Cannes #10: And, at last, the winners are...

"...Then the jury started springing surprises that didn't go over as well. The biggest was the Best Director Award to Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines, for the very violent "Kinatay," one of the worst-received films of the festival. It involves the kidnapping, torture, rape, beheading and dismemberment of woman by members of the police force." - Roger

The 2009 jury press conference isn't up yet and so I'm jumping the gun, I know, to smack them for their choice for Best Director, given they could have a good reason for making it, but come on - are you kidding me?!

Let's say a female writer/director wanted to make a film about a young woman whose been terribly abused. But instead of it being about the physical violence the character had suffered, it's about the mental abuse - the stuff you can't see; the emotional trauma. And in order to show it, the director decided it would manifest itself outwardly as a mirror of the violence the character had endured. Moreover, others too - women the female character encounters while attending counseling sessions; so it's pack effort, a dog pile.

End result? A two hour movie about the kidnapping, torture, rape (insert foreign object), beheading and dismemberment of a man.

And here's the thing - he didn't rape or kill anyone! He was guilty of being a jerk one day, but that's all. An ill-chosen comment and for that, he ends up going through Hell before they finally kill him. Holy crap, eh? And all in an effort to speak to the internal damage you can't see, in another.

And the actresses hired to appear in the film, do not provide any eye-candy. They look like your neighbour; average, ordinary every day types.

IF such a film could even get funded so as to make it onto the screen, and maybe I'm judging the judges too harshly in advance, I can't see that sort of film scoring "best female director" at Cannes - unless, and as I suspect to be the case with Kinatay, it's about admiring someone for "having a pair", so to speak.

That they were brave and bold and daring. That they were able to "go there" and all that. Which, when looked at dispassionately and from the safety of knowing the crime they watched didn't actually happen, is an easy call to make, imo.

Many things require bravery on the part of those who do them, it all depends upon one's point of view, eh? I'm sure there were moments when Nazis faced obstacles too, and had to surmount their fears and dig deep down, to find their courage to press on. Imagine a film about a day in the life of such a soldier? He's trying to survive a mission. And in the end, he succeeds! He kills "his enemy" and lives another day - because he was BRAVE enough to shoot a British soldier in the face.

Would that get made? When do you admire bravery? How do you qualify it?

I suspect Mendoza won Best Director because he was brave enough to go somewhere the judges couldn't and never would and from their perspective, that made his balls bigger than anyone else's at the Festival. Not because they actually liked "what" those pair put on screen.

Note: if a female writer/director were to make such a film as the one I'd imagined and described above, I wouldn't go see it. I'd rather drive a nail through my foot - it'd be faster and more poetic; I could pretend I was Christ, as there's some suffering for ya! Nor would I think it was "brave of her" to have made it.

But then, I think "Springtime for Hitler" is brave!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGp0hCxSg98

So too, Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" playing with a balloon; smile...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlwdTa47esE

I think violence when used too much, misses the point for shooting past it. Unless the point WAS to shoot past it alla Tarantino. :)

How do subtitles work in cannes? Is every film simultaneously in English and French subtitles when the film is not in either English or French. Are other languages included for subtitles? What's the deal? Very curious.

Ebert: French subtitled in English, English subtitled in French, other languages subtitled in both French and English.

Try as though I might have, I could not find one friendly website broadcasting the feed of the Closing Ceremony. But there is one image that speaks a million words: that of Mme. Huppert embracing Haneke as she gave him the Palme D'Or. If Haneke had never read The Piano Teacher and wanted to film it, odds are that Huppert would have only one Cannes Best Actress award and not two, Haneke would probably have neither the clout or the wherewithal to make The White Ribbon, and that exchange would not have taken place. I have never, in the years I've watched her, seen Isabelle Huppert smile quite like that, onscreen or off. That alone is worth every minute I've spent watching this festival; if anyone else had been Jury President, I'd barely blink.

Ebert: She doesn't smile a lot.

Of course, I am somewhat confused over why there has to be a 'winner', as though this were a NASCAR event, or a game of Monopoly.

Ebert, you clearly appreciate movies. What do you think gets into you to cheer for a particular movie to 'win'? Why do you care who (or what) the bloody panel picks? Its just that its part of the festivities, right? And you would feel left out if you didnt join in with the others that actually pay attention to The Panel. That make big stinks because 'their' movie wasnt 'chosen'. What if, when the panel was making their moronic decrees, everyone else was in another building attending a great post-fest party? Would anything about the merit of the fest and the cinema be lost?

It just interests me that people of enthusiasm and knowledge and passion still engage in such idiocy.

Ebert: The festival and its awards advance the art of serious film.

And, I might add, that since everyone (the directors, actors, writers etc etc) seems to participate so passionately with this supposed 'competition' that, in fact, it is a competition. That soul and intelligence offers little in comparison to talent and ego - both of which must be of considerable sizes to foster for oneself the delusion of having 'won', that is, having 'defeated' ones 'opponents'. For what, pray-tell? Ask the ego. Oh, and I suppose the ego's accountant. But you contribute to this cynicism, and you dont at all seem cynical.

Or perhaps its one of those interesting memes Dawkins suggests that everyone just falls into line with without really giving it a second thought.

Ebert: A great many things in our lives come down to the ego.

Wow. How do you feel now that "Kinatay" won for Best Director? Must be embarassing. Why do you think the jury panel awarded that prize to Brillante Mendoza?

Ebert: That is a question being asked by a lot of the people who saw the film.

Roger wrote, "Early in the festival, I made an obvious sort of observation to its director, about the many important directors in his selection. "Yes, but...you know, a great director doesn't always make a great film. We choose from what each year brings us."

Roger, maybe, just maybe, those words of Mr. Thierry Fremaux also apply to the jury of each year's Cannes Film Festival. Though of course, I do not mean to imply that this year's judges were unqualified for their positions. They may have had other considerations. (Which makes the meaning of the words of Mr. Fremaux rather unjustifiably subjective, I know. Pardon.)

I wonder if giving the Actress award to Gainsbourg was a somewhat clever statement by the jury, or at least more clever than the "anti-prize" the ecumenical jury gave out.

Mr. Ebert, I think that all of the awards come back to the fact Isabelle Huppert was a strong Cannes jury president this year.
Look back at her career and when you compare her roles to the award choices this year, you can see her stylistic "fingerprints" and influence on the awards. Can you really be surprised by these picks?

Of course, Haneke was going to win the Palm d'Or; she has worked with the director twice in The Piano Teacher and Time of the Wolf.

Fascinated with sadomaschism? Give that actress award to Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Don't forget about the Nazis or Christian vampires...awards for Christoph Waltz & Chan Woo Park's Thirst.

Inscrutable female characters? Fish Tank

Strange sexual behaviors? Spring Fever & Anti-Christ

Shocking violence? Kinatay

Who would ever thought that the most normal awarded film would be "The Prophet"...a prison film?

I am actually look forward to see all of these films in the art house or on DVD. But, I actually am not shocked by any of these choices from Isabelle Huppert headed jury.

I would suggest that at future Cannes film festivals 3 changes...

1) Do not select a jury president who has an established,ongoing collaboration with a director (e.g. they have appeared in 2 or more films for the director)...like Huppert & Haneke. To me, it seems that other competitors could legitimate claim favoritism for Haneke.

2) If your films have won 3 or more awards at Cannes film festivals, you cannot enter another film for competition for 10 years. I am looking at directors that I love: the Coen brothers (1991 Barton Fink-Palm d'Or, Director & Actor; 1996 Fargo-Director; 2001 The Man Who Wasn't There-Director; 2004 The Ladykillers-Supporting Actress),
the Dardenne Brothers (1999 Rosetta-Palm d'Or, Actress; 2002 The Son-Actor; 2005 L'Enfant-Palm d'Or; 2008 The Silence of Lorna-Screenplay),
& Michael Haneke (2001 The Piano Teacher-Grand Prix, Actor, Actress; 2004 Cache-Director; 2009 The White Ribbon-Palm d'Or).
Other filmmakers have to be given a chance to let their films shine.

3) Finally, why not have a leading film critic throughout the world be the Cannes jury president..rather than just filmmakers and actors. I would love to see the picks of Cannes jury presided by a Roger Ebert, Michael Wilmington, or Andrew Sarris.

By the way, what would have been your picks if you chose the awards, Mr. Ebert?

The most misguided award I've noticed is the Ecumenical Jury's "anti-prize" for Anti-Christ. Fremaux's denouncement of this prize is, I think, deserved. Do you have an opinion on it?

I am surprised that the reaction to most of the major films, from you and many others, has been rather subdued. On paper, it looked like this particular Cannes would be the Woodstock of film, remembered in years to come, but it looks like so many of the films were, what's the word I'm looking for, insipid? A Michael Haneke film that does not cause outrage doesn;t quite sound like a Haneke film. For a while now, I'd wanted him to tackle the demons in his won backyard, rather than obvious targets like French colonialism and American "capitalist" cinema, and I am surprised that people are saying he pulled his punches with this new film.

