Friends: Unlike the Oscar award ceremony where all the nominees are present, sweating it out, only the winners are called back to Cannes for its awards ceremony, so when Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar came prancing up the red carpet for one last offering to the hoard of photographers and public gawkers, we knew who'd won the best actress award and perhaps best picture. If the fest organizers wanted to, they could sequester all the winners back stage and maintain the suspense, but this festival is as much about glitter and pageantry as anything, so with stars on hand, they had to be on prominent display.
My eye wasn't sharp enough to notice the other directors who were called back, as the cameras broadcasting the ceremony to those of us in the DeBussy Theater adjoining the Palias couldn't keep their lenses off Cruz and Almodovar, so we were able to enjoy some suspense.
I was relieved that Almodovar's picture didn't win anything more than best screenplay and that Cruz had to share her best acting award with the five other women actresses in "Volver," so more significant films could be awarded. The jury seemed intent on recognizing films dealing with relevant issues. Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" took top honors, surprising just about everyone. Jury president Wong Kar Wei said it was a unanimous decision. Loach's film on the Irish battling their English occupiers in 1920 was the first film in Competition screened nearly two weeks ago and largely overlooked in awards speculation. It is a worthwhile film by a most noteworthy director, but it lacked the emotional impact of some of his other films dealing with equally important subjects. Still, Loach and his films deserve whatever recognition they receive.
The second place film, "Flanders" by Bruno Dumont, also has much contemporary significance, telling the story of French farm boys of present time being sent to an Arabic country as soldiers and what the experience does to them. I actually had the chance on this repeat Sunday, when all twenty Competition films are rescreened, to see this film a second time before the awards ceremony. It was a film I enjoyed, but not as much as I was hoping, so I wanted to see if perhaps a second viewing would increase my enjoyment. One of the first images of "Flanders," which did not register with me on my first viewing, was of a farm boy gazing long at a bruise on his forearm. Little does he, or we, know that it is a mere pin-prick of an injury compared to what awaits him when he goes off to war. That is but one of many incidental details that made my second viewing much richer than the first, though not necessarily more enjoyable.
This second look allowed me to more fully understand why I wasn't as awed or moved by this film as by his first two films. This lacks their coherence and seamless progression from incident to incident. Dumont knows where he wants to go, but he gets there haltingly. Time after time he abruptly puts his characters in situations that beg plausibility. There are several escapes that defy reality, only serving his story. We are suddenly thrust into a rape scene that is crucial to the film's story, but he doesn't lead us there convincingly. There is still much to like about "Flanders," but it does not measure up to his first two much-acclaimed films. Still I am happy it won an award.
I was happiest though with the best director award won by "Babel's" Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, something I surmised could happen back when I reported on it five day's ago. I would have been happier with a Palm d'Or, but this is equivalent to that. Hanake won best director rather than the Palm d'Or last year for "Cache," even though many called it not only last year's best film but the best film of the new century. Inarritu gave a very articulate and moving acceptance speech. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him back as jury president in the near future. Babel is accessible and powerful enough and with a cast of stars that it could easily win the Oscar, and not for best foreign picture, but for the whole kit and caboodle.
The jury also acknowledged the French film "Days of Glory" about Algerian soldiers serving in the French army in WWII with a best actor award for its five lead Algerians. The five had a boisterous time accepting the award, one winner even rushing over to give juror Samuel L. Jackson a high-five in appreciation and joy. They ended their acceptance speech with a rousing song.
The Scottish film "Red Road" by first time director Andrea Arnold won the Prix du Jury award, for the third best film. My only disappointment was that its star did not receive best actress award. Arnold thanked her, "Wherever you are," as she did not accompany her back for the ceremony. Arnold said she wasn't sure where she was, as just five hours ago she herself was in London when she was called back for this ceremony.
The awards ceremony was followed by one last film, "Transylvania," by the French-Algerian director Tony Gatlin. With loads of gypsy song and dance this was a good concluding film. Its not all good times however, as the lead character, a wild young woman traveler who has come to Transylvania to track down her lover, a singer, is forthrightly rejected by him. She takes up with an older guy who lives out of his car as he travels around buying musical instruments.
They both have mysterious pasts. He asks her after they've been together several days, "Who are you?" "Imagine anything you'd like. I've done it all," she replies. She is prone to acts of spontaneity. As they pass an old man pushing his bike up a hill, she demands they stop and help him. When they can't fit his bike in their car, she rides it while he sits in the car. She dresses as a gypsy. The man comments, "I'm 75 and I never saw a gypsy on a bicycle."
The only other film I saw today that I hadn't previously viewed was Richard Linklater's " Fast Food Nation." Whatever impact this movie might have on its expose of the meat and fast food industry is undermined by its appalling naivete and simple-mindedness. Grey Kinnear plays a marketing executive for a fast food chain who is sent to investigate its packing plant, as there are reports that excrement is turning up in the meat paddies. After his tour of the plant he is impressed by its cleanliness. When he tells this to Kris Kristofferson, who plays a rancher who knows more, Kristofferson asks him if he saw the kill floor. Kinnear is so naive he doesn't even know what the kill floor is, and, of course, hadn't seen it. Kinnear is also told that the executive of his company has been cooking the books and padding his expense account and is sleeping with his secretary. Kinnear is most dismayed about his boss's infidelity, saying "Have you ever met Louise," as if he could less expect it of her than her boss.
Idealist college students are equally numbskulled, debating what they can do about the stockyards. They decide to liberate the cattle in a nearby stockyard awaiting slaughter. When they cut the fence and the cattle don't flee, Amber pleads with a cow, "Don't you want to be free?" Amber at least quits her job working at the local fast food hamburger chain, inspired by her uncle. When she tells her boss she is quitting she says, "I can't work her any more. Its just feels wrong."
I snuck in a second viewing of "The Family Friend" from Italy as well, again failing to wow me as I had been hoping. It suffered from the same malady as "Flanders." Sorrentino does not meticulously construct his story wringing its interest tighter and tighter frame by frame as he did in his previous film, the brilliant "Consequences of Love." There are too many stray unessential details and asides that distract from the heart of the story. I still very much like it, but it won't have me do cartwheels as I had hoped it would.
So my totals for the 12 days were 70 films. "Babel" was far and away my favorite, and the only sure film to make my top ten list for the year. Last year I left with seven such films. There are a handful that could possibly make it however--Red Road, Luxury Car, URO, Ten Canoes, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, The Violin, Flanders, The Family Friend, Days of Glory, The Boy on a Galloping Horse, The Bridge, Unknown.
Now its back to the bike and on to Italy and Croatia and then back for the Tour July 1.
Later, George
Monday, May 29, 2006
Day 11
Friends: The last two Competition screenings this morning gave a final double dose of innocent citizens brutalized by those who are supposed to be serving and protecting them, continuing the dominant theme of this festival.
The first occurred in Franco's Spain in the Mexican feature "Pan's Labrynith", the second such
film devoted to that era. The first was "Salvador" playing in the Un Certain Regard category. Whereas "Salvador" took place in the '70s and was based on a true story, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a fable of a movie taking place in 1944.
The film opens with a mother and a daughter being taken to the mountain outpost of the mother's new, second husband, the commanding officer of this unit, who is a truly villainous man. He recklessly murders two locals he suspects of being rebels, and tortures the captured trying to get information out of them. But the movie is the girl's story more than the captain's. Little does she know, but she is a princess is waiting. She allows a bug, who turns into a flying elf, to lead her through a labyrinth where Pan resides. He gives her various assignments.
When she violates his order to not eat anything off a banquet table in the netherworld she is led to, all hell breaks loose. This is directed by Guillermo del Toro, one of the minority of directors in Competition who has had any commercial success with films such as "Hellboy," "Blade 2" and "The Devil's Backbone." This too will have more appeal to the movie-going crowd who
go to the multiplex for escapism rather than the cinema crowd who seek out art houses.
"Cronica de una Fuga" offers up brutality and torture Argentinian-style. This true story takes
place in 1977 Buenos Aries. Various young men, including a B-level soccer goalie, have been arrested under suspicion for being revolutionaries. They are being held in a secret location for an indefinite period of time as they are interrogated and tortured. The brutality here is more
psychological than physical, but their torture still includes beatings and having their heads held under water. Their torturers are patient men. Their incarceration lasts for days and weeks and months. Some of them break and others hold out. There have been much more gripping movies done on this era, but this was still a commendable portrayal.
Often the last day's Un Certain Regard offerings can be accused of having been held to the end of the festival when many people have left and all the better films have been shown. That was true again this year. The Hong Kong "Re-Cycle," about a young woman writer, degenerates into a horror movie. She finds herself in a realm of things that have been abandoned, and not only things such as books and toys, but also ideas, including ideas of the supernatural she has been writing about. It is filmed with great technical virtuosity, and could please those who like to be frightened, but there isn't much appealing to the intellect here.
The Russian "977" takes place in a secret research institute that makes experiments on people. I had little clue as to what all the people in white lab coats were up to. Finally we are told one of the research subjects doesn't exist. "She never did."
The Polish "The Boy on a Galloping Horse" was a quiet, melancholy tale in black-and-white of a famous author who retreats from the city to a small rural town. He has to return to the city with his son, who needs an operation that he may or may not survive. The son does not realize how serious it is. The father is tortured by not only that, but reconciling with his wife and also his writing. This was a most accomplished film that looked great and offered captivating performances.
I was among about 150 stalwarts who ended the day with "Cabiria," a recently restored Italian silent three-hour epic from 1914. It played with piano accompaniment and no intermission. It is a seminal film that included an on screen introduction by Martin Scorcese. The audience included young film students and others devoted to the art. The audience was scattered enough in the Buneul that as Thierry Fremaux introduced the film he could look around and acknowledge some of those devotees. Ebert was near the back. Before the film started he commented that for the first time in nine years he would not be broadcasting the awards ceremony the next night with Annette Insdorf as Bravo had decided not to carry it. "They're dumbing down," he said.
"Cabiria" takes place three centuries before Christ, with Mount Etna erupting, spewing lava down its sides and upon nearby villages. An army is on the march in the high snow-covered mountains with elephants. There are also picturesque desert scenes of camels on the march. Battles are waged, seemingly impregnable forts assaulted, prisoners taken, a black hulk of a man tossing bodies left and right. This film has a great grandeur and sweep.
After the film I met the Tribune's new lead film critic, Michael Philips. He is a gung-ho,
enthusiastic guy enjoying his first time at Cannes, though he said, "I feel like I've been run over a
truck...several times."
One day to go, George
The first occurred in Franco's Spain in the Mexican feature "Pan's Labrynith", the second such
film devoted to that era. The first was "Salvador" playing in the Un Certain Regard category. Whereas "Salvador" took place in the '70s and was based on a true story, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a fable of a movie taking place in 1944.
The film opens with a mother and a daughter being taken to the mountain outpost of the mother's new, second husband, the commanding officer of this unit, who is a truly villainous man. He recklessly murders two locals he suspects of being rebels, and tortures the captured trying to get information out of them. But the movie is the girl's story more than the captain's. Little does she know, but she is a princess is waiting. She allows a bug, who turns into a flying elf, to lead her through a labyrinth where Pan resides. He gives her various assignments.
When she violates his order to not eat anything off a banquet table in the netherworld she is led to, all hell breaks loose. This is directed by Guillermo del Toro, one of the minority of directors in Competition who has had any commercial success with films such as "Hellboy," "Blade 2" and "The Devil's Backbone." This too will have more appeal to the movie-going crowd who
go to the multiplex for escapism rather than the cinema crowd who seek out art houses.
"Cronica de una Fuga" offers up brutality and torture Argentinian-style. This true story takes
place in 1977 Buenos Aries. Various young men, including a B-level soccer goalie, have been arrested under suspicion for being revolutionaries. They are being held in a secret location for an indefinite period of time as they are interrogated and tortured. The brutality here is more
psychological than physical, but their torture still includes beatings and having their heads held under water. Their torturers are patient men. Their incarceration lasts for days and weeks and months. Some of them break and others hold out. There have been much more gripping movies done on this era, but this was still a commendable portrayal.
Often the last day's Un Certain Regard offerings can be accused of having been held to the end of the festival when many people have left and all the better films have been shown. That was true again this year. The Hong Kong "Re-Cycle," about a young woman writer, degenerates into a horror movie. She finds herself in a realm of things that have been abandoned, and not only things such as books and toys, but also ideas, including ideas of the supernatural she has been writing about. It is filmed with great technical virtuosity, and could please those who like to be frightened, but there isn't much appealing to the intellect here.
The Russian "977" takes place in a secret research institute that makes experiments on people. I had little clue as to what all the people in white lab coats were up to. Finally we are told one of the research subjects doesn't exist. "She never did."
The Polish "The Boy on a Galloping Horse" was a quiet, melancholy tale in black-and-white of a famous author who retreats from the city to a small rural town. He has to return to the city with his son, who needs an operation that he may or may not survive. The son does not realize how serious it is. The father is tortured by not only that, but reconciling with his wife and also his writing. This was a most accomplished film that looked great and offered captivating performances.
I was among about 150 stalwarts who ended the day with "Cabiria," a recently restored Italian silent three-hour epic from 1914. It played with piano accompaniment and no intermission. It is a seminal film that included an on screen introduction by Martin Scorcese. The audience included young film students and others devoted to the art. The audience was scattered enough in the Buneul that as Thierry Fremaux introduced the film he could look around and acknowledge some of those devotees. Ebert was near the back. Before the film started he commented that for the first time in nine years he would not be broadcasting the awards ceremony the next night with Annette Insdorf as Bravo had decided not to carry it. "They're dumbing down," he said.
"Cabiria" takes place three centuries before Christ, with Mount Etna erupting, spewing lava down its sides and upon nearby villages. An army is on the march in the high snow-covered mountains with elephants. There are also picturesque desert scenes of camels on the march. Battles are waged, seemingly impregnable forts assaulted, prisoners taken, a black hulk of a man tossing bodies left and right. This film has a great grandeur and sweep.
After the film I met the Tribune's new lead film critic, Michael Philips. He is a gung-ho,
enthusiastic guy enjoying his first time at Cannes, though he said, "I feel like I've been run over a
truck...several times."
One day to go, George
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Day 11
Friends: The last two Competition screenings this morning gave a final double dose of innocent citizens brutalized by those who are supposed to be serving and protecting them, continuing the dominant theme of this festival.
The first occurred in Franco's Spain in the Mexican feature "Pan's Labrynith", the second such film devoted to that era. The first was "Salvador" playing in the Uncertain Regard category. Whereas "Salvador" took place in the '70s and was based on a true story, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a fable taking place in 1944.
