encounter as unrefined boors.  One guy recognizes Depardieu but can't remember what he has seen him in or his name.  He asks for his autograph.  Depardieu signs it as Bob DiNero.  Later the guy confronts Depardieu as he and Huppert are dining and lambasts him.  Depardieu is apologetic and invites him and his wife to join them.  The movie stars are extremely tolerant of all their foolish questions and comments. As with the married couple in Van Sant's movie, they bicker over long festering and present aggravations, though not quite as venomously.  This is not a film that will rank very high in the work of these actors, but a nice little curiosity.

The Director's Fortnight always includes a film or two that was a hit at Sundance in January. Last year it was "Whiplash."  This year it was "Dope."  As with "Whiplash" it included a mesmerizing performance, but rather than by a veteran actor, this was by a newcomer, Shameik Moore a young black of Jamaican descent who is as glib as was J.K.Simmons. He is a very bright, Harvard-bound kid growing up with a single mother in a  rough neighborhood of Los Angeles.  There's no chance he'll win an Oscar, or even be nominated for one, as this film isn't good enough for that, but he may in the future.   It is the silly story of three high school geeks who come into possession of several kilos of cocaine and how they dispense it.  

The kids in "Welcome, or No Trespassing" are somewhat silly too, but they provide an allegory for the Soviet system in this seminal film from 1964 by Elem Klimov about a kid's summer camp.  They get into all sorts of hijinks. This first film by the acclaimed director was suppressed when it came out. This just restored print was a late addition to the schedule.

It became a two Russian day when I ended it with "Peace To Us In Our Dreams," a Lithuanian-Russian co-production.  This too took place out of the city on the fringe of the woods. A directiomless man and woman are grappling with what they want to do,with their lifes. A young man is living in an abandoned cabin.  He steals tomatoes from their greenhouse and the rifle of some hunters. He shares the sense of purposelessness of those he steals from in this understated film from the Director's Fortnight.

My day also included a repeat screening of the Icelandic film "Rams" after it won the award for the best of the nineteen films in Un Certain Regard.  I had seen thirteen of them.  When clips were shown of all nineteen preceding the awards ceremony, each brought back a fond memory.  I was hoping one of the six I hadn't seen would win the award, so I could see something I hadn't seen, but I realized that I would have been happy to see any of them again, not something I can say of those in Competition.  The Isabella Rossilini-led jury of five gave out five awards.  Three of them went to movies I hadn't seen, adding further emphasis to what a fine batch of films this had been this year, but probably justifiably their top prize went to "Rams."  Surprisingly, Rosselini didn't say how hard it was to choose a winner as is customary saying many deserved it, but instead said how wonderful it was to see all these fils and that she and the jury had felt like they had taken a flight around the planet and that any anthropologist would be envious of them.  As with any commendable work of art, it was most worthwhile to experience "Rams" again and to further  appreciate its great craftsmanship and depth and many nuances.

I was able to do my nightly FaceTime with Janina from outside the Palais and could give her a display of all the women in their gowns and high heels.  I felt like a filmmaker walking amongst all the attendees letting Janina feel as if she was right there as I panned around and up and down. In the twelve years I've been attending the festival the high heels issue never came up and I was oblivious to the fact that they are required for the evening Palais screenings.  My eye has always been drawn to all the stunning gowns.  Now I'm checking out the footwear, or hobble-wear, as Janina regards them. The gowns certainly are stunning, adorning all the svelt, tanned beautiful people of the Côte d'Azur wafting along as if in a state of grace. They are like a second skin to many.  But there are those who are clearly uncomfortable in such attire and footwear, appearing embarrassed and awkward.  It is certainly an entertaining show each evening.

Cannes Day Ten

It was a good day of catching up.  I saw three Competiton films bringing my total to fourteen of the nineteen.  I'll see two tomorrow and then hopefully the last three on Sunday to complete the slate provided none of the three are scheduled at the same time.  And I'm still awaiting a film that I can root for the Palm d'Or.  Maybe it will be "Macbeth," the only film yet to be screened.  Thierry Fremaux may have saved it to the end so he wouldn't have to fly back its stars, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, for the awards ceremony.