I am ashamed to say that I usually don't follow the press when it comes to Cannes and other acclaimed European festivals; consequently, I hear only of the lauded movies, and those are the ones I usually seek. Thank you for stating which movies you believed had more merit than Kinatay; I will make a point to see them all (assuming Netflix learns the intricacies of delivery to an apartment with "1/2" following the street number).

Last year, I waited for over a year to see my home country's Golden Bear-winning Elite Squad in the big screen, and the feeling I had when the movie was over could only be described as despair. Indeed, it was a powerful film that showed how violent crime in Brazil was ubiquitous enough to drive the middle class to accept extreme police brutality as a necessary cost for peace, as absurd as that is. Violence is most certainly a problem in Brazil: City of God made it known to many people abroad. In fact, violence was the driving point of my emigration to the United States ten years ago; however, having hailed from Brazil, I see how many beautiful facets from our culture have been overshadowed by its violence. There have been films like Walter Salles' Central Station that have touched upon the surface of the human warmth in the country, but only after its inherent violence had been established.

I don't think that films are entered into the Cannes festival to be declared victorious (I might be very naïve here); but if I am mistaken, you made it clear that violence is a theme that is plucking the judges' heartstrings very favorably these days. Even when dismissing Kinatay, you provided other "tough" movies as alternatives for prize-winners. Aside from Up, where there any refreshing, light-hearted movies presented in this festival? I'm not looking for a cop-out here, but sometimes, you just want a film to be pleasant, you know?

Dear Rog,
Your blogs and the comments from readers have made for one helluva Cannes festival experience for me. Even though I wasn't there I feel I have been a part of it.
Ok. Now, pound for pound, in a nutshell, what was the most powerful film that you saw this year at Cannes. ( Oh I know you are loathe to putting out lists Roger, and I admire you for this, but if its of any help....just imagine there's a gun to your head and spill out your pick.)

Ps. I made a comment in an earlier post where I ranted about Michael Haneke, and it turns out that he received the Palme this year. that being said, Is till look forward to seeing his new movie in the hope that it is more in the realm of Cache and not Funny Games.

Roger, someone, anyone, please: Tell us the source of that extremely beautiful photo of the woman and girl in in the field of flowers! It is simply magnificent (click it for a full screen view), and if I am to share it with people, I'd like to tell them what movie it's from!

You can reach me through my Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/paulklenk

And thanks for a great desktop photo!

Ebert: A still by Jane Campion from her "Bright Star."

Mr Ebert's dislike for Kinatay is clear indication of his populist standpoint. Actually, I’m really wondering what is Mr Ebert doing in Cannes when it is very obvious that his taste, peppered with Hollywood sugar-coated standards, does not coincide with vision of Cannes. His overt proclamation of hate for Kinatay just shows how limited his taste is. Here are the following trail that will show Mr Ebert’s true color:

1.) Mr Ebert shouted to the world of his like for Serbis. If I’m a Mr Ebert, I wouldn’t try to fool the people that I like Serbis if my rating for the film is 2.5/4 stars. Isn’t it neat boasting of a “like” that is actually not there?

2.) Mr Ebert’s rate for Changeling is 3.5/4 stars while for a far superior Serbis, a competitor at Cannes last year of the former, is only 2.5/4. Anyone who is a true critic would clearly see that Serbis is very much better than Changeling, a derivative, melodramatic and schematic piece of American filmmaking. Why is that so? Because he is a champion of Eastwood, a champion too of Hollywood filmmaking.

3.) Insisting that Kinatay is way worse that the unedited Brown Bunny is very much uncalled for. Is that Mr Ebert’s way of appeasing with Gallo? And why pawn Kinatay for that purpose? Duh!

4.) How do you believe Mr Ebert’s claim that Kinatay is Cannes’ worst when he is considered by everyone as the Great White Middlebrow. As one Filipino critic put it, he is absolutely clueless when it comes to Burton and Lynch and totally blind when it comes to Mel Gibson. Another duh!

5.) On his blog, he showed as early as his first post for the Cannes that he will be championing his nation again, proclaiming Up a very good film, almost finding no fault with it. I almost see Mr Ebert with a narcissistic self-promotion. And again, he was too willing to champion Inglorious Basterds. Hahaha!

6.) Mr Ebert came up with a heated blog entry proclaiming about his dislike for Kinatay. Almost shredding the poor film to pieces. Issuing very strong statements as “DUH!,” “What Are They Thinking Of?” “Here is a film that forces me to apologize to Vincent Gallo for calling "The Brown Bunny" the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival,” Etc. He was so hateful of the movie that I can only laugh in retaliation. I am tempted to ask, isn’t his remorse of Kinatay an indication that the film was successful in what it was trying to achieve?

7.) Isn’t Kinatay an easy target being a work from a nameless director, and coming from a third world too? I believe Antichrist was more revolting than Kinatay, the scene more graphic and explicit, why then Mr Ebert did not make a very strong statement against Antichrist? Is it because von Trier is a name director and Brillante an easy target? See?

8.) Mr Ebert questioned Cannes programmers about the inclusion of Kinatay in the competition as if Cannes lost its mind in including Kinatay. As if his taste on films is better than people behind Cannes. Cannes big fucking reply to Mr Ebert? Best Director for Brillante Mendoza!

9.) How neat that his blog entry in which he proclaimed Kinatay the worst film of the festival, on the last part he segued to proclaiming Precious, a film from his nation, a great film? How neat attacking an easy target while heralding his own film! Yeah?

10.) How do you judge a film which origin you don’t know personally of? And how can you proclaim a film the worst of the festival when that said film is a realistic depiction of that said culture. Why don’t we subject Mr Ebert into learning the Filipino culture before he condemns a film reflecting that culture!

11.) Roger Ebert: “film jury… lost its mind. In my opinion the Mendoza film "Kinatay" deserved no award, and Le Film Francais panel agreed with me ("pas d tout").”

Hahaha! No, Le Film Francais don’t agree with you, Mr Ebert. Go check the panel again and you will see that they consider Antichrist a worse film than Kinatay.

And what’s with seeking reinforcement and validation with Le Film Francais? You only seek reinforcement when you’re trapped! And Mr Ebert is trapped of his own doing!

Ebert: The Times of London reported today that the film was "reviled" at Cannes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Roger, but I noticed the Cannes jury doesn't include film critics, just directors and actors. Wouldn't it make sense to include an esteemed critic or two on a group selecting awards for films?

Ebert: Critics have been past members of the jury.

I was very glad that Michael Haneke won the big prize (I even watched the ceremony on TV). I have seen several of his movies, and he's one of my all time favorites (I especially liked Funny Games, but only in its original version - haven't seen the remake yet, and judging by what I've heard and read of it, I doubt that I will. The original was harrowing and shoking enough...).

And a question - how do you think Tarantino's movie will be received in Israel? one of our most notorious film critics called it "total garbage", and said that this movie was the equivalent of Holocaust denial, and that one can't - with clear conscience - accuse people like the Iranian President for Holocaust denial, while at the same time endorse Trantino's movie.

So do you foresee storms and thunders when the movie plays in Israel? (a similar thing, albeit on a small scale, happened when Defiance played here - it shocked many people by going against the accepted myth of the Jews in the Holocaust, by showing fighting and vengeful Jews, who kill several Nazis and collaboratores in the course of the movie).

And a small off-topic: at the age of 35, I'm seriously considering going to study cinema at Tel Aviv University, with the hope of becoming - eventually - a film critic and a writer on cinema. This has always been my dream, but only recently have I got the courage to go and pursue it.

Ebert: It doesn't deny the Holocaust. Its villain is known as the "Jew Hunter." However, Nazis as film villains are a form of trivialization of the horror.

Not to provide "too much f---kin' perspective," but past Palm d'Or winners have included The Lost Weekend; Rome, Open City; The Third Man; The Wages of Fear; La dolce vita; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg; The Conversation; Taxi Driver; Kagemusha; sex, lies and videotape; Barton Fink; Elephant—and Marty; The Knack … and How to Get It; Scarecrow; Under the Sun of Satan; and Wild at Heart.

It's a big palm; room for all kinds of gods and monsters. You just have to squint a bit some years.

It's not too surprising that Brillante Mendoza won the Palme d'Or for best director. One of the functions of film art is to destroy old forms. Kinatay butchered convention.

His win may not make Kinatay fans out of his critics but it should earn him some respect.

That said, I do hope Mendoza doesn't turn into a one-note Third World filmmaker ordained to portray pain and wretchedness.

Hi Roger,

Your blogs have put me right back at the Cannes Film Festivals I've attended. Thanks. You write today about "the genuinely funniest film in the festival is by a Palestinian in today's Israel.." Do you know if Elia Suleiman's "The Time That Remains" will be released here in the

I'd just like to say that I find the best director award at Cannes notoriously unreliable as to the quality of the film. I learned this when I read William Goldman's Hype and Glory, where he talks about how hard he pushed for the jury to give Max Von Sydow best actor (Pelle the Conqueror) so his man Clint Eastwood could win best director for Bird. This strategy didn't work, and probably wouldn't have anyway, because best director went to Le Sud (South) a movie which he spends a lot of time trashing for being pretentious and dull.