The film opens with a mother and daughter being taken to the mountain outpost of the mother's new, second husband, the commanding officer of this unit, who is a truly villainous man. He recklessly murders two locals he suspects of being rebels, and tortures the captured trying to get information out of them. But the movie is the girl's story more than the captain's. Little does she know, but she is a princess is waiting. She allows a bug, who turns into a flying elf, to lead her through a labyrinth where Pan resides. He gives her various assignments. When she violates his order to not eat anything off a banquet table in the netherworld she is led to, all hell breaks loose. This is directed by Guillermo del Toro, one of the minority of directors in Competition who has had any commercial success with films such as "Hellboy," "Blade 2" and "The Devil's Backbone." This too will have more appeal to the movie-going crowd who go to the multiplex for escapism than the cinema crowd who seek out art houses.
"Cronica de una Fuga" offers up brutality and torture Argentinian-style. This true story takes place in 1977 in Buenos Aries. Various young men, including a B-level soccer goalie, suspected of being revolutionaries, are being held hostage and interrogated. The brutality here is more psychological than physical, but their torture still includes beatings and having their heads held under water. Their torturers are patient men. Their incarceration lasts for days and weeks and months. Some of them break and others hold out. There have been much more gripping movies done on this era, but this was still a fine portrayal.
The final two Uncertain Regard offerings could be accused of having been held to the end of the festival when many people have left and all the better films have been shown. The Hong Kong "Re-Cycle," about a young woman writer, degenerates into a horror movie. She finds herself in a realm of things that have been abandoned, and not only things such as books and toys, but also ideas, including ideas of the supernatural she has been writing about. It is filmed with great technical virtuosity, and could please those who like to be frightened, but there isn't much appealing to the intellect here. The Russian "977" takes place in a secret research institute that makes experiments on people. I had little clue as to what all the people in white lab coasts were up to. Finally we are told one of the research subjects doesn't exist. "She never did."
The Polish "The Boy on a Galloping Horse" was a quiet, melancholy tale in black-and-white of a famous author who retreats from the city to a small rural town. He has to return to the city with his son, who needs an operation that he may or may not survive. The son does not realize how serious it is. The father is tortured by not only that, but reconciling with his wife and also his writing. This was a most accomplished film that looked great and offered captivating performances.
I was among about 150 stalwarts who ended the day with "Cabiria," a recently restored Italian silent three-hour epic from 1914. It played with piano accompaniment and no intermission. It is a seminal film that included an on screen introduction by Martin Scorcese. The audience included young film students and others devoted to the art. The audience was scattered enough in the Buneul that as Thierry Fremaux introduced the film he could look around and acknowledge some of those devotees. Ebert was near the back. Before the film started he commented that for the first time in nine years he would not be broadcasting the awards ceremony the next night with Annette Insdorf as Bravo had decided not to carry it. "They're dumbing down," he said.
"Cabiria" takes place three centuries before Christ, with Mount Etna erupting, spewing lava down its sides and upon nearby villages. An army is on the march in the high snow-covered mountains with elephants. There are also picturesque desert scenes of camels on the march. Battles are waged, seemingly impregnable forts assaulted, prisoners taken, a black hulk of a man tossing bodies left and right. This film has a great grandeur and sweep.
After the film Patrick McGavin introduced me to the Tribune's new lead film critic, Michael Philips. He is a gung-ho, enthusiastic guy enjoying his first time at Cannes, though he said, "I feel like I've been run over a truck...several times."
One day to go, George
The first occurred in Franco's Spain in the Mexican feature "Pan's Labrynith", the second such film devoted to that era. The first was "Salvador" playing in the Uncertain Regard category. Whereas "Salvador" took place in the '70s and was based on a true story, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a fable taking place in 1944.
The film opens with a mother and daughter being taken to the mountain outpost of the mother's new, second husband, the commanding officer of this unit, who is a truly villainous man. He recklessly murders two locals he suspects of being rebels, and tortures the captured trying to get information out of them. But the movie is the girl's story more than the captain's. Little does she know, but she is a princess is waiting. She allows a bug, who turns into a flying elf, to lead her through a labyrinth where Pan resides. He gives her various assignments. When she violates his order to not eat anything off a banquet table in the netherworld she is led to, all hell breaks loose. This is directed by Guillermo del Toro, one of the minority of directors in Competition who has had any commercial success with films such as "Hellboy," "Blade 2" and "The Devil's Backbone." This too will have more appeal to the movie-going crowd who go to the multiplex for escapism than the cinema crowd who seek out art houses.
"Cronica de una Fuga" offers up brutality and torture Argentinian-style. This true story takes place in 1977 in Buenos Aries. Various young men, including a B-level soccer goalie, suspected of being revolutionaries, are being held hostage and interrogated. The brutality here is more psychological than physical, but their torture still includes beatings and having their heads held under water. Their torturers are patient men. Their incarceration lasts for days and weeks and months. Some of them break and others hold out. There have been much more gripping movies done on this era, but this was still a fine portrayal.
The final two Uncertain Regard offerings could be accused of having been held to the end of the festival when many people have left and all the better films have been shown. The Hong Kong "Re-Cycle," about a young woman writer, degenerates into a horror movie. She finds herself in a realm of things that have been abandoned, and not only things such as books and toys, but also ideas, including ideas of the supernatural she has been writing about. It is filmed with great technical virtuosity, and could please those who like to be frightened, but there isn't much appealing to the intellect here. The Russian "977" takes place in a secret research institute that makes experiments on people. I had little clue as to what all the people in white lab coasts were up to. Finally we are told one of the research subjects doesn't exist. "She never did."
The Polish "The Boy on a Galloping Horse" was a quiet, melancholy tale in black-and-white of a famous author who retreats from the city to a small rural town. He has to return to the city with his son, who needs an operation that he may or may not survive. The son does not realize how serious it is. The father is tortured by not only that, but reconciling with his wife and also his writing. This was a most accomplished film that looked great and offered captivating performances.
I was among about 150 stalwarts who ended the day with "Cabiria," a recently restored Italian silent three-hour epic from 1914. It played with piano accompaniment and no intermission. It is a seminal film that included an on screen introduction by Martin Scorcese. The audience included young film students and others devoted to the art. The audience was scattered enough in the Buneul that as Thierry Fremaux introduced the film he could look around and acknowledge some of those devotees. Ebert was near the back. Before the film started he commented that for the first time in nine years he would not be broadcasting the awards ceremony the next night with Annette Insdorf as Bravo had decided not to carry it. "They're dumbing down," he said.
"Cabiria" takes place three centuries before Christ, with Mount Etna erupting, spewing lava down its sides and upon nearby villages. An army is on the march in the high snow-covered mountains with elephants. There are also picturesque desert scenes of camels on the march. Battles are waged, seemingly impregnable forts assaulted, prisoners taken, a black hulk of a man tossing bodies left and right. This film has a great grandeur and sweep.
After the film Patrick McGavin introduced me to the Tribune's new lead film critic, Michael Philips. He is a gung-ho, enthusiastic guy enjoying his first time at Cannes, though he said, "I feel like I've been run over a truck...several times."
One day to go, George
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Day 10
Friends: Gerard Depardieu can sing, and so entertainingly in the French "I Did It My Way," for awhile I thought he could be a threat to win the best actor award for his performance. But his role as a lounge singer, who will even sing at retirement homes, isn't quite enough to overcome a standard plot that lacked much imagination.
The picture could just as well have been called "Ladies Man," as that is what a young real estate agent, who is the object of his affections, continually calls him. She alternately encourages and discourages his attentions. He calls her a "prick tease", which doesn't much phase her, but "easy lay" is end of conversation and sends her running. She has a mysterious past. The clues to it only come in not very satisfying droplets. This film may not have been worthy of the Competition field, but it was still an enjoyable dose of cinema thanks to Depardieu. His repertoire of love songs would make for a nice CD. As he said, "My songs tell the truth, especially the love songs."
The Portuguese "Juventude em Marcha," the 18th of the 20 films to play in competition, was easily the most walked-out-upon film of the festival, but not because it was so bad. It was just horribly dull, tedious and uninvolving. Before an hour of this two hour and twenty minute film had unspooled I was the lone person left in my aisle of 20 people. The film is a succession of dreary, rambling monologues straight into the camera of Cape Verdians living on the fringe
in Lisbon. I have been lucky to have seen only one such film of this "testing-the-audience's patience" genre of art films this year.
Its not a film festival without at least one film devoted to trying to understand what led to a suicide. There are times when it can emerge as the dominant theme of a festival. So far this year, the documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge is the only film I've seen devoted exclusively to the subject. "Two Thirty Seven" from Australia broke that string. Audiences may split over this film, but one certainty is that every review will compare it to Gus Van Sant's "Elephant," not only for its on-the-money portrayal of a day at a high school, but also for its meshing of scenes and the impending doom that hovers. It begins with the discovery of a suicide victim in a locked bathroom. We don't see who it is. The story flashes back to the start of the day and follows the stories of a handful of students, interspersed with black-and-white commentaries of them speaking into the camera.
So we are left to figure out which of half a dozen possibilities is the one to die--the girl who discovers she is pregnant, the gay guy who is out of the closet, a gay guy who is still in the closet, the guy who has two bladders and can't control one of them wetting himself, the guy who only gets an 87 on his final test when he needed a 90, a girl rejected by her boy friend. At first it looks as if this is an extremely heavy-handed, manipulative story, but the portrayals are so true that one can't but help to start liking this film by a young director who dedicates the film to a friend who committed suicide. But by the end the manipulation becomes a bit much. Helen was livid at the film's conclusion, especially at the depiction of the suicide. It received a rousing response from the audience, however.
I was the last person admitted to "Congorama" and only because I clung to the backside of the person in front of me and prevented the usher from sticking his arm out in front of me, as he tried to do. Experience paid off. This was the first time I had managed to get into the Director's Fortnight theater this year, as its slate of films has been much better received than in the recent past. I've still managed to see a bunch of them, but only when they replayed at another theater. This French Canadian feature maintained the exemplary standard of this sidebar.
The story follows a couple of slightly askew inventors, one in Belgium and the other in Canada. The Belgian has been threatened by his boss that if he doesn't find a buyer for one of his inventions in the next two months, he'll be returned to the factory floor. He flies off to Canada trying to sell a de-icing device and also to find his family, as he was born there and put up for adoption. The film is a potpourri of wackiness and seriousness, including a stray emu that saves the day, although at first it seems to have ruined it.
I concluded my day with "Sway" from Japan, after walking out of the screening of the award-winning film at the Critic's Week. All indications were it would be the Norwegian "Bothersome Man," which I had earlier been shut out of. But much to my dismay, "Poison Friends," which I had already seen, won the Critic's Week Award. I liked the film, but not enough to see it again or to agree that it was more than good. It was French, which may have helped its cause.
I had six minutes to bike the mile to the Arcades Theater down Antibes, the main shopping street, which is just one lane wide. There wasn't much traffic at this hour, and when there was I could hop up on the sidewalk and pass it. "Sway" refers to a narrow, unsteady foot bridge over a mountain stream that a woman falls off. A man is accused of having pushed her off. He is incarcerated and is held until the conclusion of his trial, adding this to the long list of movies this year of someone who has been imprisoned. The movie becomes a courtroom drama. It was fascinating to see the Japanese version of this genre. Those on the stand are not protected from badgering, as in the U.S. The prosecuting lawyer is even allowed to ask the defendant if he had sexual designs on the woman. Very rarely was there an "objection."
If this movie had started on time, I could have seen "Clerks 2" at 12:30 a.m., but I was spared having to stay out late.
Later, George
The picture could just as well have been called "Ladies Man," as that is what a young real estate agent, who is the object of his affections, continually calls him. She alternately encourages and discourages his attentions. He calls her a "prick tease", which doesn't much phase her, but "easy lay" is end of conversation and sends her running. She has a mysterious past. The clues to it only come in not very satisfying droplets. This film may not have been worthy of the Competition field, but it was still an enjoyable dose of cinema thanks to Depardieu. His repertoire of love songs would make for a nice CD. As he said, "My songs tell the truth, especially the love songs."
The Portuguese "Juventude em Marcha," the 18th of the 20 films to play in competition, was easily the most walked-out-upon film of the festival, but not because it was so bad. It was just horribly dull, tedious and uninvolving. Before an hour of this two hour and twenty minute film had unspooled I was the lone person left in my aisle of 20 people. The film is a succession of dreary, rambling monologues straight into the camera of Cape Verdians living on the fringe
in Lisbon. I have been lucky to have seen only one such film of this "testing-the-audience's patience" genre of art films this year.
Its not a film festival without at least one film devoted to trying to understand what led to a suicide. There are times when it can emerge as the dominant theme of a festival. So far this year, the documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge is the only film I've seen devoted exclusively to the subject. "Two Thirty Seven" from Australia broke that string. Audiences may split over this film, but one certainty is that every review will compare it to Gus Van Sant's "Elephant," not only for its on-the-money portrayal of a day at a high school, but also for its meshing of scenes and the impending doom that hovers. It begins with the discovery of a suicide victim in a locked bathroom. We don't see who it is. The story flashes back to the start of the day and follows the stories of a handful of students, interspersed with black-and-white commentaries of them speaking into the camera.
So we are left to figure out which of half a dozen possibilities is the one to die--the girl who discovers she is pregnant, the gay guy who is out of the closet, a gay guy who is still in the closet, the guy who has two bladders and can't control one of them wetting himself, the guy who only gets an 87 on his final test when he needed a 90, a girl rejected by her boy friend. At first it looks as if this is an extremely heavy-handed, manipulative story, but the portrayals are so true that one can't but help to start liking this film by a young director who dedicates the film to a friend who committed suicide. But by the end the manipulation becomes a bit much. Helen was livid at the film's conclusion, especially at the depiction of the suicide. It received a rousing response from the audience, however.
I was the last person admitted to "Congorama" and only because I clung to the backside of the person in front of me and prevented the usher from sticking his arm out in front of me, as he tried to do. Experience paid off. This was the first time I had managed to get into the Director's Fortnight theater this year, as its slate of films has been much better received than in the recent past. I've still managed to see a bunch of them, but only when they replayed at another theater. This French Canadian feature maintained the exemplary standard of this sidebar.
The story follows a couple of slightly askew inventors, one in Belgium and the other in Canada. The Belgian has been threatened by his boss that if he doesn't find a buyer for one of his inventions in the next two months, he'll be returned to the factory floor. He flies off to Canada trying to sell a de-icing device and also to find his family, as he was born there and put up for adoption. The film is a potpourri of wackiness and seriousness, including a stray emu that saves the day, although at first it seems to have ruined it.