I was hoping my screening today of "The Assassin," that the critics have swooned over, might be the film to blow me away, but I failed to connect with this costume drama of intrigue and sword-fighting from the ninth century by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The costumes were lush and the scenery spectacular, highlighted with an occasional lingering shot of great beauty, but since my mind was still distracted with my hacking case after I discovered a bunch of emails from my drafts file had been erased, I couldn't give this film the full focus it needed, as is generally necessary with Hsiao-Hsien.  Ralph had no easier a time of it than I had and couldn't shed any light on my dark. 

My day's two other Competition films were much less subtle, though they both had an element of mystery that wasn't fully explained.  They were both by young, but established auteurs making an English language film, even though that wasn't their native tongue, and working with high profile actors, making their films much more accessible than "The Assassin." 

Tim Roth is a care taker in Mexican Michel Franco's "Chronic."  He is very tender and gets quite close to his clients, too close for the liking of some of the relatives of his clients, most of whom are in their final days. When the children of one of his clients discover he has been watching porn with their father they bring suit against him.  It may not be the first time it has happened.  We learn he has been married and has a daughter in medical school, but he largely remains a mystery.  He seems to be a lost soul,  much repressed and stoop shouldered, on some sort of a mission but not entirely sure what it is.  How he became this way is left for us to speculate.

Gabriel Byrne also has his burdens in "Louder than Bombs" by Joachim Trier of Norway. He lost his wife, Isabelle Huppert, a few years before, to suicide.  They had two sons.  One is a college professor and the other is a morose teen still in high school, the very same one where Bryne teaches and is having an affair with one of his teachers unbeknownst to his son.  That's not the one thing he isn't aware of.  He doeant know his mother's death was a suicide and it is about to be revealed in a New York Time piece on an exhibition of his mother's photography.  Father and son hardly speak, so it is difficult for Byrne to let him know. The professor son, played with panache by Jesse Eisenberg, whose wife has just had a baby, is back home visiting helping prepare for his mother's  exhibition.  He offers advice to his younger brother, not all of which he heeds. The film abounds with little plot twists and revelations that  aren't pursued but keep one's interest level high.  This wasn't a particularly ambitious film, but it had insights and truths, and made for a somewhat nourishing dose of cinema.  It could have been another film with an odd name for a newborn, but they name their daughter Isabella after his dead mother.

As so often happens, my films, like the animals marching onto Noah's Ark, come in pairs of some sort or another.  I also had a pair of films today on bands of soldiers in rough circumstances.  One was rebel soldiers in the thick forests of Colombia and the other was French soldiers manning an outpost in Afghanistan.  

It has been a fine year for Colombian cinema.  "Embrace of the Serpent" won the best picture award in Directors Fortnight and "Land and Shade" won an award in Critics Weekly.  I only saw a handful of films in these sidebars, but was lucky to see both of them.  And today along came a Colombian film in Un Certain Regard, "Alias Maria."  There have been so many respectable films in this category, this probably won't win an award, but it was still a solid effort featuring a young woman rebel soldier on a mission to deliver a baby to safety.  It cries a lot.  She finds the best way to calm him is to offer him her breast.  Surprisingly she has milk to offer, as it is forbidden for any of the women soldiers to be pregnant. She is ordered to have an abortion, but her maternal instinct is too strong to comply, so she  must escape from her rebel battalion.

Trying to find a couple of lost members of a small unit guarding a pass in Afghanistan keeps the tension high in "The Wakhan Front," an award-winner in the Critics weekly.  This won as much for its  casting and its setting outside a small mountain village as it did for its script.  French soldiers, Afghani locals and rebel soldiers all look as if they were plucked from reality.  One negotiation session after another threatens to erupt into violence.