In my experience, before I left for college this spring, I saw with my best friend, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys, which took the directorial prize last year. We both left the theater going "What the hell was that?" It was a terrible, terrible film. It had no plot. It had no characters. Ceylan doesn't know how to use the camera at all, and shot everything through a bland brown-green filter which drove me nuts. So if Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a great director to the French, then let them award Kinatay as well.

Not so much a comment as a request: Mr. Ebert, I look forward to a commentary from you that explores why so much cynicism, violence and self-hatred is coming from "free" nations in Asia - Korea, Phillippines, previously Hong Kong - while the communist China continues to export more toughtful works on the human condition.

Personally, I've just about had it with "extreme" cinema, which, to me, speaks more of a foolish callousness than it does anything else. There is more than a little of the Columbine killers in their work, a sheer boredom with "banal" life. So they reduce it to a world of killers, whores, blood, revenge, guts and nightmares. It's like watching the inside of a mind of a horny, angry 18-year-old playing video games.

Every year after Cannes we take the time to wonder what it all means. Next to the novel film is the best and most immediate way society comments on itself. Cannes, being the supposed pinnacle of film as art, is saying something here.

Not having seen any of the films yet I am still nonetheless dismayed at what the reports appear that the festival is saying. The world was created by Satan, and we are devils. We know this by the way we treat each other. There is little hope, as even the good guys sell their soul when they combat the evil. Is this truly the state of the world in 2008?

I don't want to make this into a political blog, but I can't help but feel that it is a reflection of the ongoing "war on terror" and the acceptance of torture as a means to an end. The problem is that the filmmakers are not commenting on this, they are simply depicting it. One might not have liked Funny Games or thought it was successful, but it tried to comment on the violence. Kinatay and others at this festival do nothing of the sort. They just depict. They aren't about anything. I can't be sure of that until I see the films. For the first time ever I just might not want to.

1) I didn't know that Michael Haneke was Father Christmas. Now I'm worried about what I might find in my stocking.

2) To play devil's avocado for Mendoza, as I understand it his intention with Kinatay was to be abrasive and dissonant and barely watchable to the point where audience members end up driven out of the theatre, and he succeeded pretty thoroughly, so maybe he's worthy of his award on the technicality that he did a very good job of making his film horrible via the direction. It still sounds like "Saw" with added intellectualising, and about as defensible.

3) Is he really called "Brilliante"? Is that a real name?

4) I wonder why so many nasty, brutish and long films seem to have come along right now. I'm honestly not sure. I mean, I understand why the global recession has thrown up an atmosphere of despair, but the last time it happened we got weary and depressing novels by Steinbeck and songs by Guthrie, not purposeless viscera and nonchalant mutilation, with the filmmaker seeming to have no opinion on it whatsoever.

Ebert: People namd Murloneycakes should not cast the first stone. I'm sure that's your real name.

Roger, I believe you. Why? Because of the *faces* in these clips...

Not too many smiles up there. The judges seem very, strangely squirmy/ miserable... They're defensive, secretive, dodging questions. Did anybody actually say why Mendoza was chosen? The film is 'original', 'powerful'... What does that mean? The one judge jokes that he doesn't want to see it again and that there were some 'weird' films this year...

That speech about them 'being friends' and not arguing doesn't seem convincing next to their faces and solemn demeanor and I'm getting the impression that there may have been some language barriers at times... There also seems to be many young jury members, perhaps too many and I say that as a young person myself.

And when they need help putting on their translator-stethoscopes, I couldn't contain my laughter anymore. This conference is so ripe for satire.

Compare this to the easygoing "Inglorious Basterds" conference where everybody is joking around or the swagger and passion of Lars von Trier declaring himself the greatest director in the world... These judges seem barely alive...

Ebert: Nothing you could say would convince me that Penn or Tagore would have voted for that film.

Mr. Ebert,

Please don't take my question in the wrong sense but why do you hate violent movies? Is 'Kinatay' similar to the torturous 'Blindness'....but then 'Amores Perros' too was a violent movie and so was 'Bandit Queen' in which the rape scene was shown in vivid detail. Please clarify.

Wow. You really are right--no wonder they showed Up. But then again, maybe it would have sent a better message to show the movie at the very end of the festival, ending it on a lighter, higher note.

First of all, thanks for answering my question regarding Tarantino's movie.

As for Nazis as movie villains, I tend to think that it's how they're portaried that determines whether the movie trivializes the horror or not. Cartonboard characters, caricatures more than real human beings, are indeed a form of trivialization. Complex charcters, which are portaried as real and interesting people not as carictures, is a different matter all together.

I think that nowdays movies tend to show such Nazis characters, i.e. more complex and real. I'm thinking of this year's The Reader (another movie which was received badly by many Israeli film critics, but which I loved) or about Downfall (another movie that raised alot of controversies here, as in many other places).

I'm also thinking about a book: The Kindly Ones/Jonathan Little. When this book got published in Israel... well, I don't think I've known another book to raise so much controversy here. But again, I think it's a great book, primarily because it shows a Nazi which is not cardboard nor caricature, but a real person, complex and human. It got me thinking (which is Little's goal in the book), about what I'd have done had I been born in Germany as an "Aryan". Because this man (excluding some blemishes and character defects) is really... well, ordinary and every person. This kind of book and this kind of character doesn't, in my opinion, trivialize the Holocaust.

So I guess my attitude to Tarantino's film will be based alot on this question, of whether the Nazi villains in this picture are shallow and cardboard or whether they're interesting and complex people.

Ebert: It's not intended as a deep movie--Tarantino calls in a genre film--but Christoph Waltz's winning performance is of a devious, complex, fascinating man.

Ebert,

Was there any explanation or justification from the judges as to WHY they awarded Best Director to Mendoza? Were they even asked to explain that choice? If his film was uniformly despised at Cannes, then did the judges see a different film? I also find it interesting that a mostly female jury awarded the BD prize to such a nihilistic and misogynistic film. And there were probably so many better films, so I guess the question people must be asking is, why that one over all the others?

"French subtitled in English, English subtitled in French, other languages subtitled in both French and English."

So I suppose Jonathan Rosenbaum hasn't given you French lessons yet?... i'd love to learn French myself actually.

Why, of course it's my real name, how else could I have misspelled it so well?

Just curious; either "Brilliante" is a real name, or it's a pretty desperate and apparently misguided piece of self-aggrandisement.

Ebert: He has also used the name "Dante Mendoza."

jonathan filipino...I can understand if you disagree with Roger Ebert about a particular film. It's allowed, even encouraged, for people to have different opinions.

But...I find it difficult to read your comments about how Roger prefers movies from America over movies from other countries, when the name you go by on this blog indicates you are a Filipino and you get mad at the man for criticizing a movie made by...another Filipino. Aren't you just doing what you've accused Roger of? Supporting your national cinema, right or wrong?

I've read enough of Roger's reviews to know that, had he thought Kinatay was good, he would have said so. He's often praised films from the French tradition, the Italian; he's had several good things to say about recent Iranian cinema, despite the tendency of the political right in Roger's home country to demonize Iran; and he's had many nice things to say about Bollywood movies.

I haven't seen Kinatay, so I have no opinion on it. I've read Roger's comments about why it is bad. If you've seen it, perhaps you could contribute your ideas about why it is good.

Mr. Ebert,

At times like this I am glad you're my reviewer of choice, because many a person might think the Cannes jury knew what it was doing.

For those who think RE's review of Kinatay is idiosyncratic, permit me to break out the Le Film Francais panel.

Top rating: 1
3 stars: 0
2 stars: 1
1 star: 5
0 stars: 7

I think the more damning thing than the 7 pas du tout is that not a single critic even thought this was a really good film. One loved it, but behind them there was no-one to say, well I didn't love it as much as you did, but it was very good.

Contrast this with Un Prophete: 7,7,1,0,0.
Even Tarentino's Basterds: 4,2,4,4,0

I wonder why so many nasty, brutish and long films seem to have come along right now.

Gilbert, I remember seeing a show on TV about the effects of the Black Plague on Europe. There was the usual - millions dead; a huge push for industrialization (since there were no serfs to work the fields, people turned to increased mechanization); worker mobility (it's kinda difficult to keep your serfs properly abused and starving on your land, when the feudal lord three counties over is promising - and delivering - three meals a day and lower taxes).

But the show also examined the effect on the world of art. And in the art after the first incursion of the Plague into Europe, and on afterwards, we see a growing preoccupation with images of death. Death personified, skulls and skeletons, demons taking souls to hell, angels taking souls to heaven. Etc.

I don't think the recession is a factor - it hasn't had time to penetrate the collective unconscious.