I concluded my day with "Sway" from Japan, after walking out of the screening of the award-winning film at the Critic's Week. All indications were it would be the Norwegian "Bothersome Man," which I had earlier been shut out of. But much to my dismay, "Poison Friends," which I had already seen, won the Critic's Week Award. I liked the film, but not enough to see it again or to agree that it was more than good. It was French, which may have helped its cause.
I had six minutes to bike the mile to the Arcades Theater down Antibes, the main shopping street, which is just one lane wide. There wasn't much traffic at this hour, and when there was I could hop up on the sidewalk and pass it. "Sway" refers to a narrow, unsteady foot bridge over a mountain stream that a woman falls off. A man is accused of having pushed her off. He is incarcerated and is held until the conclusion of his trial, adding this to the long list of movies this year of someone who has been imprisoned. The movie becomes a courtroom drama. It was fascinating to see the Japanese version of this genre. Those on the stand are not protected from badgering, as in the U.S. The prosecuting lawyer is even allowed to ask the defendant if he had sexual designs on the woman. Very rarely was there an "objection."
If this movie had started on time, I could have seen "Clerks 2" at 12:30 a.m., but I was spared having to stay out late.
Later, George
Friday, May 26, 2006
Day 9
Friends: Helen had great news for me today. The Danish Film Institute gave her a video of a bicycle messenger movie, hoping she'd program it. She doesn't have high hopes for it, as it wasn't being screened here, not even in the market, but she promises I can have a look at it when I return.
It was the first I'd crossed paths with Helen since Day l, as she has been in the press orbit this year with her pass. We met at the ten p.m. Director's Fortnight screening of "Dans Paris", which neither of us got into, not even she in the VIP line. I had a 10:30 back-up. Helen was going to slip over to her hotel and file her "Time Out Chicago" report and then return for an extra midnight screening of "Dans Paris." If my 10:30 movie started promptly and part of its 90 minute running time included lengthy closing credits, I might be able to hightail it back and join her. She said I probably didn't really need to get up early for next morning's 8:30 Competition screening, as it was something French, implying it was likely to be less than Competition-worthy. A seventh screening for the day was tempting, but not getting back to my tent until two a.m. wasn't. As it was, my movie didn't let out until after midnight, so it was just another six-movie day, just below my average.
The other excitement for the day was the sight of a bike cresting a hill in the distance in the Lithiuana/German "You Am I," and, as it approached the camera, discovering that it was a recumbent, a truly rare cinema-sighting. As the cyclist climbs the next hill he's passed by five cyclists out on a day ride who gleefully wave at him. He's a curiosity too at the small cafe he stops at. After a quick bite, when he leaves, a little girl says to her mother, "Look, he's going to ride it." Someone asks, "Couldn't you get a normal transport." He replies, "It's not about transport, but about communication."
The cyclist is a young architect who is fed up with the conventional life and decides to retreat to the woods and build a tree house along a river. His tree house is as quirky, practical and original as his choice of bikes. He uses pulleys to hoist up his material to build his amazing living space. He charges his battery to run his tools by pedaling his bike. He tosses the I Ching. If this less than fully realized movie had stuck with him rather than diverting to neighbors, who also lived out of the mainstream, it could well have been one of my favorites of the festival.
Ebert, among others, is saying I may have seen the best of the festival this morning at the Palais--"Days of Glory," a French film honoring the contributions of the Algerian soldiers who fought with the French during WWII and portraying the discrimination they had to overcome. It opens in 1943 in Algeria as the French-led Algerian troops are being trained to fight the Germans in their own country. After they drive them out of Algeria they are taken to France to fight the Germans there.
The Algerians fought a two-fold battle, one against the Germans and the other to gain the respect of their French officers. They were treated with less than equality, not even being fed the same food as the French. The Algerians stand up for themselves and learn to take pride in their efforts. The film is well-executed in every respect, and is the first of the festival whose climax touched me emotionally. It depicts the horror of war, but also the bravery of those fighting it.
The Italian "The Family Friend" is the second film in Competition along with "Babel" to show young, highly-skilled women playing volleyball. Paolo Sorrentini, who directed "The Consequences of Love," which was in Competition two years ago, has a keen eye for the captivating and dazzling image, as setting and spiking women offer. The volleyball in both movies was incidental, just an added cinematic ingredient from directors trying to dazzle and capture the eye of their audience. "The Family Friend" was rife with such flair, helping to compensate for a less than focused story line.
The family friend is a part-time money-lender whose day job is running a small seamstress operation. He's old, short, a bit unseemly and ugly, but is a conversational charmer. Most of his loans are modest and to friends, but still he needs an enforcer. When an opportunity for a killing, a million euro loan, comes along, he doesn't know whether to violate or stay true to his principles. That he has fallen in love with a young, manipulative beauty queen complicates
matters.
An ex-con and marital strife are at the heart of the Belgian "I Don't Care If Tomorrow Never Comes." A man just released from prison seeks out the foster father of his son demanding that he let him take his son for a week's vacation to the southwest of France. Going through the proper channels would take too long. The foster father hesitates. The perfectly cast ex-con with a menacing look threatens, "Don't make me take him by force."
Accompanying father and son on their road trip is the son's mother, who doesn't want the son to know she is his mother. When he asks her at one point if she has any children, she says no. Mother and father get along for a while, but that doesn't last. I had one of those out-of-body experiences I occasionally have about half way through the movie, suddenly realizing how much I was drawn into this small, well-executed film, caring about the characters and what was going to happen to them, and how lucky I was to appreciate this form of art and to be able to indulge in it to the degree I have here and over the years. I took a quick gaze at the sea of heads around me, noticing too how lost they were in the film, before returning to it myself. This isn't a film that will gain much notice or receive much play, but I was happy to have seen it.
"Barbers," a French-Canadian documentary about barbers, was not the small gem I was hoping it would be. Instead, it was an amateur point-and-shoot effort by someone who had a relative who was a barber and thought he could make an interesting documentary. He visits several barber shops in Quebec, filming guys getting their hair cut. Most are self-conscious and don't have much to say. The director finds one barber who has the gift of gab and spends a goodly portion of the documentary letting him hold forth as he sits in his chair. He talks more about growing up in war-torn Italy than about barbering. If I'd had a back-up movie of interest to escape to, I would have bailed on this very early.
A young woman suicide bomber circling around 42nd street in New York spends the last of her money eating food from street vendors and fast food joints in the American "Day Night Day Night." This barebones film is devoid of details explaining who she is and why she is doing what she is doing. She has been recruited and trained by hooded characters that we also know nothing about. This was a strangely riveting film that has the audience wondering from the very start what is going on and what is going to happen. The woman is very polite and timid. She gives a mesmerizing performance. It was a movie I liked very much, but wasn't sure if I should have.
Later, George
It was the first I'd crossed paths with Helen since Day l, as she has been in the press orbit this year with her pass. We met at the ten p.m. Director's Fortnight screening of "Dans Paris", which neither of us got into, not even she in the VIP line. I had a 10:30 back-up. Helen was going to slip over to her hotel and file her "Time Out Chicago" report and then return for an extra midnight screening of "Dans Paris." If my 10:30 movie started promptly and part of its 90 minute running time included lengthy closing credits, I might be able to hightail it back and join her. She said I probably didn't really need to get up early for next morning's 8:30 Competition screening, as it was something French, implying it was likely to be less than Competition-worthy. A seventh screening for the day was tempting, but not getting back to my tent until two a.m. wasn't. As it was, my movie didn't let out until after midnight, so it was just another six-movie day, just below my average.
The other excitement for the day was the sight of a bike cresting a hill in the distance in the Lithiuana/German "You Am I," and, as it approached the camera, discovering that it was a recumbent, a truly rare cinema-sighting. As the cyclist climbs the next hill he's passed by five cyclists out on a day ride who gleefully wave at him. He's a curiosity too at the small cafe he stops at. After a quick bite, when he leaves, a little girl says to her mother, "Look, he's going to ride it." Someone asks, "Couldn't you get a normal transport." He replies, "It's not about transport, but about communication."
The cyclist is a young architect who is fed up with the conventional life and decides to retreat to the woods and build a tree house along a river. His tree house is as quirky, practical and original as his choice of bikes. He uses pulleys to hoist up his material to build his amazing living space. He charges his battery to run his tools by pedaling his bike. He tosses the I Ching. If this less than fully realized movie had stuck with him rather than diverting to neighbors, who also lived out of the mainstream, it could well have been one of my favorites of the festival.
Ebert, among others, is saying I may have seen the best of the festival this morning at the Palais--"Days of Glory," a French film honoring the contributions of the Algerian soldiers who fought with the French during WWII and portraying the discrimination they had to overcome. It opens in 1943 in Algeria as the French-led Algerian troops are being trained to fight the Germans in their own country. After they drive them out of Algeria they are taken to France to fight the Germans there.
The Algerians fought a two-fold battle, one against the Germans and the other to gain the respect of their French officers. They were treated with less than equality, not even being fed the same food as the French. The Algerians stand up for themselves and learn to take pride in their efforts. The film is well-executed in every respect, and is the first of the festival whose climax touched me emotionally. It depicts the horror of war, but also the bravery of those fighting it.
The Italian "The Family Friend" is the second film in Competition along with "Babel" to show young, highly-skilled women playing volleyball. Paolo Sorrentini, who directed "The Consequences of Love," which was in Competition two years ago, has a keen eye for the captivating and dazzling image, as setting and spiking women offer. The volleyball in both movies was incidental, just an added cinematic ingredient from directors trying to dazzle and capture the eye of their audience. "The Family Friend" was rife with such flair, helping to compensate for a less than focused story line.
The family friend is a part-time money-lender whose day job is running a small seamstress operation. He's old, short, a bit unseemly and ugly, but is a conversational charmer. Most of his loans are modest and to friends, but still he needs an enforcer. When an opportunity for a killing, a million euro loan, comes along, he doesn't know whether to violate or stay true to his principles. That he has fallen in love with a young, manipulative beauty queen complicates
matters.
An ex-con and marital strife are at the heart of the Belgian "I Don't Care If Tomorrow Never Comes." A man just released from prison seeks out the foster father of his son demanding that he let him take his son for a week's vacation to the southwest of France. Going through the proper channels would take too long. The foster father hesitates. The perfectly cast ex-con with a menacing look threatens, "Don't make me take him by force."
Accompanying father and son on their road trip is the son's mother, who doesn't want the son to know she is his mother. When he asks her at one point if she has any children, she says no. Mother and father get along for a while, but that doesn't last. I had one of those out-of-body experiences I occasionally have about half way through the movie, suddenly realizing how much I was drawn into this small, well-executed film, caring about the characters and what was going to happen to them, and how lucky I was to appreciate this form of art and to be able to indulge in it to the degree I have here and over the years. I took a quick gaze at the sea of heads around me, noticing too how lost they were in the film, before returning to it myself. This isn't a film that will gain much notice or receive much play, but I was happy to have seen it.
"Barbers," a French-Canadian documentary about barbers, was not the small gem I was hoping it would be. Instead, it was an amateur point-and-shoot effort by someone who had a relative who was a barber and thought he could make an interesting documentary. He visits several barber shops in Quebec, filming guys getting their hair cut. Most are self-conscious and don't have much to say. The director finds one barber who has the gift of gab and spends a goodly portion of the documentary letting him hold forth as he sits in his chair. He talks more about growing up in war-torn Italy than about barbering. If I'd had a back-up movie of interest to escape to, I would have bailed on this very early.
A young woman suicide bomber circling around 42nd street in New York spends the last of her money eating food from street vendors and fast food joints in the American "Day Night Day Night." This barebones film is devoid of details explaining who she is and why she is doing what she is doing. She has been recruited and trained by hooded characters that we also know nothing about. This was a strangely riveting film that has the audience wondering from the very start what is going on and what is going to happen. The woman is very polite and timid. She gives a mesmerizing performance. It was a movie I liked very much, but wasn't sure if I should have.
Later, George
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Day 8
Friends: Today was a day of marital strife, a key component in three of my six films. It has been happening often enough to qualify as the dominant theme of the festival. Two earlier Competition films focused on it--Ceylan's "Climates" and Moretti's "The Caimain"--and it has been more than an incidental element in many other films.
Both Competition films today continued the theme. The matrimonial disharmony in Sofia Coppolla's "Marie-Antoinette" was more casual and light-hearted than the usual pitched, furious battles of most of the spouses at odds in the festival. But that was the tone of Coppola's feature, her third film on a young girl trying to find her place. Marie-Antoinette is 14 when she is married off to a young Louis. She and all of France are highly impatient for Louis to consummate their marriage. It takes him over seven years.
Marie-Antoinette is a blond, and she fulfills many of the stereotypes--ditsy, a little simple-minded and innocent, but harmless and good-hearted. The film starts off with great promise of portraying the life of the times with telling detail as she is shuttled from Austria to France and taken possession of at the border. She has to disrobe and exchange her Austrian clothes for French and even give up her dog Mops. When she takes up residence at Versailles, she is waited on hand and foot by a legion of servants..It is so excessive, at one points she says it is "ridiculous." The film, however, does not go beyond the superficial detail of her sumptuous, luxurious court life. There is not a hint in the world that the guillotine awaits her. Though her marriage is finally consummated, this film is not.
The quibblings of an unemployed husband and his working wife are at the heart of the Belgian "The Right of the Weakest." When the wife's scooter breaks down and they can't afford to replace it, it sets in motion a robbery scheme. The wife's father buys her one as a gift, which makes the emasculated husband furious. He demands that she give it back, threatening to move out if she keeps it, but she refuses, as it allows her an extra hour of sleep. Its an ugly, prolonged argument.
The young husband's older, also unemployed, friends want to come to his rescue. They've recently made the acquaintance of an ex-con, a former bank robber just released from prison, played by the film's director, Lucas Belvaux. He is another in a series of ex-cons who have been a popular character of choice in this year's films. The ex-con organizes the heist, but then backs out when the young husband is included. The schmucks decide to go through with it anyway, saying, so what if they're caught, "could life be worse in prison?" This tale of the misery of the
unemployed did not meet with much favor from the audiences here. At least there was a noteworthy bicycle mention. The guy the robbers buy their guns from doesn't provide ammunition. When the buyer demands a discount, he scoffs, saying, "And a free bicycle too?"