I rounded out the day with my first film from India--"Fourth Direction." I was hoping it would have song and dance to keep me awake, but that wasn't necessary.  This was the second film in Un Certain Regard with dog cruelty.  A family living in a walled compound in the countryside has a dog that barks in the night when a band of rebels patrolling the region makes its rounds.  They don't want attention drawn to them and order the owner at gunpoint to do away with his dog.  Government soldiers who come by the next day hearing he has been consorting with the rebels are also incensed by the dog and actually take a shot at it.  He puts off killing the dog despite a feeble attempt to poison it, until a crucial moment much later.  This too was a film that cast an array of authentic-looking people of the region.  Even if the film was a bit simple-minded at times, it gave a fine dose of India. If there were an award given for the best set of beards in a movie it would be a strong contender against the Icelandic film "Rams" that played on Day Three.

Cannes Day Nine

All seems peaceful and orderly at a rundown housing project controlled by a drug gang that a family of three Sri Lankan refugees are placed in on the outskirts of Paris.  The refugees aren't what they appear to be, nor is the seeming placidity of the housing project in Jacques Audiard's "Dheepan" that was today's opening Competition film.  This was one one of the more anticipated films of the festival, but Ralph and I had no problem getting into it, thanks in part to the first rain of the festival.

The refugees gained entry to France masquerading as a family unit (husband, wife and young daughter) though they hadn't met until the refugee camp in Sri Lanka.  None of them speak much French.  The husband is given the position of caretaker/janitor at the project where they themselves live in a dump of an apartment.  The girl is placed in school against her will and one of the drug overseers of the complex gives the wife the position of cook and cleaning lady for an elderly guy whose apartment has been appropriated by the gang.  She is thrilled to be earning 500 euros a month.

The husband is very diligent and competent and knows how to cope in their circumstances.  The story pleasantly drifts along as they assimilate into their new environment learning its okay to drink the water and the "mother" kissing her "daughter" when she drops her off at school.  Then a turf war breaks out and this turns into an Audiard film.  The skills the caretaker gained as a gueriilla fighter in Sri Lanka burst forth as he appears to morph into another "Prophet" as in Audiard's film that won him best director honors here a few years ago.  It is a fine performance, but doesn't leap off the screen as in most of Audiard's films.  Janina has aspired to give a class on Audiard.  She will be happy to add this to her syllabus, though it is a much more subtle film than the rest of his oeuvre.  I had been hoping this would be Palm d'Or material, but probably not.

Today began two days of repeating all the Competition and Un Certain Regard films that have screened up til now. Unfortunately the two I most wanted to see,"Carol" and "Son of Saul," were in the same time slot as "Dheepan," so they'll have to wait until Sunday when all the Competition films are screened one last time.  The only other Competiton film that fit into my schedule today was Gus Van Sant's "The Sea of Trees" that was so reviled, receiving four zero star reviews from "Screen's" panel of ten critics, two more than have been given out to all the rest of the films that have been screened.  Some called it the worst film ever screened in Competition.  That was hardly the case.  The film actually had some merit and won't be a total box office fiasco.  This was simply a case of critic mob mentality, with a handful expressing disdain and it becoming a contagion.  And perhaps there is an underlying impulse to discourage anyone from seeing a movie on sucide, especially one that somewhat glorifies a forest in Japan that people come to from all over the world for their final act.  

Matthew McConaughey flying off to Japan on an impulse to commit suicide was a stretch, as he could  just as easily have downed a bottle of pills in his bedroom as he attempts in the forest.  The corpses he stumbles upon add to the stretch, as do some of his escapades in the forest.  The flashbacks, though, to his unhappy marriage with Naomi Watts are a fine portrayal of a typical couple savagely bickering over petty grievances.  Watts is upset, among other things, that her husband is content with his $20,000 a year salary as a college professor, forcing her to be the prime breadwinner as a real estate agent.  If I had seen this movie before the critics had  had at it, I too would have scoffed at some of its pretenses, but I would hardly have ridiculed it as has the critical mob.

The bulk of the rest of my day was repeat screenings of three Out of Compeition films that all tackled an interesting subject--the Turkish massacre of the Armenians, German guilt over WWII and sex.  "Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Bad" mercilessly indicts Turkey for its post WWI genocide of over a million Armenians.  It begins with the assassination in Berlin in 1919 of one of the Turks responsible for it.  The Armenian assassin is put on trial in Germany and is actually acquitted by the jury for his justifiable execution of the individual.  The assassin remains an Armemian hero.  His portrait hangs in the homes of many.  He is the inspiration for an assassination many years later of a Turkish ambassador.  An innocent bystander on a bicycle is severely injured in the car bombing and tracks down the assassin in Syria and asks for forgiveness.  The movie is mostly though an Armenian propaganda piece that will never be shown in Turkey, as it is a criminal offense in Turkey to raise the Armenian issue.