But the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath have had that time. And the image of the worlds strongest country starting wars, committing torture and crimes against humanity, and basically becoming a rogue state would surely impress itself on anyone. And there is no indication that any of these actions have made anyone any safer, and some indications that these actions have made people world-wide less safe. So I can understand why some people would be despairing, concerned about torture and abuse, and so on.

No doubt there are many supporters of the political right who would lambaste me for writing that last paragraph. Please, I already know most of what you would say, and I ask that you remember I am writing about how these events impact on art, popular or otherwise; not on the events themselves.

I so miss your closing festival commentaries with Annette Insdorf.

Was the ceremony televised anywhere in the states?

Ebert: Apparently not. Dozens of celeb publicity and hype oulets but nothing for this.

It seems harsh times breed scary or disturbing movies. David Skaal described the Frankenstein Monster as "The battered hood ornament of the Great Depression". Unfortunately, the bar has been set a lot higher (or lower) when it comes to screen shocks.

Expect more films like Kinatay, as least as far as content is concerned.

Perhaps one or two watchable horror films will result from it. But they won't come from the Hollywood studios.

Chuck

Dear Roger,

I have not seen any of the films and here are some sincere thoughts:

"Yes, there were great directors on the list: Michael Haneke, Jane
Campion, Ken Loach, Ang Lee, Alain Resnais, Pedro Almodovar, Marco Bellocchio. But with the exception of Lee, they all chose to material of a sort they've mastered."
I abolutely agree that the focus of the selection seems way too safe, although given that the films that the "Masters" made were possibly "better" than other films that were submitted that is not by a master, but were they?? I really feel that there's an "Oscar effect" that's starting to happen in Cannes(or has been happening), whereas the distinct impression that they're giving Michael Haneke the Palm D'Or because he's never won one and as a director it's TIME for him to win one, since he's been nominated before but only won the Director award, but of course anyone who agree he deserves one, but is it more Haneke winning than the film itself? Furthermore I suspect that the festival director already has a good idea who will be likely to win the Palm D'Or back when he selected the films. He knows that Enter The Void probably won't win the Palm, hell, even I know Gaspar Noe is most likely not going to win the Palm D'Or. I think you might get my point. I just think it's dissapointing for an outsider like myself to already know and be bored or not care anymore with the outcome of the Cannes film festival awards is all, I don't want to stop caring like I've stopped caring the Oscars. It won't be likely that I will ever stop caring about Cannes or the Oscars for that matter, but I sincerely hope my faith will be strengthened again by films that win to OPEN MY EYES!

Not to be prejudiced, but I believe that the festival seems a bit TOO purposeful in avoiding films from America. I don't mean that in a bias way, but who will agree that there will be an American director winning the Palm D'Or on the strength of only their Second Film any time soon? I don't think so.(I meant Quentin Tarantino btw). Perhaps Cannes seems a bit cliche and not mysterious enough nowadays, perhaps Cannes is getting overtly famous and overhyped these days so much so that the festival is getting too self concious or cliche in their own kind of way.
I suppose there's problem if the Un Certain Regard award winners seems more interesting to me than the Official competition. I sincerely and earnestly hope there is a chance for younger filmmakers to enter the Official Competition, given that their films deserve it and I hope there will be less focus on the "Class System" or "Oscar System" if you know what I mean, it's getting to be boring and WAY TOO AUTOCRATIC, to me at least. Jane Campion said herself that Young people already have a vision, it's just that no one is listening.!!!

To Paul J. Marasa,

...ah, sweet recollections, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The violins, the violins!!!

I, too, was blown away by that beautiful photo from Jane Campion's movie. Move over, Monet...

Hi! I haven't watched Kinatay, but I think I'll agree with one of the main points of jonathan filipino. The goal of Kinatay is to depict the "real" harshness of the reality here in our country, and maybe if Mr. Ebert can't stand it, it just shows the utter ignorance of the first world countries of the unimaginable events that's happening to countries eaten up by corruption and politics like our dear old Philippines.

I do respect your own opinion about Kinatay, and I certainly am one of the most avid followers of your reviews... but I think, with its highly polarized reviews, direk Brilliante Mendoza has artfully succeeded in depicting one thing: truth.

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Of course, I haven't seen any of the movies that were shown at the Cannes Film Festival and therefore I don't even dare to judge over the decision of the jury. But through your comments I have become interested in watching some of these pictures and to find out which impression they will leave on me.

Even though I can't judge upon his or any other performance in any of the festival entries, I still have to say that I am incredibly happy that Christoph Waltz has won the best actor award. This does not have to do anything with patriotism (Waltz is Austrian, even though, here in Germany, we mostly don't notice it when we see movies with him), but I just know what an amazing actor he is. He has only acted in very few movies that were shown in the cinema. "Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Großstädter zur Paarungszeit" ("Love Scenes from Planet Earth"), which is a very flawed romantic comedy and "Der alte Affe Angst" ("Angst"), which I have not seen, are the only ones coming to my mind at the moment.

Waltz is most famous for TV-productions in which he often plays very flawed and torn characters. He played Jan von Leiden, the religiuos madman who ruled over the the city of Münster for 3 years in the 16th century, thereby introducing polygamy and starving almost the entire population to death in the mini-series "König der letzten Tage" (International title "A King For Burning",literally: "King of the latter days). He played him as a Jesus-like figure that you could not help but find charming, even though you hated him more as the movie progressed. When he is finally put to death in a scene so brutal that it must have inspired the execution-scene in "Braveheart" you felt even sorry for him. This was a truly incredible performance.

In my opinion, though, his best performance out of many was his portrayal of one of Germany's most notorious criminals, Dieter Zlof (for legal reasons called Dieter Cilov in the movie), in the mini-series "Der Tanz mit dem Teufel - Die Entführung des Richard Oetker" (literally: "Dance With The Devil - The Kidnapping Of Richard Oetker). His portrayal of this scheming and coldhearted man who accepts the horrific physical and psychological damage he has done to his victim without blinking with his eyes real while at the same time almost asking for compassion because the money he had blackmailed from the family had become worthless after new Deutsche Mark-bills were introduced, sent shivers down my spine.

It is a shame that German made-for-TV productions, which are often better than our movies, don't get sold to the United States very often. Otherwise you would have been able to catch his incredible talent a lot earlier. Maybe from now on he will be seen more often in international productions, even though I hope it will not always have to be the cold-hearted Nazi, now that Jürgen Prochnow seems to be getting to old for these parts.

A wonderful series of blog entries, thank you Roger. The Gaspar Noe film sounds more directorially audacious than Kinatay, but I'll have to watch before I can decide.

In response to the earlier comment asking why "..so much cynicism, violence and self-hatred is coming from "free" nations in Asia - Korea, Phillippines, previously Hong Kong - while communist China continues to export more thoughtful works on the human condition..", I'd suggest this is an inaccurate representation of the national cinemas of those countries. The 'extreme' titles are the ones that most foreign distributors (such as the late Tartan, or Dimension Extreme) focus on for the western DVD market as they can easily sell them. The numerous comedies, romantic dramas and thoughtful arthouse films that get made are less easily exported and receive less attention. My favourite film of last year was a Korean musical drama called SUNNY, set in early 70's Vietnam and following a young female nightclub singer who enters the war zones to bring home her soldier husband. The same director previously made THE KING AND THE CLOWN, a clever period drama about a gay performer in the historical King's Court, RADIO STAR, a great comedy about a drunken slob city radio DJ forced by his bosses to make amends by deejaying for a small country town, and HAPPY LIFE, an excellent comedy about a group of 40-something married-with-kids salarymen who decide to put their High School rock band back together. A beautifully made big-budget Korean western, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, was picked up for US distribution but seems currently in limbo. Meanwhile, two of the bigger hits from recent Korean cinema are DAILY DRINKING, a micro-budget indie comedy about a young guy abandoned by his pals in a small town who gets roped in to the eccentric local drinking customs, and OLD PARTNER, a low-budget documentary about the bond between an old, 80+ farmer and his astonishingly long-lived ox. None of these films trade in 'cynicism, violence or self-hatred' (even the western is good-natured and comedic) and I'd say those comedies I've listed are far more representative of mainstream Korean cinema than some of the darker films that others may have encountered. As for why communist China typically produces thoughtful works on the human condition (which it does, and I love all of Zhang Yimou's output), it's worth remembering that the effect of Chinese State censorship is still felt by local filmmakers and influences a lot of what they do and don't make. A violent Jackie Chan drama, THE SHINJUKU INCIDENT, had its Chinese release affected after the national censors protested some of its content. Truly edgy films like those made by Park Chan Wook (OLD BOY and THIRST) are unlikely to be made in mainland China.