Laura Linney and Gabriel Bryne are the couple imploding in the unsettling Australian feature "Juindabyne" by Ray Lawrence, director of the acclaimed "Lantana" from several years ago. Linney is brilliant as usual playing a wife greatly upset with her husband. She treats him with contempt making nasty, sniping remarks towards him at every opportunity even before he goes off fishing with three of his buddies for a weekend and makes a horrific error in judgment that incenses their entire community.
Bryne and his pals discover the naked, dead body of an aboriginal woman in the river they are fishing their first day there. Rather than immediately alerting the police, they wait for two days until their return. The aboriginals in particular are enraged, trashing the homes or businesses of all four of the men. The men's action is headline news in the newspaper and the talk of the town. Most surprising was that the men did not even discuss what they should do when they discovered the body. Not one of them said, "we've got to send someone in to let the police know." That didn't seem entirely plausible, but maybe that was the point of the movie, and
Australians do behave in such a manner. I feared the movie would conclude saying it was based on a true story. Instead, it was based on a short story. Another nagging issue undermining my full appreciation of the movie was how nasty everyone is in this movie, not only husbands and wives, but the so-called buddies. Nor is the murder resolved, though we see it happen. Some say this film was worthy of being included in Competition rather than the Director's Fortnight. That I can't say.
There were no fighting husbands and wives in my day's other films--two documentaries and an animated feature. A goat and a wolf become pals in "Stormy Night," more animation from Japan. They strike up a friendship by happenstance when they both take refuge in an abandoned cabin on a hill in a vicious storm. It is so dark, they don't realize their companion is a mortal enemy. They spend the night bonding and agree to meet up again the next day in a meadow for lunch. When they do, they are shocked to discover who they have befriended. The wolf comments, "This is like having lunch with your lunch." It is hard for him to resist chowing down on the young goat, especially since he lost his lunch on the way over.
They continue meeting. Eventually both of their tribes discover their friendship and are appalled, convinced that it is a plot by the other to learn the habits of their enemy. They are both ordered to turn spy and get such information out of the other. If they don't, the wolves will kill the wolf, and the goats will exile the goat.
I was turned away from "Fuck" a couple of days ago. Today I got in, though I had to stand as all 18 seats in the small screening room were filled. This was a thoroughly comprehensive examination of the origins and history of the word. It even includes Lee Elia's infamous uncensored tirade lambasting Cub fans which got him fired from the Cubs over 20 years ago.
George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy and Hunter S. Thompson are also heard from as are Pat Boone and Miss Manners. There are clips from a couple of dozen Hollywood movies, including "Scarface," which uses the f-word 182 times. Kevin Smith was proud to say his "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" used it 278 times, just beating out South Park. "Fuck" concluded by saying fuck was heard 629 times in this documentary.
Among the users were Dick Chaney on the Senate floor, Lyndon Johnson complaining that panty hose brought about the demise of finger-fucking, excerpts from the Nixon tapes, and on and on. There were many examples from cinema. The documentary claims the first Hollywood movie to include the word was "M.A.S.H." The representative of Think Films, who will be distributing the film, introduced the film saying, "It's fun, so enjoy." He was right.
Another film I was turned away from a couple of days ago that I was able to see today was "Zidane a XXI Century Portrait." I had earlier seen another documentary on Zidane, the greatest French soccer player ever, the man who led them to the World Cup Championship eight years go. He is a god here and this film was meant to further deify him. It followed his every move in a game he played for super team Real Madrid, with teammates Beckham and Ronaldo, a year ago. It trained 17 cameras on him, most in close-up. The movie is the game from first whistle until the final kick of the ball. There is no commentary, just the thud of the ball and cheering and occasional grunts. There is an occasional subtitle of comments from Zidane about his career.
This film will win no converts to the game. Any American who does not appreciate the game will use this as evidence to prove how boring it is, as Zidane spends a lot of time just shuffling about. But for the soccer fan, this could be pure bliss.
Later, George
Both Competition films today continued the theme. The matrimonial disharmony in Sofia Coppolla's "Marie-Antoinette" was more casual and light-hearted than the usual pitched, furious battles of most of the spouses at odds in the festival. But that was the tone of Coppola's feature, her third film on a young girl trying to find her place. Marie-Antoinette is 14 when she is married off to a young Louis. She and all of France are highly impatient for Louis to consummate their marriage. It takes him over seven years.
Marie-Antoinette is a blond, and she fulfills many of the stereotypes--ditsy, a little simple-minded and innocent, but harmless and good-hearted. The film starts off with great promise of portraying the life of the times with telling detail as she is shuttled from Austria to France and taken possession of at the border. She has to disrobe and exchange her Austrian clothes for French and even give up her dog Mops. When she takes up residence at Versailles, she is waited on hand and foot by a legion of servants..It is so excessive, at one points she says it is "ridiculous." The film, however, does not go beyond the superficial detail of her sumptuous, luxurious court life. There is not a hint in the world that the guillotine awaits her. Though her marriage is finally consummated, this film is not.
The quibblings of an unemployed husband and his working wife are at the heart of the Belgian "The Right of the Weakest." When the wife's scooter breaks down and they can't afford to replace it, it sets in motion a robbery scheme. The wife's father buys her one as a gift, which makes the emasculated husband furious. He demands that she give it back, threatening to move out if she keeps it, but she refuses, as it allows her an extra hour of sleep. Its an ugly, prolonged argument.
The young husband's older, also unemployed, friends want to come to his rescue. They've recently made the acquaintance of an ex-con, a former bank robber just released from prison, played by the film's director, Lucas Belvaux. He is another in a series of ex-cons who have been a popular character of choice in this year's films. The ex-con organizes the heist, but then backs out when the young husband is included. The schmucks decide to go through with it anyway, saying, so what if they're caught, "could life be worse in prison?" This tale of the misery of the
unemployed did not meet with much favor from the audiences here. At least there was a noteworthy bicycle mention. The guy the robbers buy their guns from doesn't provide ammunition. When the buyer demands a discount, he scoffs, saying, "And a free bicycle too?"
Laura Linney and Gabriel Bryne are the couple imploding in the unsettling Australian feature "Juindabyne" by Ray Lawrence, director of the acclaimed "Lantana" from several years ago. Linney is brilliant as usual playing a wife greatly upset with her husband. She treats him with contempt making nasty, sniping remarks towards him at every opportunity even before he goes off fishing with three of his buddies for a weekend and makes a horrific error in judgment that incenses their entire community.
Bryne and his pals discover the naked, dead body of an aboriginal woman in the river they are fishing their first day there. Rather than immediately alerting the police, they wait for two days until their return. The aboriginals in particular are enraged, trashing the homes or businesses of all four of the men. The men's action is headline news in the newspaper and the talk of the town. Most surprising was that the men did not even discuss what they should do when they discovered the body. Not one of them said, "we've got to send someone in to let the police know." That didn't seem entirely plausible, but maybe that was the point of the movie, and
Australians do behave in such a manner. I feared the movie would conclude saying it was based on a true story. Instead, it was based on a short story. Another nagging issue undermining my full appreciation of the movie was how nasty everyone is in this movie, not only husbands and wives, but the so-called buddies. Nor is the murder resolved, though we see it happen. Some say this film was worthy of being included in Competition rather than the Director's Fortnight. That I can't say.
There were no fighting husbands and wives in my day's other films--two documentaries and an animated feature. A goat and a wolf become pals in "Stormy Night," more animation from Japan. They strike up a friendship by happenstance when they both take refuge in an abandoned cabin on a hill in a vicious storm. It is so dark, they don't realize their companion is a mortal enemy. They spend the night bonding and agree to meet up again the next day in a meadow for lunch. When they do, they are shocked to discover who they have befriended. The wolf comments, "This is like having lunch with your lunch." It is hard for him to resist chowing down on the young goat, especially since he lost his lunch on the way over.
They continue meeting. Eventually both of their tribes discover their friendship and are appalled, convinced that it is a plot by the other to learn the habits of their enemy. They are both ordered to turn spy and get such information out of the other. If they don't, the wolves will kill the wolf, and the goats will exile the goat.
I was turned away from "Fuck" a couple of days ago. Today I got in, though I had to stand as all 18 seats in the small screening room were filled. This was a thoroughly comprehensive examination of the origins and history of the word. It even includes Lee Elia's infamous uncensored tirade lambasting Cub fans which got him fired from the Cubs over 20 years ago.
George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy and Hunter S. Thompson are also heard from as are Pat Boone and Miss Manners. There are clips from a couple of dozen Hollywood movies, including "Scarface," which uses the f-word 182 times. Kevin Smith was proud to say his "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" used it 278 times, just beating out South Park. "Fuck" concluded by saying fuck was heard 629 times in this documentary.
Among the users were Dick Chaney on the Senate floor, Lyndon Johnson complaining that panty hose brought about the demise of finger-fucking, excerpts from the Nixon tapes, and on and on. There were many examples from cinema. The documentary claims the first Hollywood movie to include the word was "M.A.S.H." The representative of Think Films, who will be distributing the film, introduced the film saying, "It's fun, so enjoy." He was right.
Another film I was turned away from a couple of days ago that I was able to see today was "Zidane a XXI Century Portrait." I had earlier seen another documentary on Zidane, the greatest French soccer player ever, the man who led them to the World Cup Championship eight years go. He is a god here and this film was meant to further deify him. It followed his every move in a game he played for super team Real Madrid, with teammates Beckham and Ronaldo, a year ago. It trained 17 cameras on him, most in close-up. The movie is the game from first whistle until the final kick of the ball. There is no commentary, just the thud of the ball and cheering and occasional grunts. There is an occasional subtitle of comments from Zidane about his career.
This film will win no converts to the game. Any American who does not appreciate the game will use this as evidence to prove how boring it is, as Zidane spends a lot of time just shuffling about. But for the soccer fan, this could be pure bliss.
Later, George
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Day 7
Friends: Four of my day's six screenings contained episodes of soldiers or cops beating the crap out of civilians, an all too common occurrence in this year's slate of films. Ken Loach started it all with the first Competition screening, with English soldiers brutalizing the Irish. Today the brutality circled the globe from Morocco to Mexico to Spain and some unnamed Arabic country.
Both of today's films in Competition included men in uniform going overboard in asserting their authority. The victims in Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel" were Moroccan villagers who were suspected of harboring a terrorist. But this wasn't a film about terrorism, but rather about innocent acts and slight misunderstandings that lead to catastrophic results. The film brilliantly interweaves four stories, two in Morocco and the other two in Japan and the Mexican border. Inarritu, whose two previous films were "Amores Peres" and "21 Grams", could well earn best-director here for this very mature effort. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Gael Garcia Bernal and Cate Blanchett, as a consummate bitch of a wife, right up there with Sandra Bullock in "Crash." Her husband Pitt is one of the few characters in the movie who responds to crisis with some sense, but he too is driven to the brink. Characters are in peril in all four stories. Inarritu's pacing perfectly switches from one story to the next, as the tension builds in all.
Bruno Dumont's "Flanders," a tale that begins in the northeast of France where two of this three previous films took place, ventures off to to an Arabic war zone, where his French conscripts go berserk inflicting holy terror upon the innocent and undeserving. But before they are sent to war, Dumont depicts rural life with the gritty realism that marked his much-acclaimed "Life of Jesus" and "Humanite." This film doesn't probe the insidious depths of those films, but it still is an unapologetic study of man's inner recesses.
Another of the several strong Mexican films here, "The Violin," by Francisco Vargas, takes place in Chiapas, where the army is battling the rebels. The film opens with prisoners being beaten by the soldiers. The violinist is an elderly farmer whose expressive face often fills the screen. The range of emotions he expresses with his eyes and mouth alone make this film worth seeing. He smuggles ammunition to the rebels in his violin case while riding the burro he recently purchased from his patron in exchange for his year's ten hectare harvest of corn. An officer commands him to play for him when he passes his checkpoint. His soldiers cringe when he tries to play it himself.
"Salvador" takes place in 1973 Spain, the final year of Franco's dictatorship. The army and police were notorious for their methods in maintaining this fascist state, some of which we are subjected to here. This movie is the well-known, true story of Salvador, a young rebel who is apprehended and executed. The final hour of this way-too long 138 minute movie are his battles to avoid execution. The first half of the movie isn't much more than a series of bank robberies and hanging out with adoring women, with very little revolution or rhetoric.
Neither of my day's market screenings were very satisfying either. Both were back-ups after being turned away from my first choices. Everyone attending "Glow Ropes--the Rise and Fall of a Bar Mitzvah Emcee" was given a glow rope to wear around their neck while watching this amateur attempt at making a movie. This was another American independent with not enough of a budget to afford extras, with the vast majority of the scenes shot in close-up, even the bar mitzvah scenes. This one ain't goin' nowhere.
I am sorry to say the same is probably true of "A Little Trip to Heaven," by an Icelandic director, filmed in Iceland, but taking place in the U.S., starring Forest Whittaker, Julia Stiles and Peter Coyote. Whittaker plays a sleazy insurance claims investigator who is investigating a million dollar con. This was woefully unrealized. Whittaker is excellent, but the story makes no more sense than trying to pass off the rustic Icelandic scenery as some place in California.
Later, George
Both of today's films in Competition included men in uniform going overboard in asserting their authority. The victims in Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel" were Moroccan villagers who were suspected of harboring a terrorist. But this wasn't a film about terrorism, but rather about innocent acts and slight misunderstandings that lead to catastrophic results. The film brilliantly interweaves four stories, two in Morocco and the other two in Japan and the Mexican border. Inarritu, whose two previous films were "Amores Peres" and "21 Grams", could well earn best-director here for this very mature effort. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Gael Garcia Bernal and Cate Blanchett, as a consummate bitch of a wife, right up there with Sandra Bullock in "Crash." Her husband Pitt is one of the few characters in the movie who responds to crisis with some sense, but he too is driven to the brink. Characters are in peril in all four stories. Inarritu's pacing perfectly switches from one story to the next, as the tension builds in all.
Bruno Dumont's "Flanders," a tale that begins in the northeast of France where two of this three previous films took place, ventures off to to an Arabic war zone, where his French conscripts go berserk inflicting holy terror upon the innocent and undeserving. But before they are sent to war, Dumont depicts rural life with the gritty realism that marked his much-acclaimed "Life of Jesus" and "Humanite." This film doesn't probe the insidious depths of those films, but it still is an unapologetic study of man's inner recesses.