An older German woman has lived in isolation on a small Spanish island for forty years in Barbet Schroeder's "Amnesia," another film taking on a political subject of many years standing.  A young musician from Berlin moves into a nearby house.  They bond and he takes a romantic interest in her not realizing she's German.  She has never been happier but doesn't let their relationship go beyond a close friendship.  He is quite enraged when he learns her nationality.  She has never accepted Germany's WWII past.  When his parents come to visit, they reignite the debate, defending their nationality.  The debate flares out of control when the father tells of his experience during the war supervising Jewish girls at a factory.

The lack of sex in "Amnesia" was more than made up in Gaspar Noe's "Love."  The movie is a succession of explicit couplings straight out of a porn movie.  A young American attending film school in Paris seduces an aspiring painter who works at a gallery.  We never see them in class or at work, mostly just in bed.  The only evidence that the guy is an aspiring film director are all the movie posters in his apartment--Noe's favorite "Salo" among them--and the guy telling his girl friend that she has to see "2001" as they take a stroll through the Parisian peak that was once a quarry.  They are both sexually adventurous and go to a sex club that is filmed with dazzling effect.  The guy though can't  bring himself to join his girl friend in sex with a transvestite when his penis is presented to him.  He is all for a threesome with a woman, as is she.  Both would like her to be a blond.  When one moves into their building, she's in their clutches that night.  This was the third prominent movie of the fest with a baby being given a comical name. This time it was Gaspar, which got a laugh out of the audience.  There are laughs too when the American berates the French for not having won a war since 1918 and when a police officer tells him he shouldn't try to have his own way in all things like Americans do.  Its hard to say what audiences this movie will be made available too, but any fan of Noe will be pleased to see it.

Full nudity was also on prominent display in the Un Certain Regard wrap-up for the day--"The Other Side"--an Italian directed documentary that takes place in Hicksville, Louisiana.  A racist drug-addict and his addict girl friend remarkably allow a film crew into their life.  They bare all from their injections to their love-making and their innermost thoughts.  The guy has done time and promises to go back to prison when his dying mother goes, as it is only in prison that he can give up his addictions.  The woman too knows she must come clean, but isn't so eager.  I quickly lost interest in these deadbeats and was happy to nod off.  Ralph had had enough less than half way through and took his leave early, the first film he had walked out on this year.  

Before hitting the hay I took the time to further pursue the handful of suggestions various friends sent to regain my email account after being lost to a hacker three days ago.  The winner came from Andrew of Sydney, who I've toured with in Laos and France and who has done me many a fine turn.  He advised checking to see if the emails being sent to my account were being forwarded to the account of the hacker.  Indeed, they were.  With the expertise of Ralph we disabled that feature.  The process is explained in the comments suggestion from Day Seven.  Right away I began receiving emails for the first time in three days, but none from that period.  Its not likely I'll be able to recover any of those.   Hopefully there weren't any of pressing concern.  Anyway, great thanks to Andrew and all else who expressed concern.

Cannes Day Eight

Thank you Paolo.  You still have much to say and can express it in inventive ways. You haven't succombed to the ennui and melancholy of the octogenarians Michael Caine, playing a composer, and Harvey Keitl, a movie director, in your latest contribution to cinema.   Though "Youth" doesn't have your trademark Sorrentino exuberance and playfulness of your Oscar winning "Great Beauty," it does have its depth and humanity.  It may not register as high on the "Wow" index, but it is still a wow, and not because you twice use the "riding a bike" metaphor to good effect. 

Caine refusing a knight-hood from an emissary of the Queen at the outset while he is hanging out at a health spa in the Swiss Alps with Keitel and others of great means made for a fine opening.  Then his initial refusal to tell his daughter why her husband, son of Keitel, was leaving her for a ditzy singer also added spice to the story and so it continued as your films always do.  At last a film came along that I didn't want to end and was looking forward to seeing again on Repeat Sunday before the awards ceremony.  This probably isn't Palm d'Or material, but it could be without anything off the charts just yet.