Hey jonathan filipino,
I don't feel like you have the right to attack one man's opinion in such a rude way. Just because your taste doesn't match his, does not mean you have to attack him the way you did. Why would you read Mr. Ebert if you feel that he does not serve your opinion? Is it just to attack a man who is just doing his job? I'm not trying to say that you don't have the right to disagree and share your opinion but to attack anyone just because they don't agree is wrong. I don't always agree with Mr. Ebert but I would never attack him with such harsh, angry language. I do not mean to take a fight over from Mr. Ebert (surely a man who can fight his own fight) but you upset me more than any comment every had. Please refrain from making such rude comments in the future, thank you.

After reading your article and a few comments, it becomes apparent to me that many of these people are looking for reasons, or better yet answers, to what happened at Cannes.

As lovers of film, we often forget that our own sensibilities and perspective greatly affect our reaction to a film. And when you take into account that many critics at Cannes watch a wide variety of films (in terms of subject matter), back-to-back, and often only once, it only makes sense that you'd be getting a more immediate reaction, as opposed to something like the Academy Awards where judging takes place over a long period of time.

What you're getting is a decision that's very immediate and instinctual, but not always completely intellectually-based. To take all the elements of every film into complete consideration isn't an easy task. So I believe that many panel members have to base their decisions on instincts and reactions. How certain films made them 'feel' at the time.

Or more simply (and wisely) put, its elevation. But I'm not sure that's the right word to use here.

You mention "Samson and Delilah" as the first Aborigine film selected by Cannes.

Broadening the definition of 'aboriginal', "Atanarjuat" a film you know and love, won the same prize, the Camera d'Or for best first film, and it, as far as I know, is the first feature length film acted, written, produced and directed by a Native people in the world--in this case, the Inuit of northern Canada. And it's a 3 hour epic at that!

Mr. Ebert. First time poster, long time fan. In your estimation which if any of these films is a legitimate threat to scoop a best director, or best screenplay nomination for the Oscars and/or Golden Globes?

Ebert: No, but the Haneke is a shoo-in for a foreign film nomination.

Hi Roger,

I loved the Cannes coverage. It was top-notch as always. I was hoping you could write a bit more about Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon." I'm a huge Haneke fan, and would love to know your thoughts on the film.

Mr. Ebert,

I am seeing some very mixed reviews on Inglorious Bastards. What is your take on Christopher Waltz's performance. Could he be in the running for some US awards?

Ebert: An Academy nomination is a possibility. It's the film's standout performance.

Isn’t Kinatay an easy target being a work from a nameless director, and coming from a third world too? ... Is it because von Trier is a name director and Brillante an easy target?

That's a truly egregious and offensive claim to make(whereas the rest are just bollocks). The number of "no-name" directors Roger Ebert has championed over the years must be in the hundreds, and quite a few of them from "third-world" countries. Just because you're angry someone doesn't like a film, doesn't mean you should try to tar them with the drige brush.

And, besides, why do we have to cut a no-name director from a third-world country any slack anyway? "I did just go through the most unplesant two hours of my life, but that's OK, because I have no idea who the director is, and after all, he's from a third-world country."

Roger Ebert championed Kevin Smith's "Clerks." Read his review of Smith's follow-up "Mallrats." And then the one for Smith's third film "Chasing Amy." That should give you an idea of separating the art from the artist, and how Mr Ebert excels at that.

Just regarding your Samson & Delilah statement, just to note that there was of course Ten Canoes which was in an indigenous language, apart from the narration and it was co-directed between an Indigenous person & Danish-born Australian

On the Mendoza movie winning, after watching the judges explanation:

My first reaction before watching it was that it was about the sound of the movie. And I think it still may be as simple as that...But also that it qualified on a superficial level as to what an arthouse movie should be, which includes sound, which would be that it is not for entertainment (which would mean it is making a statement), that it would have an unpredictable story (a wedding and then riding in a van for half the movie--of course!), dark lighting, which goes back to what I said: sound...having sound be a very important part of the story. They keep talking about creativity with the movie, but what they mean is sound, I suspect. They want more movies with people doing "creative" things with sound. And I think I might agree with them on that, but they should just come out and say that was the "edge" they felt the movie had because it doesn't do any good for the future if other filmmakers don't know that is what won the award.

I posted a quote from Mendoza earlier that said he wanted to make the movie to show how "absurd all of the violence was", but here's another one:

Mendoza said his message was simple: “It’s a dangerous world out there. We can no longer afford to feel safe and complacent. That’s why I didn’t want to make the audience feel detached while watching my film. I wanted to take them on a journey that will immerse them … as witnesses to a brutal murder.”

1. That contradicts his earlier statement.
2. It doesn't really make sense. He wanted to show how dangerous the world is...by being witnesses to a murder. I think we all know the definition of dangerous, which would include: getting raped and slaughtered.

So, basically, I think he won because of how he used sound, (which goes into film theory) and all the other superficial reasons. When the first judge said it was "powerful", I also think he meant the power of sound. They liked one technical aspect of it, and they should have just came out and said it.

I couldn't understand what the Korean guy said, either.

I've now watched the judges explaining themselves, and as best I can determine, they basically enjoyed the "intellectual process" of picking the various winners, and despite there being at times passionate debate in favor or against choosing this or that selection for this or that prize, they all got along and there's no ill-will.

Ie: we picked what we liked and there's an end to it.

And that being the case; okay dokie, it's their party. But since so many of the films selected for the Festival and later described by Roger were uber-depressing, I've decided to cheer myself up by holding my own International Film Festival! So I went to the library and grabbed the following:

1. "The Bird People in China" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st1MwQD8V8Y

Note: I saw the DVD cover and went "Whoa! That looks cool!" -
http://www.cine-east.com/catalog/images/birdpeople.jpg

2. "Darkon" - http://www.darkonthemovie.com/

I agree. Everyone wants to be a hero - even these dudes; chuckle!

3. "Saving Grace" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEX2mqdi-As

A little English comedy about a totally harmless plant. :)

4. "The Cup" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgErhy2TLUw

The one true love of a young monk - soccer! Woo-hoo!

5. "The Secret of Roan Inish" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDgTq7GN4Yw

It's an Irish movie with kids and Selkie; enough said. :)

Of course, is anyone here wants to head out and watch some rape, castration and murder, don't let me stop you. :)

And I'm going to pretend I can invite a special guest speaker! Who'll say something really cool like this: Joss Whedon's acceptance speech at "Equality Now" as introduced by Meryl Streep...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs

That aside, I always meant to applaud you Roger for your review of "Terminator" - as oh my God, I laughed so hard! Chuckle!

"I know with a certainty approaching dread that all of my questions will be explained to me in long detailed messages from "Terminator" experts. They also will charge me with not seeing the movie before I reviewed it. Believe me, I would have enjoyed traveling forward through time for two hours, starting just before I saw the movie. But in regard to the answers to my questions: You know what? I don't care.

And listen, Skynet buddies, what Bale thought about that cameraman is only the tip of the iceberg compared to what he thinks about you." - Roger

So it's good then, right? I should go see it? :)

Of course, I've got "Marie's International Film Festival" to complete first and before I get stung with overdue library fines.

Mm. "Thirst" isn't just any South Korean film though, it's the latest from Park Chan-Wook, in my opinion a director as good as Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles or Krzysztof Kieslowski. I think I've seen all of his films. He is incredible.

Question, though: assuming I can't make it to any of the festivals because I'm so busy with university I haven't seen a movie in two months, do you think there's a chance most of these films will hit my local theatre/DVD shop? I didn't keep up with Cannes before so I'm in the dark.

Ebert: Oh, sure. I haven't seen "Thirst," and am looking forward to it.

I totally agree with yor , Mr. Ebert , this year Cannes is totally negative to the world .

My God !

Once again , Mr. Ebert, have you watched the korean movie "King and the Clown" ?

All the best

I'M SO HUMBLED AND PROUD THAT A WORLD-CLASS MOVIE ( KINATAY ), FROM A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY ( PHILIPPINES ), WON THE BEST DIRECTOR IN CANNES. THIS IS A WONDERFUL BLESSING TO ALL FILIPINO FILMMAKERS. GREAT JOB!

Don't get me wrong; I've loved your take on the festival. I look forward to eventually remembering that I read about many of these films, and checking them out.
But
"It's about a desert journey by two teenagers"?!
That's all I get?!
God!
Have a safe trip home.

Ebert: Didn't see it. The description was not helpful.

It got raves on release here(you know you're walking on water when you see delight on David Stratton's face!). I saw it, and really liked it. Robin Wright Penn voted for it :) You wait!

Thanks for your Cannes coverage Roger, it's been fun to read all your entries and it seems to be even more fun to actually attend festival. I love movies but I don't usually visit festivals although there is one in Karlovy Vary which is relatively close to where I live so I might try to join just to experience atmosphere.

You mentioned that '...only ecstatic giants, love them or hate them, were Lars von Trier and Quentin Tarantino' and I want to ask you if it was up to you would you vote for 'Inglourious Basterds' instead of 'The White Ribbon' ?

Ebert: No, I don't think so.

I was on the jury at Kalovy Vary. It's a friendly and important festival.