Another of the several strong Mexican films here, "The Violin," by Francisco Vargas, takes place in Chiapas, where the army is battling the rebels. The film opens with prisoners being beaten by the soldiers. The violinist is an elderly farmer whose expressive face often fills the screen. The range of emotions he expresses with his eyes and mouth alone make this film worth seeing. He smuggles ammunition to the rebels in his violin case while riding the burro he recently purchased from his patron in exchange for his year's ten hectare harvest of corn. An officer commands him to play for him when he passes his checkpoint. His soldiers cringe when he tries to play it himself.
"Salvador" takes place in 1973 Spain, the final year of Franco's dictatorship. The army and police were notorious for their methods in maintaining this fascist state, some of which we are subjected to here. This movie is the well-known, true story of Salvador, a young rebel who is apprehended and executed. The final hour of this way-too long 138 minute movie are his battles to avoid execution. The first half of the movie isn't much more than a series of bank robberies and hanging out with adoring women, with very little revolution or rhetoric.
Neither of my day's market screenings were very satisfying either. Both were back-ups after being turned away from my first choices. Everyone attending "Glow Ropes--the Rise and Fall of a Bar Mitzvah Emcee" was given a glow rope to wear around their neck while watching this amateur attempt at making a movie. This was another American independent with not enough of a budget to afford extras, with the vast majority of the scenes shot in close-up, even the bar mitzvah scenes. This one ain't goin' nowhere.
I am sorry to say the same is probably true of "A Little Trip to Heaven," by an Icelandic director, filmed in Iceland, but taking place in the U.S., starring Forest Whittaker, Julia Stiles and Peter Coyote. Whittaker plays a sleazy insurance claims investigator who is investigating a million dollar con. This was woefully unrealized. Whittaker is excellent, but the story makes no more sense than trying to pass off the rustic Icelandic scenery as some place in California.
Later, George
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Day 6
Friends: Halfway through the festival, and unlike last year when Egoyan and Wenders presented sub-standard fare, so far none of the established directors in Competition have disappointed their supporters. Today was no exception. The two films in Competition were "The Caiman" by Nanni Moretti and "Lights in the Dusk" by Aki Kaurishmaki. And though they succeeded in living up to expectations, neither of them went beyond.
Moretti's film about Italy's controversial right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who was recently defeated for re-election, was said to have contributed to his very narrow defeat. There was much less about politics and the prime minister in this film, however, than a director's marriage falling apart as he was trying to make a film about the prime minister. Moretti, who usually stars in his films, did not give himself the role of the director. Rather, he emerges at the very end of the movie as the choice of the director to play the prime minister. The film had many of the farcical elements that Moretti is known for.
Kaurasmaki's entrance to the Palias for his afternoon screening nearly upstaged his movie. He has had to make that promenade up the red carpet many times, and no doubt doesn't appreciate the protocol of having to linger for several minutes while a legion of photographers blast away. Rather than posing, he grabbed one of his actresses and began dancing. This was all on the big screen in the theater for those of us seated, awaiting his arrival. The rest of his cast followed suit, so there were five couples clutching each other and twirling about to the music that plays
pre-film. There was laughter and applause in the theater.
He lit one last cigarette as the cameras followed him into the theater. He peaked around the doorway and then backed off, as if he was nervous about coming in. This drew even greater laughter. He repeated the routine several times. This was all entertaining, but it was delaying the start of the movie, and most of us have our day planned to the minute. His antics were squandering crucial time. He finally relented, making his entrance and taking his seat, cigarette still in hand. Thierry Fremaux, festival director, had to pry it from his fingers.
"Light in the Dusk" was the final film of his trilogy on the plight of the Finnish working man. This one featured a security guard. He is framed for a crime, stoically goes to prison, and is released. After he is released a friend asks, "How was it." "You couldn't get out," he says. This does not transcend any of his previous films, just a good solid effort. There were less comic moments than he is known for, but he remains the master of the droll.
The highlights of the day both came in "Uncertain Regard." The first was "URO" a Norwegian thriller about a rookie under-cover cop who works for the narcotics unit, whose acronym is URO. The cop becomes mixed-up with friends from his not-so-clean past who are involved in drug trafficking. There is a chance his mother has compromised his identity. The tension mounts both on screen and for those of us watching. I was glad not to have a movie to immediately dive into after this, so I could unwind.
There is tension too, and also an ex-con for the third time today, in "Luxury Car" from China. The luxury car is the stolen Audi the owner of a bordello drives around in. The father of his favorite prostitute is visiting his daughter. He is a school teacher in rural China. His daughter lives in the large city he was exiled from 40 years previously for a revolutionary indiscretion. He is a simple, kindly, wise man, who after experiencing the city admits, "Now I prefer the country." He does not realize his daughter's profession. When he does, he simply accepts it. Among his reasons for visiting is trying to track down his son. He bicycles around the city with a police officer friend trying to locate him. This is a tender, father/daughter story as well as a sad tale of urban life.
The rest of my day was spent dabbling in the market. The one film I had to see was "The Real Santa" from Hungary, the lone film of the thousand plus here whose write-up mentioned a bicycle. The film was described as, "A down-on-his-luck pianist, who takes a job as a Shopping Mall Santa is followed by an orphaned girl who demands to receive a bicycle for Christmas, just as her mother promised she would when she turned eight years old."
The film's opening shot is of Paris in 1994 with snow falling and two bikes parked in front of a bar. We get to feast our eyes on those bikes for several minutes as the credits roll. The pianist is shot in the leg during a robbery and the movie fast forwards to ten years later in Budapest. The pianist has become a disheveled bum. He is enlisted to fill in for a Santa at a mall, who was snowed in. His job is to wander around the mall and the streets outside singing and passing out candy. That is when a young girl starts haunting him, demanding a bike. They eventually become pals and he considers trying to rustle up the money to buy her a bike. They get in
and out of trouble, but in the end he not only gets her a bike, but gives bikes to everyone in the mall. Hundreds of people flock from the mall with bikes all singing a rousing song of joy celebrating the bike--"Life is a bicycle. It won't go by itself...with wheels that always turn so keep your eyes on the road."
My other market screenings were "Fragile" from Switzerland and "Severence" an English/Hungarian collaboration. The relationship of a brother and sister whose mother has Althemier's Disease is very fragile. They constantly bicker. It wasn't much more than made-for-TV fare."Severence" was another of the many horror films seeking attention in the market. My packed audience thought all the killing and gore of a group of college kids in the woods of Hungary was hilarious.
Later, George
Moretti's film about Italy's controversial right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who was recently defeated for re-election, was said to have contributed to his very narrow defeat. There was much less about politics and the prime minister in this film, however, than a director's marriage falling apart as he was trying to make a film about the prime minister. Moretti, who usually stars in his films, did not give himself the role of the director. Rather, he emerges at the very end of the movie as the choice of the director to play the prime minister. The film had many of the farcical elements that Moretti is known for.
Kaurasmaki's entrance to the Palias for his afternoon screening nearly upstaged his movie. He has had to make that promenade up the red carpet many times, and no doubt doesn't appreciate the protocol of having to linger for several minutes while a legion of photographers blast away. Rather than posing, he grabbed one of his actresses and began dancing. This was all on the big screen in the theater for those of us seated, awaiting his arrival. The rest of his cast followed suit, so there were five couples clutching each other and twirling about to the music that plays
pre-film. There was laughter and applause in the theater.
He lit one last cigarette as the cameras followed him into the theater. He peaked around the doorway and then backed off, as if he was nervous about coming in. This drew even greater laughter. He repeated the routine several times. This was all entertaining, but it was delaying the start of the movie, and most of us have our day planned to the minute. His antics were squandering crucial time. He finally relented, making his entrance and taking his seat, cigarette still in hand. Thierry Fremaux, festival director, had to pry it from his fingers.
"Light in the Dusk" was the final film of his trilogy on the plight of the Finnish working man. This one featured a security guard. He is framed for a crime, stoically goes to prison, and is released. After he is released a friend asks, "How was it." "You couldn't get out," he says. This does not transcend any of his previous films, just a good solid effort. There were less comic moments than he is known for, but he remains the master of the droll.
The highlights of the day both came in "Uncertain Regard." The first was "URO" a Norwegian thriller about a rookie under-cover cop who works for the narcotics unit, whose acronym is URO. The cop becomes mixed-up with friends from his not-so-clean past who are involved in drug trafficking. There is a chance his mother has compromised his identity. The tension mounts both on screen and for those of us watching. I was glad not to have a movie to immediately dive into after this, so I could unwind.
There is tension too, and also an ex-con for the third time today, in "Luxury Car" from China. The luxury car is the stolen Audi the owner of a bordello drives around in. The father of his favorite prostitute is visiting his daughter. He is a school teacher in rural China. His daughter lives in the large city he was exiled from 40 years previously for a revolutionary indiscretion. He is a simple, kindly, wise man, who after experiencing the city admits, "Now I prefer the country." He does not realize his daughter's profession. When he does, he simply accepts it. Among his reasons for visiting is trying to track down his son. He bicycles around the city with a police officer friend trying to locate him. This is a tender, father/daughter story as well as a sad tale of urban life.
The rest of my day was spent dabbling in the market. The one film I had to see was "The Real Santa" from Hungary, the lone film of the thousand plus here whose write-up mentioned a bicycle. The film was described as, "A down-on-his-luck pianist, who takes a job as a Shopping Mall Santa is followed by an orphaned girl who demands to receive a bicycle for Christmas, just as her mother promised she would when she turned eight years old."
The film's opening shot is of Paris in 1994 with snow falling and two bikes parked in front of a bar. We get to feast our eyes on those bikes for several minutes as the credits roll. The pianist is shot in the leg during a robbery and the movie fast forwards to ten years later in Budapest. The pianist has become a disheveled bum. He is enlisted to fill in for a Santa at a mall, who was snowed in. His job is to wander around the mall and the streets outside singing and passing out candy. That is when a young girl starts haunting him, demanding a bike. They eventually become pals and he considers trying to rustle up the money to buy her a bike. They get in
and out of trouble, but in the end he not only gets her a bike, but gives bikes to everyone in the mall. Hundreds of people flock from the mall with bikes all singing a rousing song of joy celebrating the bike--"Life is a bicycle. It won't go by itself...with wheels that always turn so keep your eyes on the road."
My other market screenings were "Fragile" from Switzerland and "Severence" an English/Hungarian collaboration. The relationship of a brother and sister whose mother has Althemier's Disease is very fragile. They constantly bicker. It wasn't much more than made-for-TV fare."Severence" was another of the many horror films seeking attention in the market. My packed audience thought all the killing and gore of a group of college kids in the woods of Hungary was hilarious.
Later, George
Monday, May 22, 2006
Day 5
Friends: "Southland Tales," Richard Kelly's much anticipated follow-up to "Donnie Darko," is the festival's first significant disaster--two hours and forty minutes of juvenile claptrap, some pandering, most just nonsensical. This woeful misfire of a movie will find few defenders, even among those legions who gave "Darko" cult status.
From the very start of this post-nuclear disaster movie centered on LA in 2008 it is clear that it has none of the style or wit of "Darko." Wally Shawn as a sleazy bad-guy businessman whose company has created a perpetual-motion fuel replacement for oil is utterly ridiculous, from his greasy hair to his clinging wardrobe and delivery of speech. There is a porn star who has a day-time talk show drenched in adolescent potty talk, that Kelly no doubt thought was hilarious
as he penned it. He meant this to be a sweeping black comedy of social satire, but he isn't capable of much more profundity than "teen horniness is not a crime," and "when the shit hits the fan, it all smells the same." People were bailing out of this movie from the very start. The only surprise was those who stuck around didn't boo. It wasn't even worthy of that. This is such a dud, and so unredeeming, it's hard too imagine anyone giving Kelly money to direct ever again. We can only hope, as he says he has a drawer with five or six scripts that he is continually rewriting.
"Climates," Nurge Bilge Ceylan's follow-up to his highly acclaimed "Distant" of three years ago, was another much-anticipated film. This Turkish director has a cult following of an entirely different sort than Kelly--those who like slow-paced, contemplative art films with no action. And he delivers again. Patrick McGavin called it the first great film of the festival, but he is in the camp who likes such films.
Ceylan, for the first time, turns the camera on himself in a starring role. His wife in real life plays his wife in the film, and his parents, as parents, have brief cameos as well. Ceylan plays a professor whose marriage is falling apart. He and his wife split, he has a brief affair and then tries to get together again with his wife. And that is that. It has plenty of depth and gives plenty of space for quiet meditation. It is a bit of a travelogue, as he travels to various places in Turkey, from the snowy mountains to Istanbul. It is not a movie for everyone, and hardly the masses, as acknowledged by the smattering of boos it received.
I was able to squeeze in 45 minutes of "Hell," a French film about a 19-year old girl named Hell who lives with her bourgeoisie parents. She has dropped out of school and hasn't done anything for five months except party hard. Coke is her drug of choice, though she says, "its not drugs, its coke." The write-up said she eventually makes a friend who gives her a reason to put an end to her bad habits. Unfortunately, I had a more important film to get to and didn't get to see that part of her story. I left just after a guy she had slept with purchased a fold-up bike. She didn't like it crowding her in his car and wanted to toss it out. This film was well enough done that it would be worthy festival and art house fare, so I may yet have a chance to find out if that bike gets any use.
"The Bridge" concludes with the statement "More people have chosen to end their lives at the Golden Gate Bridge than anywhere else in the world." It says that 24 people jumped to their deaths from it in 2004 and lists the names of all of them, all but three of whose bodes were recovered.
This remarkable film, inspired by a "New Yorker" article called Jumpers, trained its cameras on the bridge for hours and managed to catch half a dozen of those jumpers, and also some that were foiled. It has interviews of friends and families of those who jumped as well of those who were nearby when the person jumped, even a guy who was surf-kiting in the water when a body fell near him. There is also an interview with a rare survivor, a young man who claims that a seal circled around him keeping him afloat until he could be rescued. "You can't tell me that wasn't God keeping me alive," he says. "That's what I'll believe until the day I die."
There is a prolonged sequence of a long-haired man in a leather coat circling around and pacing back and forth on the bridge. Will he or will he not jump. The film is intercut between close-ups of people on the bridge and interviews and distant shots of the bridge. It is caught from many angles and in all its moods--in the fog, in bright sun-light, at sunset and sunrise and even with a rainbow. It alternates from a brooding to mystical to menacing presence. It is quite mesmerizing and ends most dramatically.
"Sideffects" was another filler between significant screenings, a low-budget/no-budget throwaway of a film. This attempt at an expose of the pharmaceutical industry focusing on a young woman salesperson was so inept it made every other movie I've seen seem like a miracle.