This fine day of cinema continued with the second Competiton film of the day "Mountains May Depart."  This Chinese film, told in three parts, also had an emotional depth beyond most of the rest of the fare.  Part one takes place in 1999.  A young woman dumps her working class boy friend, who she has a genuine rapport with, to marry a crass, wealthy upstart.  In part two fifteen years later their marriage is over and the one she truly loved has come down with cancer and can't afford medical attention.  His wife seeks out his former girl friend.  And then the film jumps ahead to 2025 in Australia where the rich guy has gone, taking his son with him, who he had named "Dollar," as bizarre of a name as "Sinbad," as Vincent Cassel named his son in the earlier Competiton film "Mon Roi."  Throughout these are genuine, well-defined characters.  A thank you goes out to Jia Zhangke as well for his directing.

The two Un Certain Regard films of the day maintained this sidebar's theme of giving a fine portrayal of another land.  "Lamb" was the first film from Ethiopia to play in this category.  In some instances that would give extra impetus for programming a film that might not necessarily be up to par,  but this film had the quality to be from anywhere and accepted.  Like many of the festival films, it was a story of coping with hardship.  Drought is making it difficult to scratch out an existence for a farming family.  A young boy who has come to live with them is continually trying to find a place for a lamb to graze and incurs the wrath of many.  The spectacular mountain scenery adds great luster to this sensitive, heartfelt story.

The illicit side of dog selling in France provided the backdrop for "I Am a Soldier," the story of a thirty year old woman who has been looking for work for eight months and is reduced to moving in with her mother.  She begins working for her uncle who sells dog.  She quickly learns not all is on the up and up, but is a good soldier and goes along with it and even starts some illicit side operations of her own.  This wasn't an in your face portrayal of the harsh economic times, but more powerful than some of those that are.  This was a wonderful, insightful discovery.

The day was also highlighted with a documentary on Orson Welles, "This is Orson Welles," followed by a screening of "Citizen Kane."  Watching this masterpiece with French subtitles was an ultimate expierce.  As with the Ingrid Bergman documentary, this one featured the commentary of a daughter. And like Bergman's children's, she had nothing but nice things to say about her dad.  Scorcese and Bogdonavich and Henry Jaglom were among the talking heads.  Though it didn't cover anything new, it was still well worth seeing. 

With the festival winding down, there were just a handful of Market screenings.  I was happy to be able to fit "Dream Driven" into my schedule, a Finnish documentary about three young men who drove a van from Finland to Nepal to help build a school and to bring attention to the evils of the caste system. It would have been much more noteworthy if they had made a bike trip of it, and they were a bit naive in their idealism, but the opening of a school and two more that they raised funds for brought the young men to tears. 

Cannes Day Seven

My day was bookended by violence-laced crime thrillers--one an American production about Mexican drug cartels and the other of office politics from South Korea.  One featured inventive plot twists and the other didn't much care about the credibility of its twists.

The American production, "Sicario" by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, put its budget into its cast (Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro) and aerial shots and car chases rather than its script.  It was slick enough to be shown in Competition, while the Korean film, "Office," was given an Out of Competition  slot.  

"Sicario" began with great promise as Emily Blount leads an FBI raid on a drug house in Phoenix.  Her assured demeanor along with the first-rate action directing remained a strong current through the film.  She is enlisted by higher operatives led by Josh Broslin to cross the border into Mexico and snatch a drug lord.  It is more bravado film-making, though the credibility of the script begins to ebb. It doesn't become as outlandish as Villeneuve's "Prisoners," and can be somewhat overlooked,  as the premise of a Colombian drug prosecutor, played with matching vigor as the other leads by Del Toro, turns into a superhero out for the revenge of the death of his wife and daughter by drug lords, adding a jolt to the proceedings that is more for the popcorn crowd than the cineste.  It is a far cry from Villeneuve's masterpieces "Incendies" and "Polytchnique."