The director's prize reminds me a bit of the Man-Booker a few years ago. It was awarded to the execrable "Vernon God Little" when every other book on the shortlist was manifestly better.

It came out later than none of the judges could agree on a first place. In fact, they each hated all of the books except the one they liked. And except for VGL, which they considered thoroughly mediocre. And so they comprimised: rather than award a book that one person liked and the others all hated, they would award a book which all of them found only mildly objectionable. I suspect Kinatay may be something like this.

I do find it odd that a jury of women would award a film which is, in its descriptions, viciously misogynistic.

I understand the role festivals have in promoting serious cinema.

Awards speak more about festival than cinema. If someone has won a `Cannes` it communicates explicitly special status for the award and validates the prestige of the awarding festival. By default, it conveys special status for the entry, which is purely subjective, and clearly secondary. In other words, it is a (at least partly) political process.

It is a business process. Were one to view a movie without knowledge of its `Cannes` status, their experience would be none the poorer. However, how many extra eyeballs are sold with the poster or dvd-case caption `winner of cannes`?

I could go on about consumerism, technocracy, memes. My brief point is that you have a role as an educator. Clearly you and your ego are aware of this. Fine. :) Yet unfortunately you participate and thus contribute to perpetuating the non-discussion concerning the real meaning of awards, that has nothing to contribute to, and actually distorts, the act of viewing and engaging a film.

Proof, if you need it, is that you can see how quickly the discussion degenerates, and where the focus shifts, when focusing on who `won`.

Roger Ebert's word is not validated by a group of true-blue cinema insiders/experts/professionals. In fact Ebert's main gripe on Kinatay's jarring 'style' was demolished with ruthless irony, ie, Kinatay won the 'Best Director' award for its maker.

Simply dismissing an art work like Kinatay because it has a jarring soundtrack or low-light effects is like dismissing Picasso because her female forms/faces are squared. Or condemning Van Gogh because his starry, starry night skies looks like an exercise in color wheel combinations. Can entertainment journalism get more absurd than this? As the French would say...mal en pis...From bad to worse.

Mr. Ebert, painful it may seem, your middle-of-the-road taste is out-of-kilter when faced with the more potent instruments of art (and not entertainment journalism). The fact that you built your arguments against Kinatay on idée fixe betrays your lack of knowledge on Philippine reality. What is only an idea to you, is, sadly, a reality in the Philippines.

Art reviewers are expected to display judicious knowledge on the context of an art work, and comment on the possible motivations of the artist.

Your review was, to say the least, uninformed and unkind, which elicited, more or less, the same gestures from your blog readers. Except of course those loving comments from your fawning fans.

Another possibility: was the overall poor quality of films a result of the writer's strike in Hollywood?

Reply to: Ebert: In the past I have felt the elation of discovery at Cannes, seeing for the first time films like Kielowski's "Red," Lee's "Do the Right Thing," Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," Spielberg's "E.T."--and premieres by Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman, Chen Keige, Fassbinder, Altman, Herzog, Scorsese. Titans bestrode the earth in those days. This year the only ecstatic giants, love them or hate them, were Lars von Trier and Quentin Tarantino.

Instead, this year had a lot of smaller films done outside the American studio system. Films that didn't have compelling story lines.... OK, the analogy breaks down if you push it too far.

The addition of two ground-breaking American films, such as Spielberg showing a small, intensely personal film like ET on the closing night, would have changed a lot.

CandidCamera: Kinatay is important Art (with a capital A) because Van Gogh and Picasso were also ill-received by their contemporaries? Ridiculous.

I'll reserve judgment until I see it myself. However, I do think it's interesting that from descriptions--even those favorable to the movie--this is a kind of cross between torture porn and an early Warhol art film.

As a collorary, is it possible to dislike a film and still review it positively?

Last night I watched M*A*S*H, a film from 1970 which had some success at Cannes. What struck me this time was that, if you watch carefully what is on the screen, in the expressions and body language, it is a truly brutal movie, beyond the superficial gore and the male-fantasy political incorrectness. Altman's comment that if you're not depressed by it there's something wrong is apt. I thought of Dr. Johnson's " He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." The key shot is when Frank is being helicoptered away, and the heroes turn away, their expressions ambiguous, at best.
Could it win today?

Everyone keeps talking about the "reality" of Mendoza'a movie, but it is through interpretation of reality that we can see reality, not merely pointing a camera at it.

He won because of his use of sound, to reiterate my earlier post.

Personally, I'm more excited about the jury picks from the "Un Certain Regard" category, partly because Piers Handling, the Toronto fest's Co-President, was on that jury, and he has excellent taste.

I'm particularly excited for Bahman Ghobadi's new film that they awarded a special prize to, and excited to discover their other choices once the play in Toronto, most of which except for Ghobadi are directors I am unfamiliar with.

I find in recent years that the out-of-competition films are just as good if not more interesting than the ones in competition, many of which are chosen because of expectation over actual quality.

Candidcamera,

"Simply dismissing an art work like Kinatay because it has a jarring soundtrack or low-light effects is like dismissing Picasso because her female forms/faces are squared..."

It is through interpretation of reality that we see reality, not merely the imitation of it or just pure shooting a camera at it.

With the invention of the camera that liberated artists to not paint merely to show objective reality or imitate or document reality, which was painting's sole purpose. Artists could just splash paint onto the canvas, invent impressionism or in the case you mentioned with Picasso, invent cubism. They did it because they didn't feel painting should be merely to document reality, which is what seems Mendoza was trying to do with his film. What Mendoza did was exactly what someone like Picasso was trying to liberate himself away from. I think Mendoza won because of sound, which may be important enough to win. At least I'm saying it, unlike the judges cryptic explanations.

Ebert: I never realized Picasso was female.

I like Isabelle Huppert in "The Piano Teacher", although I saw the Blockbuster Video version, which I think was missing an important scene and I think I could sense it the way one can sense it with classical music when they don't listen all the way to the end or with Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. The final piece to the puzzle seemed like it was missing.

I don't see any defenses of Kinatay here.

I see a lot of attacks on Mister Ebert for dismissing the movie as garbage, but I don't see any defenses of the movie itself.

To the people harshing on Roger about Kinatay: What did you like about the film?

It isn't credible that the people responsible for the state of the arc of violence, with or without sexual overtones, and senseless cruelty, in movies haven't seen or heard of Broken Blossoms, Full Metal Jacket, Les Carabinieres, The Long Goodbye,The Pawnbroker, Schindler's List, Skammen, The Virgin Spring, Cries and Whispers, Au Hazard Balthasar, Open City, Ararat, Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, Frenzy, to name just a few. The abovementioned are art. In a decade or so we'll know for sure whether anything now being produced is art, or commerce, or fodder for the compost pile. ( Am I being unfair to the compost pile, which after all is natural and part of the cycle of life? Even the septic tank keeps building better bacteria) Back around 1603-1606, King Lear and Gloucester and Edgar said just about everything there is to say( Howl, howl, howl!) As it happens( as it was supposed to happen) It isn't so hard to see why people who don't or won't or can't know any better continue to produce, consume(!), excrete and exculpate this sort of thing, and of all countries in the West I'd expect France to be the one that honors it.

It seems the critic has become the critiqued! Checkmate, Mister Ebert, checkmate! This little Kinatay upset is all the momentum I needed to bring you down from your throne of plebeian lies!

You, who dared to give the most recent Ron Howard film a positive review! You, who will do nothing but rave when encountered with the coherent, enjoyable trash that is middlebrow entertainment! You have finally tasted the bitter tears of crushing defeat, and I will relish your agony like the sweetest of wines!

But the worst is yet to come, Mister Ebert! You just wait until Kinatay Fever hits the US! You'll get yours Mister Ebert! YOU'LL GET YOURS! WAHAHAHAHAHA!

To the above: we all tune in for 'Mr. Ebert's' reviews because we are interested in his opinions. Some of those opinions naturally refer to a movie's soundtrack and lighting decisions. If these things are handled poorly, they can certainly have an impact on the quality of the movie.
Also, 'Mr. Ebert' had other things to say about Kinatay. Go back and read it again.
To Mr. Ebert: Can I call you Roger?

Ebert: It's what I prefer.

May I make a quick and simple statement regarding the post made by "Candid Camera".

I would be more than happy to be included in a list of Roger's "fawning fans". These blog pages,and the various excellent contributors,coupled with years of reading Roger's movie reviews, have been a great satisfaction to myself.Roger's wonderful writing to this forum,with his sharing of life, is a daily inspiration to myself. Roger, keep on, keeping on, you are a treasure!

Cheers
Gary

Roger, have you ever been a jury member at Cannes? What would it take for you to become one? Of all critics, you should be one best suited on the jury panel, in my humble opinion.

Ugh, has no one ever heard of fake-posting in this corner of the web? All this nonsensical babble and provocation is designed to get an unpleasant reaction from the audience...Much like Kinatay, evidently. Don't feed the trolls and they'll eventually get bored and leave. I wish it were so simple with bad art.