I ended my day with two films at the Critic's Week, one a French documentary on Rwanda, "Kigali, des Images Contre un Massacre." This too was a bare-budget film by someone who happened to be there during the massacre of 1994 and how the world ignored it.
"Schnos de Peixe" was a virtual documentary on a small fishing village in Brazil. It focuses on a teen-ager and his girl friend. It alternates between showing the beauty of their lives and the hardships. The director was surprisingly successful in capturing their lives on land and on the sea. He couldn't have had much of a budget, but he made the most of it.
Later, George
From the very start of this post-nuclear disaster movie centered on LA in 2008 it is clear that it has none of the style or wit of "Darko." Wally Shawn as a sleazy bad-guy businessman whose company has created a perpetual-motion fuel replacement for oil is utterly ridiculous, from his greasy hair to his clinging wardrobe and delivery of speech. There is a porn star who has a day-time talk show drenched in adolescent potty talk, that Kelly no doubt thought was hilarious
as he penned it. He meant this to be a sweeping black comedy of social satire, but he isn't capable of much more profundity than "teen horniness is not a crime," and "when the shit hits the fan, it all smells the same." People were bailing out of this movie from the very start. The only surprise was those who stuck around didn't boo. It wasn't even worthy of that. This is such a dud, and so unredeeming, it's hard too imagine anyone giving Kelly money to direct ever again. We can only hope, as he says he has a drawer with five or six scripts that he is continually rewriting.
"Climates," Nurge Bilge Ceylan's follow-up to his highly acclaimed "Distant" of three years ago, was another much-anticipated film. This Turkish director has a cult following of an entirely different sort than Kelly--those who like slow-paced, contemplative art films with no action. And he delivers again. Patrick McGavin called it the first great film of the festival, but he is in the camp who likes such films.
Ceylan, for the first time, turns the camera on himself in a starring role. His wife in real life plays his wife in the film, and his parents, as parents, have brief cameos as well. Ceylan plays a professor whose marriage is falling apart. He and his wife split, he has a brief affair and then tries to get together again with his wife. And that is that. It has plenty of depth and gives plenty of space for quiet meditation. It is a bit of a travelogue, as he travels to various places in Turkey, from the snowy mountains to Istanbul. It is not a movie for everyone, and hardly the masses, as acknowledged by the smattering of boos it received.
I was able to squeeze in 45 minutes of "Hell," a French film about a 19-year old girl named Hell who lives with her bourgeoisie parents. She has dropped out of school and hasn't done anything for five months except party hard. Coke is her drug of choice, though she says, "its not drugs, its coke." The write-up said she eventually makes a friend who gives her a reason to put an end to her bad habits. Unfortunately, I had a more important film to get to and didn't get to see that part of her story. I left just after a guy she had slept with purchased a fold-up bike. She didn't like it crowding her in his car and wanted to toss it out. This film was well enough done that it would be worthy festival and art house fare, so I may yet have a chance to find out if that bike gets any use.
"The Bridge" concludes with the statement "More people have chosen to end their lives at the Golden Gate Bridge than anywhere else in the world." It says that 24 people jumped to their deaths from it in 2004 and lists the names of all of them, all but three of whose bodes were recovered.
This remarkable film, inspired by a "New Yorker" article called Jumpers, trained its cameras on the bridge for hours and managed to catch half a dozen of those jumpers, and also some that were foiled. It has interviews of friends and families of those who jumped as well of those who were nearby when the person jumped, even a guy who was surf-kiting in the water when a body fell near him. There is also an interview with a rare survivor, a young man who claims that a seal circled around him keeping him afloat until he could be rescued. "You can't tell me that wasn't God keeping me alive," he says. "That's what I'll believe until the day I die."
There is a prolonged sequence of a long-haired man in a leather coat circling around and pacing back and forth on the bridge. Will he or will he not jump. The film is intercut between close-ups of people on the bridge and interviews and distant shots of the bridge. It is caught from many angles and in all its moods--in the fog, in bright sun-light, at sunset and sunrise and even with a rainbow. It alternates from a brooding to mystical to menacing presence. It is quite mesmerizing and ends most dramatically.
"Sideffects" was another filler between significant screenings, a low-budget/no-budget throwaway of a film. This attempt at an expose of the pharmaceutical industry focusing on a young woman salesperson was so inept it made every other movie I've seen seem like a miracle.
I ended my day with two films at the Critic's Week, one a French documentary on Rwanda, "Kigali, des Images Contre un Massacre." This too was a bare-budget film by someone who happened to be there during the massacre of 1994 and how the world ignored it.
"Schnos de Peixe" was a virtual documentary on a small fishing village in Brazil. It focuses on a teen-ager and his girl friend. It alternates between showing the beauty of their lives and the hardships. The director was surprisingly successful in capturing their lives on land and on the sea. He couldn't have had much of a budget, but he made the most of it.
Later, George
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Day 4
Friends: I'm fully into the routine of up at 7:10, quick shower, pick up food for the day from the local "8 to Huit" convenience store, which fortunately is open by seven and even on Sundays, bike three-and-a-half miles in along the Mediterranean, swing by the "Variety" tent for that day's magazine to read while awaiting to be joined by friend on the aisle for the 8:30 Competition screening in the Palais. The last two days it has been Kim after a couple of days with Charles. The routine continues with a rush out of the theater and a dash over to the French pavilion to pick up Competition screening invitations for me and Kim for the next day. Back for the next Competition screening. Hit the Internet and then piece together another four movies. Expectations are always high for each film.
If it weren't French, "Charley Says" may not have been included among the 20 or so films in Competition. It was an ambitious film attempting to combine a hodgepodge of stories with the common theme of loneliness. There is a town mayor with a mistress and corrupt cronies, a high school science teacher who was once a very promising archaeologist but suffered a break down, his Finnish wife who is having an affair with the father of one of the teacher's students, a young tennis pro, a prominent archaeologist in town for a conference who tries to re-enlist the high school teacher on a dig, a couple of petty criminals, and more. It takes all too long for the many story lines to sort themselves out and begin to interweave. Not all of them are necessary and are not fully integrated or resolved, padding the movie to two hours and ten minutes. This film could be saved with some aggressive editing, as there are worthy moments of poignancy and truth, but such an act is not very likely.
No editing is necessary in the masterful "Red Road" by first-time Scottish director Andrea Arnold, who won an Oscar for the short "Wasp", which played at Telluride. She is the only first-time director in Competition and could be the discovery of the festival. Likewise her lead actress, who could well walk off with best actress honors for her sterling performance of a 30 something woman who has yet to recover from some unknown tragedy in her life. She works as an observer of surveillance cameras posted around a city, alerting the police when she observes an accident or crime. She learns that someone has been released early from prison for good behavior. She is not happy about this and begins stalking him. We know not why. It is the third troubled woman seeking revenge film of the festival, a theme perhaps set off by de Heer's "Alexandra's Project" a couple of years ago and continued with the recent "Hard Candy." All these revenge films have been intricate with a highly personal motives.
The Chinese film "The Road" was market filler for me. This film about a rural bus driver no doubt received an A-plus from the Chinese censors. There is loads of stunningly spectacular mountain scenery on dirt roads with little traffic that I'd love to bike. But more important than the postcard scenery to the censors would be its continual honoring of Mao. The bus driver at one time met Mao, so people are eager to shake the hand that shook Mao's. It starts in 1960. Workers chant "Long live Chairman Mao" and sing a song with the lyric "Chairman Mao you are the red sun in our hearts."
The documentary "Requiem for Billy the Kidd" and its cast were introduced by festival director Thierry Fremaux. The cast included two cowboy hat-wearing sheriffs from New Mexico from the town where Billy the Kid is buried. Kris Kristofferson narrates the film, but he was not in attendance. Fremaux may have had extra incentive to include the film in the festival as it drew a comparison between Billy and Rimbaud, who both lived at the same time and both had six-year
careers, one writing poetry and the other killing, that overlapped. This film too had pleasing landscapes of west Texas and southern New Mexico. I didn't need to yearn to bike its roads, as I just did six months ago.
I joined a scrum of people already congregated for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" playing immediately afterward in the same theater--the Bunuel. The trailer for this documentary on global warning says it received three standing ovations when it premiered at Sundance this past January. It can now add Cannes to that list. Gore, wearing a tux with a bow tie, received a standing ovation when he joined the film's producers on stage after being introduced by Fremaux. He gave lame, haphazard high-fives to the men and quick kisses to the two women. He said, "I never thought in a million years that my slide show would get me on the red carpet at Cannes." He then joined Tipper in the second row to sit through a lecture that he has given hundreds of times so he could take the stage again after the film and acknowledge another standing ovation.
The filming of his slide show is interspersed with footage of Gore's home in Tennessee and many of the sites he comments on in his lecture from the north pole to dried-up lakes. It does not bog down at any point. He cites one alarming trend and statistic after another, but in such a buoyant manner, it doesn't convey the sense of doom and catastrophe that it ought to. Nor does he take the American consumer to task for the peril it has placed the planet. It is much more of a feel-good experience than it should be.
He does ask towards the end of the film, "Are you ready to change the way you live." But Gore doesn't press the issue, as he wouldn't want to make demands on others that he wouldn't want to comply with himself. We see him flying around the world first class and being driven around in limos. There is not a mention of the bicycle as an alternative travel option until the very end when the film lists a handful of things people can do to alter global warning. The list includes recycle, use one's thermostat, use energy efficient appliances and light bulbs, buy a hybrid car, and "when you can, walk or ride your bike." Prayer is also mentioned. It is still an important movie that everyone should see. He expresses hope as he mentions some successes, such as no longer damaging the ozone and bringing communism down.
There were enticing reviews in the dailies of "Princess," the opening night film in the Director's Fortnight. The comparisons to Gaspar Noe and the comments that it would be one of the most talked about films of the festival altered my plans for the day to see its final repeat screening at 10:30 in one of the market outlets. It was a Danish animated feature about a priest whose sister is a porn star. She is killed in an auto accident so he takes on the responsibility of her five-year old daughter, who was deeply scarred by her upbringing. When he places her in a tub to give her a bath, she reaches out and pulls down his zipper, which totally freaks him out. This turns into a revenge movie as he and she seek out those who abused her. The most talked about scene is when the five-year old brutalizes a guy with a crow bar between his legs and then on the rest of his body. One reviewer compared the artistry of the animation to "The Triplettes of Belleville" another allure for me. My expectations were too high to have much appreciated it. I should have listened to Kim's advice that it wasn't all that noteworthy.
Later, George
If it weren't French, "Charley Says" may not have been included among the 20 or so films in Competition. It was an ambitious film attempting to combine a hodgepodge of stories with the common theme of loneliness. There is a town mayor with a mistress and corrupt cronies, a high school science teacher who was once a very promising archaeologist but suffered a break down, his Finnish wife who is having an affair with the father of one of the teacher's students, a young tennis pro, a prominent archaeologist in town for a conference who tries to re-enlist the high school teacher on a dig, a couple of petty criminals, and more. It takes all too long for the many story lines to sort themselves out and begin to interweave. Not all of them are necessary and are not fully integrated or resolved, padding the movie to two hours and ten minutes. This film could be saved with some aggressive editing, as there are worthy moments of poignancy and truth, but such an act is not very likely.
No editing is necessary in the masterful "Red Road" by first-time Scottish director Andrea Arnold, who won an Oscar for the short "Wasp", which played at Telluride. She is the only first-time director in Competition and could be the discovery of the festival. Likewise her lead actress, who could well walk off with best actress honors for her sterling performance of a 30 something woman who has yet to recover from some unknown tragedy in her life. She works as an observer of surveillance cameras posted around a city, alerting the police when she observes an accident or crime. She learns that someone has been released early from prison for good behavior. She is not happy about this and begins stalking him. We know not why. It is the third troubled woman seeking revenge film of the festival, a theme perhaps set off by de Heer's "Alexandra's Project" a couple of years ago and continued with the recent "Hard Candy." All these revenge films have been intricate with a highly personal motives.
The Chinese film "The Road" was market filler for me. This film about a rural bus driver no doubt received an A-plus from the Chinese censors. There is loads of stunningly spectacular mountain scenery on dirt roads with little traffic that I'd love to bike. But more important than the postcard scenery to the censors would be its continual honoring of Mao. The bus driver at one time met Mao, so people are eager to shake the hand that shook Mao's. It starts in 1960. Workers chant "Long live Chairman Mao" and sing a song with the lyric "Chairman Mao you are the red sun in our hearts."
The documentary "Requiem for Billy the Kidd" and its cast were introduced by festival director Thierry Fremaux. The cast included two cowboy hat-wearing sheriffs from New Mexico from the town where Billy the Kid is buried. Kris Kristofferson narrates the film, but he was not in attendance. Fremaux may have had extra incentive to include the film in the festival as it drew a comparison between Billy and Rimbaud, who both lived at the same time and both had six-year
careers, one writing poetry and the other killing, that overlapped. This film too had pleasing landscapes of west Texas and southern New Mexico. I didn't need to yearn to bike its roads, as I just did six months ago.
I joined a scrum of people already congregated for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" playing immediately afterward in the same theater--the Bunuel. The trailer for this documentary on global warning says it received three standing ovations when it premiered at Sundance this past January. It can now add Cannes to that list. Gore, wearing a tux with a bow tie, received a standing ovation when he joined the film's producers on stage after being introduced by Fremaux. He gave lame, haphazard high-fives to the men and quick kisses to the two women. He said, "I never thought in a million years that my slide show would get me on the red carpet at Cannes." He then joined Tipper in the second row to sit through a lecture that he has given hundreds of times so he could take the stage again after the film and acknowledge another standing ovation.
The filming of his slide show is interspersed with footage of Gore's home in Tennessee and many of the sites he comments on in his lecture from the north pole to dried-up lakes. It does not bog down at any point. He cites one alarming trend and statistic after another, but in such a buoyant manner, it doesn't convey the sense of doom and catastrophe that it ought to. Nor does he take the American consumer to task for the peril it has placed the planet. It is much more of a feel-good experience than it should be.
He does ask towards the end of the film, "Are you ready to change the way you live." But Gore doesn't press the issue, as he wouldn't want to make demands on others that he wouldn't want to comply with himself. We see him flying around the world first class and being driven around in limos. There is not a mention of the bicycle as an alternative travel option until the very end when the film lists a handful of things people can do to alter global warning. The list includes recycle, use one's thermostat, use energy efficient appliances and light bulbs, buy a hybrid car, and "when you can, walk or ride your bike." Prayer is also mentioned. It is still an important movie that everyone should see. He expresses hope as he mentions some successes, such as no longer damaging the ozone and bringing communism down.