"Office" couldn't match the polish and pizzazz of "Sicario," but it was equally gripping, delving into the psyche of a detective trying to track down a guy who inexplicably murdered his wife and son and disappears.   A surveillance camera shows him returning to the skyscraper where he worked, but not leaving.  The drama bridges upon horror, but more psychological than physical.

I found myself in a minor horror movie of my own when I arrived back at the apartment after midnight and discovered  my email account had been taken hostage and a message sent out to everone in my address book saying I was in Istanbul and had lost my wallet and needed money.  The worst of it was that I could no longer receive emails, as messages replying to the plea would be intercepted by the perpetrator.  At least I can send out emails from the account,  I changed my password, but so far that hasn't helped.  So I have not received any emails in the past 24-hours allowing me to concentrate further on the film festival.

The day wasn't without good fortune, as after the 8:30 am screening of "Sicario" a woman walked up to Ralph and I and offered us invitations to the next Competiton screening in the Lumiere at 11:30.  Ralph already had one.  It was the first I had come by this year.  I rushed directly to the Lumiere, but still  ended up in the nose-bleed section in the last row in the balcony. Its a vantage I know well from years past and don't mind at all looking over a sea of heads at the distant screen far below.

I doubt this movie, "Marguerite and Julien," will stick with me.  It is a true story of incest in France in 1600.  Valerie Donzelli returns to those times but tries to jazz up the story with Rock music and odd insertions of twentieth century  technology, including the flash of a helicopter.  Unfortunately it doesn't work.  A straightforward telling of this story that ends in tragedy could have made for a fine movie.  No one much liked it, with a rare below one star overall rating from "Screen's" panel of ten critics, though still better than Van Sant's .6 disaster. 

Today's  Un Certain Regard film, "Trap," took me back to the Philippines through the same post-typoon disaster scene I had bicycled through a year ago.  It captured all the images I know well--UN tents for the survivors, battered  palm trees, religious services, bicycles with side cars, small road side cafes and the great resilience of the Filipinos.  Despite the sure hand of acclaimed director Brillante Mendoza, he accompanied his fine images with just a perfunctory story of recovery.

I filled the rest of the day with three documentaries.  One of them would have been Kent Jones's on the legendary conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut that resulted in a book, but I was among a hundred or more who were turned away from the Bunuel where special events are held.  One floor below was a Market screening of the Directors Fortnight entry "Beyond My Grandfather Allende" filmed by one of his granddaughters. She wss too young to remember him when his life came to an end in Chile's 1973 coup and this is an attempt to come to know him through her family members.His elderly wife is a most unwillingly subject.  She continually cuts off interviews with her granddaughter laying beside her in bed.  The director's other family members are also very reticent to talk about their memories that they have all suppressed. The best thing about the doc was remembering the exceptional doc by Sarah Polley uncovering her big family secret.

A Swedish documentary, "Ingrid Bergman--In Her Own Words," on the actress who overlooks the entries to the Palais and Debussy as the subject of this year's poster, was given the star treatment with Isabella Rosselini on hand to introduce it in the Soixante.  She was one Bergman's four children by two husbands.  The children are all extensively interviewed in this artful rendition of her life receiving more screen time than movie clips.  Three of the children were fathered by the Italian director, and the first by her Swedish husband, who became a doctor in the US during the early years of their marriage after Bergman had come to Hollywood.  When she left her husband and eight year old daughter for Rosselini, it was an international scandal, even denounced on the Senate floor. She didn't return to the US for eight years, not even for the Oscars when she won her second, accepted by Cary Grant in a year when the Oscars were held in New York. When she finally did return to the US Ed Sullivan took a poll whether he should have her on his show.

My third documentary was one of those few films of personal interest I was most eager to see when I had spotted it in the program on my first perusal--"The Fabulous Story of Mr Riquet."  He engineered the Canal du Midi linking the Atlantic with the Mediterranean under Louis XIV in the 1700s.  It is one of the world's first engineering great feats.  It has a beautiful plane-tree lined bike path along it.  It was exciting to see its beauty captured on the big screen, but unfortunately it didn't have a big enough budget to have added English subtitles, the first such film I've come across in the Market.