Always a good read, Mr. Ebert! Best wishes.

von Trier's extreme but courageous "Antichrist"

Mr. E, you are so wrong. From merely a mimetic point of view, you are wrong, "courageous".

Your first visceral reaction tried to tell you the truth. You chose to spiral away using the conglomeration of pop culture, zeitgeist wherewithal you have accumulated over the years. It worked, to a degree.

As you near your end, you may want to reconsider what side you are presently on.

Roger, considering how you felt that some of the 21 films shown were not good at all in your view...if given the opportunity, are there any films in the "out of competition" category you would have swapped for one of the ones "In competition"?

Among others, I wonder how Up might have been received and judged on by the Jury, versus other films...

Ebert: "Up" would certainly have won a prize.

I agree with jonathan filipino,, mr ebert is a lousy film critic, he is very pro-hollywood, inconsistent and RACIST..

Ebert: I never realized Picasso was female.

Probably has female forms in the mind.

To elucidate about interpretations of reality instead of just imitating it (as it seemed Mendoza did):

The way you do that is by being theatrical--going back to the roots of theater: making broad gestures with your body, projecting your voice..not imitating reality. Another way is improvising most of the movie as an actor, such as "Girlfriend Experience". And you can add onto this by doing something that doesn't seem humanly possible like the violence in "Anti-Christ" or Nicolas Cage's impossible amount of alcohol intake in "Leaving Las Vegas"; those things just become part of the metaphor, if you like. It could be like Tarantino's dialogue (although, his character kind of sound like imitations of reality). It could be the faces they make, like in a Fellini movie. I have always kind of not really liked movies that are Bio Pics at the times the director will give you odd angles and kind of hide the actors faces to make it really look/seem like the real person is there talking and I think it's redundant...but not too big of a deal. I'm thinking to myself in those moments "I'm suspendin' here...I'm suspendin here!", [referring to suspension of disbelief]. I know I've left out a lot of other good examples, but there are ways to suspend disbelief by not just imitating reality, and from what it sounds like, with Mendoza showing moments of brutality and then just driving around in a van for 45 minutes, it didn't seem like he was interested in the interpretation of reality, but the imitation of it. But it did seem like he did some things with sound, which is why I think he won, and it may be an interesting bit to watch that part of the movie on a, if only, technical level.

"Is it possible to dislike a film and still review it positively?"

Yes, but I don't think you can do so with any degree of sincerity. Hating a movie and then giving it a glowing review for being important or daring is essentially lying.

Roger's review of Freddy got Fingered is a good example. He congratulates the movie on its surrealism, but not before saying "This movie doesn't just scrape the bottom of the barrel... this movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

Well everyone entitles with his own opinion, and Mr. Ebert also deserves that. Give justice and defend the film if you already watch the film, and i am more willingly want to watch Kinatay as it is the most controversial win than the other nominees for best director by Mendoza. If only it will shown here in the philippines to know how will be one of the great movie, not by closing some other opinion..

'Kinatay' sounds like one of the worst, most brutal, movies since 'I Spit on Your Grave.' I know there are fans of every genre, but come on, that movie doesnt sound the least bit appealing. And it was awarded? Wow....

Ok, just for the sake of fairness and to perhaps learn if there is anything in my position that is wrong concerning the philistine nature of awards, I stooped to viewing the first minute or so of the the first video above.

Question (paraphrased): Is there any criteria upon which a movie is judged by?

Answer (paraphrased): No. It all comes down to what I (we) like, and dont like; personal biases, nothing more. I will use the word `organic` to suggest that this process is as natural as the rotation of the heavens; that there could be no cinema appreciation without us, the `experts`, who will decide what is of merit and what is not. For we, the `experts`, appear in large numbers, and are a considerable force upon the public`s perception and hence industry revenues and even careers. Therefore, we cannot be ignored. And it is a feather in our careerist cap to actually be selected as one of the `experts` who finally, for all official history, have our opinion stand out above all others. For this is what drives us everyday to do what we do, and, for your information, do so well.

By Codemus on May 26, 2009 4:15 PM: To Mr. Ebert: Can I call you Roger?

I dunno, Roger; one of your commenters called you "The Great White Middlebrow." Sounds kinda cool--except you'd be in for an ass-whuppin' from either Ahab or James Earle Jones. (Sorry: yet another one-upsnerdship movie reference.)

By the way, is it time to leave behind Cannes and move on to your usual, safer Journal topics, like the Meaning of It All, the Theory of Everything, and why burgers taste good?

Ebert: All three are just forms of the same topic.

The ridiculous trolling and inflammatory postings from defenders of Kinatay have created a sad low in what is typically a very good group of comments to Roger's blog.

It should be noted that of all the people posting to defend Kinatay, NONE have actually seen the film.

My take: Roger and the french film critics that actually saw the film and review films for a living gave an honest reaction, and the defenders here are giving a jingoistic one.

The sort of ad hominem attacks, accusations of racism, etc, favoured by Kinatayniacs here sadly characterize too many internet exchanges. Surely argumentum ad hitlerum is only a few days away at this rate.

I look forward to the day when the Kinatayniacs leave this blog and do not return. Or alternatively, I look forward to the day when they actually see Kinatay, and can then defend the film with something resembling substance and/or honesty.

As I hasten to catch up with the column----"but he was hurling lightning bolts"---after Hollywood, Urbana, Cannes-----

"About, about in reel and rout,
The death fires danced at night.
The water like a witches oil
Burnt green and blue and white." STC

I, myself, have not watched the movie "Kinatay" but I would like to comment on this. I'm a 17 year old FILIPINO girl and I don't know much about critiquing movies but even with my little experience of critiquing, I do see from reading your criticism, Mr. Ebert, that you were not at all being racist. You simply gave your own opinions of the MOVIE, that itself can be clearly seen in your article. On behalf of the Filipinos who did not include themselves in this barrage of baseless and rash attacks on your manner of critique and those who did, I apologize. I hope that you do not come to dislike our people because of the few who unfairly judged you in these comments. I, for one, truly respect the man who popularized the "two thumbs up" and do not put the opinion of a bunch of insecure individuals above yours.

Ebert: How could I dislike your people when I know so many wonderful Filipinos? You should read what some Americans write about my reviews! Thank you for your kind words.

"The ridiculous trolling and inflammatory postings from defenders of Kinatay have created a sad low in what is typically a very good group of comments to Roger's blog.

@ Charles: Roger simply landed himself in the middle of a Filipino cultural malaise that equates honest criticism with personal insult. What makes it worse is that Roger isn't Filipino, which makes his criticism equivalent to an insult to the Filipino people (hence, the absurd claims of racism). I find a certain socio-anthropological fascination with what's been going on in his blog.

i found CandidCamera's point interesting. i think you should all consider what she/he said about ebert's negative review on kinatay:

"The fact that you built your arguments against Kinatay on idée fixe betrays your lack of knowledge on Philippine reality. What is only an idea to you, is, sadly, a reality in the Philippines.

Art reviewers are expected to display judicious knowledge on the context of an art work, and comment on the possible motivations of the artist.

Your review was, to say the least, uninformed and unkind, which elicited, more or less, the same gestures from your blog readers. Except of course those loving comments from your fawning fans."

spot-on!

Ebert: My review was informed by my actually having seen the movie.

.....and why burgers taste good?

Ebert: All three are just forms of the same topic.

Yes. The drop partakes of all the properties of the sea. Eating a sandwitch, or not eating it are equally acts of prayer. Everything is sacred because our lives are sacred. Every moment is sacred because eternity is a composite of moments. Hence "eternity in the palm of your hand and heaven in a wild flower"...To quote Ikeda Daisaku:

"The collective unconscious, which forms the deepest stratum of each human life, also forms a foundation common to all mankind. It is said that the entire spiritual heritage of man, gathered over two million years, flows within this deepest stratum. One of Jung's followers, C. S. Hall, analyzed man's fear of snakes and darkness, and concluded that such fears could not be fully explained by the experiences of a single lifetime. Personal experiences only seem to strengthen and reaffirm the inborn fear. We have inherited a fear of snakes and darkness from ancestors back in the unknown past. This is, then, a hereditary fear, according to Hall, which proves that ancestral experience is an engrained memory living in the deepest stratum of human life.

The unconscious contains not only all the experiences of our human ancestors; it also contains the experiences of our pre-human predecessors as well. The footprints of each change in the course of our development are etched into the deepest stratum of each human life, reflecting in some way the vicissitudes of the universe. I suspect that Jung conceived of some four billion human beings on the earth living as one being, and the great universe as a huge living existence. Each human being perhaps seemed like a cell which absorbs vital energy from the original force --- universal life itself. This, I think, is the reality that Jung tried to articulate by his concept of the collective unconscious" Ikeda

...but practically?

Lars von Trier is the MAN. I wonder, Mr. Ebert, if you've since reassessed some of the harsher opinions you've had on his films.