There were enticing reviews in the dailies of "Princess," the opening night film in the Director's Fortnight. The comparisons to Gaspar Noe and the comments that it would be one of the most talked about films of the festival altered my plans for the day to see its final repeat screening at 10:30 in one of the market outlets. It was a Danish animated feature about a priest whose sister is a porn star. She is killed in an auto accident so he takes on the responsibility of her five-year old daughter, who was deeply scarred by her upbringing. When he places her in a tub to give her a bath, she reaches out and pulls down his zipper, which totally freaks him out. This turns into a revenge movie as he and she seek out those who abused her. The most talked about scene is when the five-year old brutalizes a guy with a crow bar between his legs and then on the rest of his body. One reviewer compared the artistry of the animation to "The Triplettes of Belleville" another allure for me. My expectations were too high to have much appreciated it. I should have listened to Kim's advice that it wasn't all that noteworthy.
Later, George
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Day 3
Friends: Even though there may be 35,000 or so of us gathered here for this film extravaganza, for the fourth day in a row I've crossed paths with another film friend. Today it was Kim, director of sponsorship for Telluride. It was most appropriate for us to share seats for Rolf de Heer's "Ten Canoes", as he is a Telluride favorite. Three of his films, "Alexandra's Porject," "Tracker" and "Dance Me to My Song," have all played there in the mountains and so should his latest.
Of all the films on tap here, "Ten Canoes" was the one I was most looking forward to. No other director probes such unique crevices of the human psyche. "Ten Canoes" doesn't necessarily venture off into such realms, but it is still a remarkably original film telling a timeless tale of aboriginal lore with an entirely aboriginal cast off in their aboriginal lands. If nothing else, it is a fascinating ethnographic study, showing the aboriginal way of life--hunting, gathering, stripping bark to make canoes, constructing platforms in the trees to be safe from crocodiles, death dances sending the soul on its final journey, justice meted out, passing down their wisdom from generation to generation. It is narrated by the great David Gulpilil with only occasional aboriginal exchanges. Four of the cast members were in attendance, looking not entirely comfortable in formal attire. De Heer had grown a long gray pony tail since I'd seen him two years ago.
This was a nice contrast to the light entertainment of Pedro Almodovar's "Volver", a Penolope Cruz vehicle as much as anything. Almodovar can't keep his camera off her breasts, shooting them from every angle imaginable. He's so preoccupied by them, he even has Cruz's mother comment after not having seen her in a while, "Your breasts are bigger than I remember, have you had them enlarged." The movie's plot seemed as if it had been concocted at an improv club--disposing of a dead body, starting up a restaurant, the dead return, a 200 lb prostitute, and the comment "who needs a spleen anyway." It may have frequently begged credibility and been more fluff than substance, but it was well-executed and will please those who just want to be distracted and entertained.
The Hungarian "Taxidermia" will please those who thrive on stylized outrageousness and fresh and original images. This three-parter notched up the outrageousness segment by segment, beginning with varieties of masturbation, proceeding to eating to excess and culminating with self-inflicted decapitation. It was all most artfully filmed--including a rooster pecking at an engorged male member proceeding in and out of a lubricated peep hole into his coop, a baby born with a tail that is snipped, a row of gargantuan eaters slurping as much as they can into their mouths and then engaging in mass vomiting, and an intricate machine designed to lop off one's head.
My foraging in the market place was amply rewarded with "Unknown", an American production starring Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear and Jim Caviezel. I was a couple minutes late arriving and was shocked to see a packed 150-seat theater. There must have been some buzz on this. I didn't even realize what a stellar cast I was in for--it was just a screening I could squeeze into my schedule. I did know it was a thriller about five guys who wake up in a locked-down warehouse that they can't escape from after they have been asphyxiated by a gas leak. All their memories have been erased, though they all gradually have some flickers of their pasts. They soon realize that they were involved in a kidnapping, but no one knows who were the kidnappers and who were the kidnappees and why. They know that the law or someone with ransom will be coming at some point, but they all want out and no one can trust anyone else. There is as much fighting as dialogue. It was most gripping--an exhilarating film-going experience. And the end does not disappoint. If the film does not have full distribution, there will be bidding wars over this one.
I followed that with another marketplace dabble--"Valley of the Wolves"--a Turkish film about the American occupation of Iraq that was said to be a big hit in Arabic countries. This is probably more slanderous of Americans than "The Da Vinci Code" is of Catholics, feeding the Arabic audience all the evil evidence they suspect the Americans are perpetrating on them, including Gary Busey as a Jewish doctor, who maintains he is one of the chosen people, performing operations to remove organs from Iraqi prisoners. Busey gets upset when the American soldiers can't keep the Iraqis alive long enough for him to harvest their organs. He pleads, "These are living people, not animals. Stop killing so I can remove their organs properly." The American soldier protests that they are animals, and not people.
The Iraqis are the good guys through and through and the Americans the bad guys in every respect. An Iraqi bride, whose wedding ends up in a massacre when the Americans come looking for terrorists, wishes to become a suicide-bomber. Her father talks her out of it. A sheik comes to the rescue of an American reporter who is about to be beheaded. A James Carville-type character plays the American administrator of Iraq, who prays to Jesus. The Turks come to the rescue and win every battle. A Turkish super-hero ends up killing the Carville character in a knife fight to no doubt huge applause whenever it plays for its intended audience.
I ended my day with the French film "La Tourneuse de Pages" in the Uncertain Regard category, which meant it promised some cinematic merit. The movie begins with a ten-year old girl failing her piano examination in front of a board of half a dozen judges. She may or may not be scarred for life because of this. The film jumps ten years forward as she begins an internship with a law firm. When her internship ends after a few months she volunteers to work as a nanny for one of the lawyers while his son is home for a brief vacation. The lawyer's wife turns out to be one of the judges who failed her, a famous pianist who interrupted the girl's performance when someone came in requesting her autograph.
The young woman, who is played by the female lead of last year's Palm d'Or winner, "L'Enfant", is sullen and brooding. There is no telling what is going on in her head. She gave brief evidence of a mean streak when she nudged down the covering of the piano keys on a young girl after her poor performance, nearly catching her hands. The suspense level is kept at an appropriate level.
Later, George
Of all the films on tap here, "Ten Canoes" was the one I was most looking forward to. No other director probes such unique crevices of the human psyche. "Ten Canoes" doesn't necessarily venture off into such realms, but it is still a remarkably original film telling a timeless tale of aboriginal lore with an entirely aboriginal cast off in their aboriginal lands. If nothing else, it is a fascinating ethnographic study, showing the aboriginal way of life--hunting, gathering, stripping bark to make canoes, constructing platforms in the trees to be safe from crocodiles, death dances sending the soul on its final journey, justice meted out, passing down their wisdom from generation to generation. It is narrated by the great David Gulpilil with only occasional aboriginal exchanges. Four of the cast members were in attendance, looking not entirely comfortable in formal attire. De Heer had grown a long gray pony tail since I'd seen him two years ago.
This was a nice contrast to the light entertainment of Pedro Almodovar's "Volver", a Penolope Cruz vehicle as much as anything. Almodovar can't keep his camera off her breasts, shooting them from every angle imaginable. He's so preoccupied by them, he even has Cruz's mother comment after not having seen her in a while, "Your breasts are bigger than I remember, have you had them enlarged." The movie's plot seemed as if it had been concocted at an improv club--disposing of a dead body, starting up a restaurant, the dead return, a 200 lb prostitute, and the comment "who needs a spleen anyway." It may have frequently begged credibility and been more fluff than substance, but it was well-executed and will please those who just want to be distracted and entertained.
The Hungarian "Taxidermia" will please those who thrive on stylized outrageousness and fresh and original images. This three-parter notched up the outrageousness segment by segment, beginning with varieties of masturbation, proceeding to eating to excess and culminating with self-inflicted decapitation. It was all most artfully filmed--including a rooster pecking at an engorged male member proceeding in and out of a lubricated peep hole into his coop, a baby born with a tail that is snipped, a row of gargantuan eaters slurping as much as they can into their mouths and then engaging in mass vomiting, and an intricate machine designed to lop off one's head.
My foraging in the market place was amply rewarded with "Unknown", an American production starring Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear and Jim Caviezel. I was a couple minutes late arriving and was shocked to see a packed 150-seat theater. There must have been some buzz on this. I didn't even realize what a stellar cast I was in for--it was just a screening I could squeeze into my schedule. I did know it was a thriller about five guys who wake up in a locked-down warehouse that they can't escape from after they have been asphyxiated by a gas leak. All their memories have been erased, though they all gradually have some flickers of their pasts. They soon realize that they were involved in a kidnapping, but no one knows who were the kidnappers and who were the kidnappees and why. They know that the law or someone with ransom will be coming at some point, but they all want out and no one can trust anyone else. There is as much fighting as dialogue. It was most gripping--an exhilarating film-going experience. And the end does not disappoint. If the film does not have full distribution, there will be bidding wars over this one.
I followed that with another marketplace dabble--"Valley of the Wolves"--a Turkish film about the American occupation of Iraq that was said to be a big hit in Arabic countries. This is probably more slanderous of Americans than "The Da Vinci Code" is of Catholics, feeding the Arabic audience all the evil evidence they suspect the Americans are perpetrating on them, including Gary Busey as a Jewish doctor, who maintains he is one of the chosen people, performing operations to remove organs from Iraqi prisoners. Busey gets upset when the American soldiers can't keep the Iraqis alive long enough for him to harvest their organs. He pleads, "These are living people, not animals. Stop killing so I can remove their organs properly." The American soldier protests that they are animals, and not people.
The Iraqis are the good guys through and through and the Americans the bad guys in every respect. An Iraqi bride, whose wedding ends up in a massacre when the Americans come looking for terrorists, wishes to become a suicide-bomber. Her father talks her out of it. A sheik comes to the rescue of an American reporter who is about to be beheaded. A James Carville-type character plays the American administrator of Iraq, who prays to Jesus. The Turks come to the rescue and win every battle. A Turkish super-hero ends up killing the Carville character in a knife fight to no doubt huge applause whenever it plays for its intended audience.
I ended my day with the French film "La Tourneuse de Pages" in the Uncertain Regard category, which meant it promised some cinematic merit. The movie begins with a ten-year old girl failing her piano examination in front of a board of half a dozen judges. She may or may not be scarred for life because of this. The film jumps ten years forward as she begins an internship with a law firm. When her internship ends after a few months she volunteers to work as a nanny for one of the lawyers while his son is home for a brief vacation. The lawyer's wife turns out to be one of the judges who failed her, a famous pianist who interrupted the girl's performance when someone came in requesting her autograph.
The young woman, who is played by the female lead of last year's Palm d'Or winner, "L'Enfant", is sullen and brooding. There is no telling what is going on in her head. She gave brief evidence of a mean streak when she nudged down the covering of the piano keys on a young girl after her poor performance, nearly catching her hands. The suspense level is kept at an appropriate level.
Later, George
Friday, May 19, 2006
Day 2
Friends: It was a pleasure to begin the day with works from two accomplished directors after yesterday's batch from lesser talents. Walking up the aisle in the balcony I could see Charles, Facets programmer, with a coveted aisle seat (for quick get-aways) and an unoccupied seat beside him. It was a little after eight a.m., less than half an hour to screening time and the 2,245 seat Palais was quickly filling. Charles was complaining about having been kept at a party until three this morning, but he'd had 11 hours of sleep the night before after his long flight over, so he hoped to make it through a full day of films without too much nodding off.
It would have been hard to slip into the land of nod in Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." From the very start of his latest offering of social realism, Loach maintains a boiling tension and does not relent, as he recounts the brutality the Irish and the English inflicted upon one another in the 1920s. Loach could not be more forthright in portraying the horror of the hostilities, as the Irish battled to rid themselves of their English oppressors. About two-thirds of the way into the film, an Irish leader tells his troops after they have ambushed and massacred a truck full of English soldiers, "If they bring their savagery over here we will meet it with a savagery of our own." The film is a non-stop series of vengeful acts. Loach offers little hope for the future of the human race. The film isn't fully satisfying, but Loach always merits viewing and commendation for the subjects he chooses.
Next up in the Palais was "Summer Palace" by China's Lou Ye, a film that had yet to be approved by China's censors. I was on nudge-alert for Charles, as word was already out that this two hour and twenty minute epic following several Chinese students from their college days in 1980 to 2000 ought be drastically cut. But we were both riveted. The allusions to Tiananmen Square shouldn't upset the Chinese censors too much, but the abundance of sex probably will. The Chinese students were no different than their western counterparts giving in to their lusts and being less than monogamous about it. Of the many sexual congresses, all were conventionally missionary until the students left school. Only early on do we see any real happiness and delight in their lives, once reflected as a pair of recent lovers joyfully ride their bikes alongside each other for a prolonged spell. But jealousy and general moroseness takes over their lives. One woman jumps off a building, another is hit head-on by a truck in the rain at night on her bicycle.
I was turned away from the Debussy, the second largest theater seating 1,066, for the minimalist Paraguayan film that Charles liked a lot, "Hamaca Paraguaya." I biked half a mile to the Star Theater for the French documentary "No Body Is Perfect," a market screening that was not admitting press. The title and write-up implied this would be about people who weren't satisfied with their bodies, and the extremes they went to improve them. There was a little of that, though not of a cosmetic surgery nature. The body alterations involved tattoos and piercings and mutilations, including one guy who had his member sliced open and another who had nipped the ends off several of his fingers and was willing to do another finger for the camera. "Come back tomorrow after six," he invited. "I go into shock when I do it. This ought to be filmed." We had to brace ourselves for the next day, but the filmmakers declined to go that far. The bulk of the film, though, was showing the goings-on at sex and swing clubs. The film was seven years in the making, ranging from Rio to Japan. I would have thought they could have found more interesting characters in their search.
The lone self-professed mockumentary in the schedule is the Australian "The Magician," about a hit man. This had even less luster than "No Body Is Perfect." The script was severely wanting. The director seemed to be winging it from start to finish with just a rough out line of a script.
"Zidane's Dream Team" was one of two documentaries in the Critic's Weekly on the great French soccer player, who led France to the World Cup championship eight years ago. This one focused on his short spell with his first professional team as a 15-year old--AS Cannes--and his ten teammates. The movie reunites him with his teammates, most of whom he hasn't seen in years. There was an awful lot of kissing on the cheeks between them, but no hugging. I doubt this would have played at the festival if it didn't have the Cannes connection. Still, it was nice to learn more about one of the all-time soccer greats and hear him reflect back on those years, including wishing he'd been a more conscientious student.
