The common complaint this year at the Cannes Film Festival was simply that the movies failed to impress. While the opening night entry Blindness—Fernando Meirelles’ mercilessly simple-minded adaptation of Jose Saramago’s apocalyptic thriller—paved the way for other duds, its title described the tendency of many haters to look in all the wrong places. Throughout its 61st gathering, Cannes proved especially strong in the unexplored regions outside the main competition, particularly in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, which celebrated its 40th year mainly by a having a solid program of independent cinema from around the world.
The sidebar first came about amid European turmoil in 1968, so the chaotic entries really fit the anniversary: De la Guerre, Bertrand Bonello’s trippy character study about a solemn fellow (Matheiu Almaric) who finds enlightenment at a sex commune thanks to the leadership of Asia Argento as its daunting leader, suggests Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely redone by Catherine Breillat (both Cannes alums, I might add).
Unrelated save for its emphasis on protagonists with misplaced aspirations, Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero follows a maniacal South American stud so intent on becoming John Travolta’s character from Saturday Night Fever that he’s willing to eradicate the competition. Coldly unsetting even though the premise suggests a lively affair, Tony Manero devises a completely unique anti-hero. He’s like Travis Bickle meets Napoleon Dynamite with an American Psycho twist. Swallow that for starters, and pray you get the chance to see this bizarre cross-genre oddity.
Neither risky nor offensive, the best films in the section uncovered raw emotional conceits with eloquent portrayals of psychological duress. Josh Safdie’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed follows a doleful heroine who romanticizes her own kleptomania, even as her crimes catch up to her. Safdie’s gloriously resourceful cinematography and near surreal expressions of alienation situate him as one of the most promising new American filmmakers. Last Maquis, meanwhile, probes the impact of Muslim observance among a handful of struggling Algerian factory workers. Slow and steady, Maquis develops into a hypnotic take on mundane labor as a form of ideological expression, providing a realist’s counterpoint to Brazil.
Humble in scale, the Fortnight often appeared dwarfed by the ugly spectacles on the red carpet of the Palais des Festivals a few blocks away. Within the context of those glamour-heavy standards, the real bomb of the major leagues was Kung Fu Panda, which gave Dreamworks the pleasure of robbing audiences of a good time. Details aren’t necessary this early in the game; needless to say, “Sneezing Panda” has a lot more laughs.
And that brings us to the enlightening Sunday afternoon screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was an unabashedly riveting affair, inspiring inexcusably reckless live-blogging behavior by yours truly—but, come on, we’re talking about the greatest pulp hero of the last 30 years invading the Palais with thrills intact. How reckless can you get? (As for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Sophomoric, Mean-Spirited Junketeers, that’s a conundrum with which they deserve to waste their own time, not mine.)
Last Cannes, the potential for awards films loomed large: No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and the unjustly Oscar-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days each rode waves of buzz to great acclaim. This year’s bigger offerings felt more fringe-oriented. Steven Soderbergh’s bafflingly dense four-and-a-half hour biopic, Che, unquestionably gives Benicio del Toro his finest performance, although after half a day of scenes, we really don’t get a sense for the evolution of Guevara’s radicalism. Still, leading the charge in the Bolivian mountains, the guy makes a swell team manager.
In contrast, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling deserves no similarly generous praise. Quite possibly the poorest script he’s ever handled, the movie casts Angelina Jolie as a fraught mother in a 1930s-era Los Angeles kidnapping case. Jolie delivers the shoddy dialogue with her typically impressive fluidity, but the strip-search scene—which happens after a corrupt police chief has her committed—pretty much tells you how the film utilizes her talent. As aging auteurs go, I preferred Woody Allen’s latest, a slapdash quasi-Spanish comedic drama called Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Finding the tone he should’ve struck in Melinda and Melinda, Allen gives us a debonair Spaniard (Javier Bardem) and his furious ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) feuding with an intensity that transcends the director’s occasionally dopey dialogue. I’m certain Allen still wouldn’t want to join a club willing to include him as a member, but the Cannes crowd was glad to have him around, anyway.
The sidebar first came about amid European turmoil in 1968, so the chaotic entries really fit the anniversary: De la Guerre, Bertrand Bonello’s trippy character study about a solemn fellow (Matheiu Almaric) who finds enlightenment at a sex commune thanks to the leadership of Asia Argento as its daunting leader, suggests Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely redone by Catherine Breillat (both Cannes alums, I might add).
Unrelated save for its emphasis on protagonists with misplaced aspirations, Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero follows a maniacal South American stud so intent on becoming John Travolta’s character from Saturday Night Fever that he’s willing to eradicate the competition. Coldly unsetting even though the premise suggests a lively affair, Tony Manero devises a completely unique anti-hero. He’s like Travis Bickle meets Napoleon Dynamite with an American Psycho twist. Swallow that for starters, and pray you get the chance to see this bizarre cross-genre oddity.
Neither risky nor offensive, the best films in the section uncovered raw emotional conceits with eloquent portrayals of psychological duress. Josh Safdie’s The Pleasure of Being Robbed follows a doleful heroine who romanticizes her own kleptomania, even as her crimes catch up to her. Safdie’s gloriously resourceful cinematography and near surreal expressions of alienation situate him as one of the most promising new American filmmakers. Last Maquis, meanwhile, probes the impact of Muslim observance among a handful of struggling Algerian factory workers. Slow and steady, Maquis develops into a hypnotic take on mundane labor as a form of ideological expression, providing a realist’s counterpoint to Brazil.
Humble in scale, the Fortnight often appeared dwarfed by the ugly spectacles on the red carpet of the Palais des Festivals a few blocks away. Within the context of those glamour-heavy standards, the real bomb of the major leagues was Kung Fu Panda, which gave Dreamworks the pleasure of robbing audiences of a good time. Details aren’t necessary this early in the game; needless to say, “Sneezing Panda” has a lot more laughs.
And that brings us to the enlightening Sunday afternoon screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was an unabashedly riveting affair, inspiring inexcusably reckless live-blogging behavior by yours truly—but, come on, we’re talking about the greatest pulp hero of the last 30 years invading the Palais with thrills intact. How reckless can you get? (As for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Sophomoric, Mean-Spirited Junketeers, that’s a conundrum with which they deserve to waste their own time, not mine.)
Last Cannes, the potential for awards films loomed large: No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and the unjustly Oscar-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days each rode waves of buzz to great acclaim. This year’s bigger offerings felt more fringe-oriented. Steven Soderbergh’s bafflingly dense four-and-a-half hour biopic, Che, unquestionably gives Benicio del Toro his finest performance, although after half a day of scenes, we really don’t get a sense for the evolution of Guevara’s radicalism. Still, leading the charge in the Bolivian mountains, the guy makes a swell team manager.
In contrast, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling deserves no similarly generous praise. Quite possibly the poorest script he’s ever handled, the movie casts Angelina Jolie as a fraught mother in a 1930s-era Los Angeles kidnapping case. Jolie delivers the shoddy dialogue with her typically impressive fluidity, but the strip-search scene—which happens after a corrupt police chief has her committed—pretty much tells you how the film utilizes her talent. As aging auteurs go, I preferred Woody Allen’s latest, a slapdash quasi-Spanish comedic drama called Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Finding the tone he should’ve struck in Melinda and Melinda, Allen gives us a debonair Spaniard (Javier Bardem) and his furious ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) feuding with an intensity that transcends the director’s occasionally dopey dialogue. I’m certain Allen still wouldn’t want to join a club willing to include him as a member, but the Cannes crowd was glad to have him around, anyway.