Off topic, but regarding your latest answerman column:

"Shoot your rosebuds while ye may."

Hey, "Super Rosebud Shooter" is a damn good game! You haven't seen Citizen Kane until you've seen it like this!

Some of the Filipino commenters are criticizing this review of Kinatay in a way that I don't understand. If the movie is depicting the way things are in the Philippines then that's worth knowing, but it doesn't automatically make it a good movie. And if the director has made aesthetic decisions based on that then they aren't automatically good decisions.
Anyway everyone is themself and a white male American film critic will always be that, however educated and aware and sympathetic, and even if shedding that were possible it would be pointless because it will always be read in that sense. A Filipino may have a privileged perspective but it's not the only valid perspective and if the movie is playing at an international festival it has to work for people who aren't enmeshed in Filipino politics.

Did you get a chance to watch Terry Gilliam's THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS?

Ebert: Unfortunately.

This is grotesquely off-topic, but I just read your review of 'Easy Virtue'. Are you aware of the silent 1920s film of that very play directed by the young Alfred Hitchcock?
And I'd like to point out to anybody that reads this that there is a DVD collection called 'Alfred Hitchcock-The Legend Begins' available in the $5 bin(!) at any Wal-Mart. The collection has every film Hitchcock directed prior to Rebecca, including The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps, plus a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In our tough economy, this little treasure may save the lives of a few starving film-buffs.

S M Rana,

Im cool with snakes, but have always hated spiders. God! I hate spiders, though none have caused me any harm.

Wasnt it Freud who suggested such origins as possibly occurring within the womb? That seems fascinating. Is one conscious in the womb? What defines being conscious? Surely there would be an awareness of self, of sensation. Reactions to external and even internal stimuli (music, voices, mood) have been shown to draw responses. Babies born to unwanting mothers have been affected before they draw breath. I also wonder if associations must be literal to have meaning. Could not a snake or spider or darkness represent a sensation or sense captured in that primitive, yet amazingly sharp, experience, not stored as immediate memory, but the impression of which remains, however murky, and attaches to a form or shape? Of course, this begs the question why such a particular form or shape. But then, does not the question of association pale in comparison to the question of what is experienced in the womb?

I've never been to Cannes, but I would imagine there are probably better ways to spend ones time than by reading, and responding to, blog comments from your readers.

That said, as one of those readers back in the New World, thank you very much!

Ebert: Not being able to speak, I missed the bull sessions at the end of the day, and the comments were welcome. Conversation.

Ebert: In (Departures), Kore-eda's "After Life" and of course Kurosawa's great "Ikiru," the Japanese reveal a deep and unsensational acceptance of death. It is not a time for weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It is an observation that a life has been left for the contemplation of the survivors.

Interesting observation. Having witnessed close Japanese friends experience such loss I would say that Japanese are of course affected as anyone else by death. However, I think I understand what you mean. There is an approach that I do not find expressed so eloquently elsewhere. So many examples. Kurosawa`s Madadayo, Ozu`s Tokyo Story, Teshigahara`s Pitfall, Nakahira`s Crazed Fruit, Kore-eda`s Maborosi, Mizoguchi`s Ugetsu, Itami`s The Funeral as a few examples. Perhaps only such a direct and unsentimental perspective could have succeeded with Grave of the Fireflies, a most monumental film.

In contrast to the Oscar awards: can we assume that all Cannes jurors have actually seen each film they pass judgment on?

Ebert: Absolutely.

Did you get a chance to watch Terry Gilliam's THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS?
Ebert: Unfortunately.

Ebert hates Americans!

By Scott on May 28, 2009 12:38 PM

I'm not too fond of insects myself, and its mosquito season here in India. Flies and mosquitos are hard to love. The spider, come to think of it is a noble insect, almost in a class with the lion and eagle, in terms of its confident stride and the way it swoops on its prey. I've heard that the baby in the womb is quite effected by the happiness or otherwise prevailing around and this partially must be why pregnancy is treated with a sort of reverence.

Daisaku Ikeda,in the quote which I shared above, is trying to explain the vast dimensions of our own mind, our human potential, as envisioned in Nichiren buddhism. Whereas science has some idea of the incredible workings of a living creature, the mind is unchartered territory and we are far from "know thyself". In terms of space one life pervades the universe and in terms of time its eternal. Eternity being a worn word the following quote from the 13th century enlightened sage Nichiren Daishonin, whose philosophy Daisaku Ikeda bases himself on, gives a better idea (if you care to make the mental effort) of our own lifespans as envisioned in mahayana( kalpa translates as aeon, which is a couple of million years):

"Suppose someone grinds a major world system into dust. He then takes this dust with him and goes one thousand major world systems toward the east, where he drops one particle. He proceeds another thousand major world systems eastward and drops the second particle. He continues on in this manner, dropping another particle and then another until he has exhausted all the dust particles of the entire major world system. Then he gathers up all the major world systems along the route he has taken, whether they have received a particle or not, and reduces them all to dust. He places these dust particles in a row, allowing one entire kalpa to pass for the placement of each. When the first kalpa has passed, he places the second particle, and then the third, until as many kalpas have passed as there are particles of dust. The total length of time represented by the passage of all these kalpas is referred to as a period of major world system dust particle kalpas."

Scott "....that Japanese are of course affected as anyone else by death."

I would think so. I just thought of the terrified villagers in the beginning of Seven Samurai. Death is the most fundamental and universal thing and equanimity about it ,specially ones own, could not come about except through cultivation. Who said that living is a preparation for dying? In Maslow's need hierarchy, survival is bottom-most.To quote Measure for Measure:

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

and Hamlet:

"....................... whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

and Nichiren Daishonin:

The most dreadful things in the world are the pain of fire, the flashing of swords, and the shadow of death. Even horses and cattle fear being killed; no wonder human beings are afraid of death. Even a leper clings to life; how much more so a healthy person.

Japanese, American, Indian, Bushman----we have much more in common than the distinctions.

Having witnessed the exultation(short lived) in India over the selection of Slumdog which wasnt even Bollywood after all it is not difficult to understood Phillipine pride about making it to the summit of filmdom (no Indian film made it this high not even Satyajit Ray's) and so,even if a fluke, its a national event, and as the saying goes ,winner takes all, so Ebert's critique might be misunderstood by those whose viewpoint was nationalistic rather than cinematic----(I seem to be belabouring the self evident.) It might be like Americas moonlanding, China's first nuclear blast or India getting Asia's first Nobel.

Did you watch Gaspar Noe's "Enter The Void". If so, what is your rating?

Ebert: Covered in entry Cannes #8.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/05/the_days_dwindle_down_to_a_pre.html

You have not mentioned a single Korean film that was on the Cannes lineup. How come? Were they not worth mentioning?

Ebert: I greatly admired the title performance in "Mother," about a woman convinced her weak-minded son is innocent of murder and determined to prove it. I missed "Thirst" because of a conflict. Barbara Scharres went into some detail about both in her blog.

I notice that most comments concern some degree of patriotism, Austrian, Philippino, French and other. Naturally, there is a good deal of independent and cinema loving posts as well. But it strikes me why so few of you comment on von Trier´s Antichrist.

First, the movie was the outcry of the Festival, causing scandal, outrage, admiration and praise. As Mr Ebert said

And second: it was a very central theme in Mr. Ebert’s article. Like it or not – why do bloggers ignore this film? He wrote:” This year the only ecstatic giants, love them or hate them, were Lars von Trier and Quentin Tarantino.”

Well? Do we want to silence it to death, and thereby silence our demons? Or do we dare to face them?A

Did you catch the midnight screening of Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell at cannes? And why no review for it's American release? It must have been screened for critics, no? (it's currently at 94% on the Tomatometer

I am also curious about your thoughts on Drag Me To Hell? Do you plan on reviewing it? Based on how the trailer looks (horror movie,) I was planning on avoiding it. I'm just afraid of "Saw" or "The Strangers"-type movies, which is how the trailer looks. But I've been hearing it's more old-Raimi, "Evil Dead Two: Dead By Dawn"-ish. Even funny? That's something I can get down with. But I'll need to know what you think first...the trailer looks awful, but Alison Lohman is pretty legit, she wouldn't make some bad demon movie right?

Ebert: Couldn't get a screening before I left for Cannes, couldn't make the screening at Cannes, returned after it opened here. I hear I ought to catch up with it.

If somebody has already asked you this, I apologize, but I was baffled that you didn't list Francis Ford Coppola alongside Tarantino and Lars von Trier as one of the giants at this year's festival.

"Tetro", after all, is Coppola's first originally-scripted film since "The Conversation".

Ebert: I was referring to the Official Competition. I've since seen "Tatro," and admired it.

Must you see a film to condemn it?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1200742/CHRISTOPHER-HART-What-DOES-film-banned-days.html

Ebert: He should have seen the film. But I do believe in this country the MPAA considers NC-17 to now refer only to traditional pornography.