I ended my day with "Poison Friends" a French feature about students working on their theses in literature. All are quite serious and studious except the smartest of them all, one who is too smart for his own good, who regularly quotes Karl Kraus's, "People write because they're too weak not to write.". This film also played in the Critic's Weekly, which restricts itself to films by first or second time directors. This was a very fine effort, and surprisingly short on sexual content.
Later, George
It would have been hard to slip into the land of nod in Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." From the very start of his latest offering of social realism, Loach maintains a boiling tension and does not relent, as he recounts the brutality the Irish and the English inflicted upon one another in the 1920s. Loach could not be more forthright in portraying the horror of the hostilities, as the Irish battled to rid themselves of their English oppressors. About two-thirds of the way into the film, an Irish leader tells his troops after they have ambushed and massacred a truck full of English soldiers, "If they bring their savagery over here we will meet it with a savagery of our own." The film is a non-stop series of vengeful acts. Loach offers little hope for the future of the human race. The film isn't fully satisfying, but Loach always merits viewing and commendation for the subjects he chooses.
Next up in the Palais was "Summer Palace" by China's Lou Ye, a film that had yet to be approved by China's censors. I was on nudge-alert for Charles, as word was already out that this two hour and twenty minute epic following several Chinese students from their college days in 1980 to 2000 ought be drastically cut. But we were both riveted. The allusions to Tiananmen Square shouldn't upset the Chinese censors too much, but the abundance of sex probably will. The Chinese students were no different than their western counterparts giving in to their lusts and being less than monogamous about it. Of the many sexual congresses, all were conventionally missionary until the students left school. Only early on do we see any real happiness and delight in their lives, once reflected as a pair of recent lovers joyfully ride their bikes alongside each other for a prolonged spell. But jealousy and general moroseness takes over their lives. One woman jumps off a building, another is hit head-on by a truck in the rain at night on her bicycle.
I was turned away from the Debussy, the second largest theater seating 1,066, for the minimalist Paraguayan film that Charles liked a lot, "Hamaca Paraguaya." I biked half a mile to the Star Theater for the French documentary "No Body Is Perfect," a market screening that was not admitting press. The title and write-up implied this would be about people who weren't satisfied with their bodies, and the extremes they went to improve them. There was a little of that, though not of a cosmetic surgery nature. The body alterations involved tattoos and piercings and mutilations, including one guy who had his member sliced open and another who had nipped the ends off several of his fingers and was willing to do another finger for the camera. "Come back tomorrow after six," he invited. "I go into shock when I do it. This ought to be filmed." We had to brace ourselves for the next day, but the filmmakers declined to go that far. The bulk of the film, though, was showing the goings-on at sex and swing clubs. The film was seven years in the making, ranging from Rio to Japan. I would have thought they could have found more interesting characters in their search.
The lone self-professed mockumentary in the schedule is the Australian "The Magician," about a hit man. This had even less luster than "No Body Is Perfect." The script was severely wanting. The director seemed to be winging it from start to finish with just a rough out line of a script.
"Zidane's Dream Team" was one of two documentaries in the Critic's Weekly on the great French soccer player, who led France to the World Cup championship eight years ago. This one focused on his short spell with his first professional team as a 15-year old--AS Cannes--and his ten teammates. The movie reunites him with his teammates, most of whom he hasn't seen in years. There was an awful lot of kissing on the cheeks between them, but no hugging. I doubt this would have played at the festival if it didn't have the Cannes connection. Still, it was nice to learn more about one of the all-time soccer greats and hear him reflect back on those years, including wishing he'd been a more conscientious student.
I ended my day with "Poison Friends" a French feature about students working on their theses in literature. All are quite serious and studious except the smartest of them all, one who is too smart for his own good, who regularly quotes Karl Kraus's, "People write because they're too weak not to write.". This film also played in the Critic's Weekly, which restricts itself to films by first or second time directors. This was a very fine effort, and surprisingly short on sexual content.
Later, George
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Day 1
Friends: It was just cinematic appetizers in the market on the first day of screenings, so there would be nothing of significance to distract from the Opening Night Gala of "The Da Vinci Code." Still, I got off to a good start with five films starting at two p.m., taking me up to midnight, all in the small, less than 50-seat screening rooms in the Palais.
I had nearly scanned all of the the one and two sentence synopses of the thousand plus films playing here, when I met Helen, programmer of Chicago's festival who is also covering the festival for "Time Out Chicago's" web page. She had just attended a press screenings of "The Da Vinci Code." She's not among the one hundred million or so who've read the book, but she said the movie was very acceptable summer entertainment.
I had yet to find a bicycle-themed film in the line-up, nor was Helen aware of any. I thought I had a winner when I came upon a film entitled "Cycle" from the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the plot summary in the catalog was, " A killer stalks five students in the Highlands of Scotland, murders them, then eats their brains." I doubt I'll be seeing that.
A high percentage of today's market screenings were Japanese, so it was only fitting that I began the 59th edition of Cannes with the Japanese film--"Green Mind, Metal Bats." The bats of the title were baseball bats. Namba, a dopey, downtrodden, 27-year old convenience store clerk swings his bat at least 1,000 times a day, and with great vigor, seeking the ultimate swing and a tryout with his favorite professional team, the Dragons. He's given occasional advice by a mysterious homeless-looking older guy who is said to be the illegitimate son of Babe Ruth. His
mantra is, "Baseball is the greatest game there is."
Namba rescues and takes in a perpetually staggering drunk waif who is always wearing a low cut blouse and mini-dress. She likes to kick and stomp illegally parked cars with her high heels. The ace pitcher of Namba's high school baseball team, which went to the Nationals, is now a cop who patrols his quiet district on a bicycle and speeds to crime scenes as if he were in the Tour de France. All these ingredients made for a fine start to the 60 or more films I will see in the coming days. Both Helen and I agreed it was much more enjoyable than many of the invited films we will see in the four competitive categories.
I was turned away from "10th and Wolf", a police thriller with Brian Dennehy and Dennis Hopper, by its producer. "There are no seats left," he said, but then asked, "Are you a distributor?" Then there would have been a seat. I walked 20 feet down the hall to Palais screening room F to watch Susan Sarandon playing an Australian housewife with two young daughters and married to Sam Neil in "Irresistible." Sarandon is being stalked. All indications are its by her husband's beautiful and much younger assistant. There is no clue as to why. An even bigger question is why Sarandon agreed to star in this Australian production. Acting with Neil could have been an enticement, but he has no less reason to be forgiven for lending his presence to this irrelevance. All 35 seats were occupied at the start of this screening. Less than half remained filled by its conclusion.
Nine-year old delinquent Juan Carlos in the Spanish "My Quick Way Out" has wanted a bicycle for Christmas the past two years. His brick-laying father tells him he can't afford to buy him one as it would cost him two weeks of his salary. Then he surprises him with a shiny BMX red beauty with the understanding he give up his no-good friends and behave. But Juan Carlos is incorrigible and only uses the bike to range further in his criminal activities. His specialty is stealing cars, though he is notoriously adept at it. This may seem far-fetched, but we are told at the beginning of the film that the year is 1980 and the film is loosely based on a true story and that Juan Carlos had been arrested 150 times by the time he was eleven.
He tells a 30-year old woman he seduces in a bar that cars are his favorite thing. She doesn't have one, so he immediately impresses her by going out and stealing one. His teen-aged friends include a heroin addict and others who have no future, nor does it appear as if he has much of a future beyond a life behind bars himself. At one point his totally exasperated father tells a couple of cops that his son has a death wish and it should be granted sooner or later, implying he wouldn't mind if they ran him off a cliff in one of his frequent car chases or shoot him in a shoot-out. But Juan Carlos finally meets someone at a reform school with an unconventional approach, who he connects with and might save him. The film concludes with a dedication to that school.
I noticed more films about ex-cons and prisoners than just about anything else in the program. "House of Blood" was among them. This over-the-top horror film from the U.S. begins with a bus load of prisoners crashing in the rural northwest. Four prisoners survive. They kill the surviving guards, put on their uniforms and make out for the Canadian border. They are accompanied by a doctor whose car caused the crash. They need him as one of the prisoners suffered a gun shot wound to his arm. The doctor insists it must be amputated, but first they need to find a safe place to perform the operation. They stumble upon a barn after a couple of hours filled with a tribe of Biblical speaking vampires. They don't realize they are vampires until after the amputation and one of the creatures gobbles it down. Half the audience walked out before the film was ten minutes old, as this was clearly schlock, although for a while it looked like it could be worthwhile midnight film festival fare. Three Germans in particular behind me were greatly enjoying this madness. I too couldn't help but laugh from time to time, as the various characters quoted Kant and Nietsche and Oscar Wilde.
I concluded Day One with "Life's A Road Trip." Ed Harris was listed in the credits, but, unfortunately, he only had one scene near the end of the movie as a one-armed worker at a circus. He's talking about lions and tigers, though they weren't responsible for the loss of his arm. It was a car accident. That revelation, like all else in this, was a let-down. The three guys on the road trip are 38-years who have been friends since high school, where they all distinguished themselves and showed great promise. One was the star QB who won a college scholarship, another the class valedictorian and the third a rock musician. But they all now work very unfulfilling blue-collar jobs and couldn't be more morose. DB Sweeney wrote and directed and plays the QB. His face is etched in great torment throughout. The three go off on a road trip to attend a championship football game that might redeem their lives. Ugh.
Later, George
I had nearly scanned all of the the one and two sentence synopses of the thousand plus films playing here, when I met Helen, programmer of Chicago's festival who is also covering the festival for "Time Out Chicago's" web page. She had just attended a press screenings of "The Da Vinci Code." She's not among the one hundred million or so who've read the book, but she said the movie was very acceptable summer entertainment.
I had yet to find a bicycle-themed film in the line-up, nor was Helen aware of any. I thought I had a winner when I came upon a film entitled "Cycle" from the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the plot summary in the catalog was, " A killer stalks five students in the Highlands of Scotland, murders them, then eats their brains." I doubt I'll be seeing that.
A high percentage of today's market screenings were Japanese, so it was only fitting that I began the 59th edition of Cannes with the Japanese film--"Green Mind, Metal Bats." The bats of the title were baseball bats. Namba, a dopey, downtrodden, 27-year old convenience store clerk swings his bat at least 1,000 times a day, and with great vigor, seeking the ultimate swing and a tryout with his favorite professional team, the Dragons. He's given occasional advice by a mysterious homeless-looking older guy who is said to be the illegitimate son of Babe Ruth. His
mantra is, "Baseball is the greatest game there is."
Namba rescues and takes in a perpetually staggering drunk waif who is always wearing a low cut blouse and mini-dress. She likes to kick and stomp illegally parked cars with her high heels. The ace pitcher of Namba's high school baseball team, which went to the Nationals, is now a cop who patrols his quiet district on a bicycle and speeds to crime scenes as if he were in the Tour de France. All these ingredients made for a fine start to the 60 or more films I will see in the coming days. Both Helen and I agreed it was much more enjoyable than many of the invited films we will see in the four competitive categories.
I was turned away from "10th and Wolf", a police thriller with Brian Dennehy and Dennis Hopper, by its producer. "There are no seats left," he said, but then asked, "Are you a distributor?" Then there would have been a seat. I walked 20 feet down the hall to Palais screening room F to watch Susan Sarandon playing an Australian housewife with two young daughters and married to Sam Neil in "Irresistible." Sarandon is being stalked. All indications are its by her husband's beautiful and much younger assistant. There is no clue as to why. An even bigger question is why Sarandon agreed to star in this Australian production. Acting with Neil could have been an enticement, but he has no less reason to be forgiven for lending his presence to this irrelevance. All 35 seats were occupied at the start of this screening. Less than half remained filled by its conclusion.
Nine-year old delinquent Juan Carlos in the Spanish "My Quick Way Out" has wanted a bicycle for Christmas the past two years. His brick-laying father tells him he can't afford to buy him one as it would cost him two weeks of his salary. Then he surprises him with a shiny BMX red beauty with the understanding he give up his no-good friends and behave. But Juan Carlos is incorrigible and only uses the bike to range further in his criminal activities. His specialty is stealing cars, though he is notoriously adept at it. This may seem far-fetched, but we are told at the beginning of the film that the year is 1980 and the film is loosely based on a true story and that Juan Carlos had been arrested 150 times by the time he was eleven.
He tells a 30-year old woman he seduces in a bar that cars are his favorite thing. She doesn't have one, so he immediately impresses her by going out and stealing one. His teen-aged friends include a heroin addict and others who have no future, nor does it appear as if he has much of a future beyond a life behind bars himself. At one point his totally exasperated father tells a couple of cops that his son has a death wish and it should be granted sooner or later, implying he wouldn't mind if they ran him off a cliff in one of his frequent car chases or shoot him in a shoot-out. But Juan Carlos finally meets someone at a reform school with an unconventional approach, who he connects with and might save him. The film concludes with a dedication to that school.
I noticed more films about ex-cons and prisoners than just about anything else in the program. "House of Blood" was among them. This over-the-top horror film from the U.S. begins with a bus load of prisoners crashing in the rural northwest. Four prisoners survive. They kill the surviving guards, put on their uniforms and make out for the Canadian border. They are accompanied by a doctor whose car caused the crash. They need him as one of the prisoners suffered a gun shot wound to his arm. The doctor insists it must be amputated, but first they need to find a safe place to perform the operation. They stumble upon a barn after a couple of hours filled with a tribe of Biblical speaking vampires. They don't realize they are vampires until after the amputation and one of the creatures gobbles it down. Half the audience walked out before the film was ten minutes old, as this was clearly schlock, although for a while it looked like it could be worthwhile midnight film festival fare. Three Germans in particular behind me were greatly enjoying this madness. I too couldn't help but laugh from time to time, as the various characters quoted Kant and Nietsche and Oscar Wilde.
I concluded Day One with "Life's A Road Trip." Ed Harris was listed in the credits, but, unfortunately, he only had one scene near the end of the movie as a one-armed worker at a circus. He's talking about lions and tigers, though they weren't responsible for the loss of his arm. It was a car accident. That revelation, like all else in this, was a let-down. The three guys on the road trip are 38-years who have been friends since high school, where they all distinguished themselves and showed great promise. One was the star QB who won a college scholarship, another the class valedictorian and the third a rock musician. But they all now work very unfulfilling blue-collar jobs and couldn't be more morose. DB Sweeney wrote and directed and plays the QB. His face is etched in great torment throughout. The three go off on a road trip to attend a championship football game that might redeem their lives. Ugh.
Later, George
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
