I think I may have just seen the 2010 Oscar winner for best foreign film. Whether it will win the Palme d'Or here at Cannes is another matter. It may be too much of a movie movie. It's named "A l'origine," by Xavier Giannoli, and is one of several titles I want to discuss in a little festival catch-up. Based on an incredible true story, it involves an insignificant thief, just released from prison, who becomes involved in an impromptu con game that results in the actual construction of a stretch of highway. At the beginning he has no plans to build a highway. He simply sees a way to swindle a contractor out of 15,000 euros. He is sad, defeated, unwanted, apart from his wife and child, sleeping on a pal's sofa. What happens is not caused by him nor desired by him. It simply happens to him.
This is one of those movies that catches you in its spell. It's a hell of a story. There's a difference between caring what happens in a movie, and merely waiting to see what will happen. The hero, who calls himself Phillip, ends by bringing about an enterprise involving millions of euros, hundreds of workers and tons of massive earth-moving machinery, falling in love with the lady mayor, and becoming a good man, all without ever saying very much. I was reminded of Chance the Gardener In "Being There." Phillip is shy, socially unskilled, inarticulate, apparently the opposite of a con man. To repeat: There is a true story involved here. Some facts are offered at the end. The highway, which which the workers essentially built on their own, with the con man as "management," was completed on time, under budget and up to code.
François Cluzet: A man with a nice face (Click all art to enlarge)
The character is played by the veteran French star François Cluzet, who played the lead in last year's "Tell No One," the top-grossing foreign film in the North American market. That was the superb thriller about the dead wife who wasn't dead. A handsome, undernourished-looking man in his 50s, with a pleasantly lined face, looking something like Dustin Hoffman, Cluzet co-stars with Emmanuelle Devos, who you will recognize from a dozen French films. Gerald Depardieu has an important, if over-billed, supporting role. Cluzet's performance is the key. He never says much, allows people to assume things he has not claimed, allows them in a sense to con themselves. He's more fascinating than the impostor in Spielberg's "Catch Me If you Can."
It has been a very good year for French films at Cannes. One of the most-loved has been Les Herbes Folles, ("The Wild Grass") by Alain Resnais, whose "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961) was one of the founding films of the New Wave. Now 86, looking fit and youthful on the red carpet, he has made one of those films perhaps only conceivable in old age. It is about an unlikely and fateful chain of events that to a young person might seem like coincidence, but to an old one illustrates the likelihood that most of what happens in our lives comes about by sheer accident. To realize this is to become more philosophical; the best-laid plans of mice and men are irrelevant to the cosmos.
To explain how this could all possibly happens would be not wild (folles) but a folly (une folie). Here is how it begins: The heroine Josepha (Sabine Azéma) decides one day to buy a pair of shoes. That leads to her purse being snatched. That leads to Georges (Andre Dussollier) finding her wallet. That leads to everything else. Resnais uses an omniscient narrator, as he must, because only from an all-knowing point of view can the labyrinth of connections be seen. He films in a colorful, leisurely style; not taking even the most serious things too very seriously, because, after all, they need never have happened.
Alain Resnais and his star, Sabine Azéma
Le pere des mes enfants ("The Father of My Children") belongs to the genre of the country house movie, French division. British country house movies are a mix of Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and Evelyn Waugh, with Wodehouse as the mixologist. French country house movies tend to tell bourgeois family stories, including children of all ages, and they tilt toward the pastoral. This film, the third by Mia Hansen-Løve, only 28 and is a rising star of French cinema, stars Louis-Do de Lencquesaing as a movie producer who is willing to take chances on serious auteurs and is currently deep in debt, not least because of his backing of a temperamental perfectionist not a million miles separated from Lars von Trier. The story is said to be inspired by the real-life producer Humbert Balsan, who made von Trier's "Manderlay" (2005)
The producer is a nice man. Too nice. Too loving, too loyal, too driven. We begin by following him through desperate attempts to keep his company afloat, and then watch as his wife (Chiara Caselli) and children try to deal with the impossibilities he has created. Some of this happens in Paris, much of it happens in his country house, and the focus is not on film production but on family. I was reminded of two other recent French films: the current "Summer Hours," about an old lady leaving a legacy for her family to deal with, and last year's "A Christmas Tale," with Catherine Deneuve as a mother less worried about her death than her children are.
Los Abrazos Rotos ("Broken Embraces") is the much-awaited new Pedro Almodóvar collaboration with his recent muse, Penelope Cruz. It's about an old man remembering a woman he loved. Lluis Homar ("Bad Education") plays a director who went blind in an auto accident that killed his love (Cruz), who was his secretary, and who he met as a call girl. Now he works as a successful screenwriter, using touch-typing. One day he's approached by an ambitious young filmmaker named Ray X (Ruben Ochandiano), who he suspects is the son of the evil millionaire he holds responsible for the woman's death.
Man on the verge of a nervous breakdown
As always with Almodóvar, it isn't nearly as simple as that. Using interlocking flashbacks, the film reconstructs what actually happened in a combination of overwrought Sirkian melodrama and Hitchcock. The music, indeed, pays homage to Bernard Hermann's work, particularly his score for Hitchcock's "Vertigo," and the film's romantic entanglements pay homage to Almodóvar's own pansexual stories. Cruz is a life force, but Homar's work is the film's engine.
It must be a year for movies about old men remembering lost parents and lovers. One of the more unexpected successes here is "The Time That Remains," a deadpan Palestinian comedy written by, directed, and starring Elia Suleiman. Read that again: a deadpan Palestinian comedy. And not especially political, although almost all stories set in Israel must be political to one degree or another.
The film, dedicated to the memory of Suleiman's parents, shows his father as a firebrand gun-maker, gradually aging into an old guy who sits outside a cafe with his pals, smokes, smokes, smokes, and drinks coffee as if he has kidneys of steel. This family lives in a small but pleasant flat with a nice view of Nazareth; they're part of a friendly community. The film consists of fairly self-contained vignettes of human nature, reminding me curiously of the Czech New Wave comedies. The character played by Suleiman, satire linked with autobiography, a solemn, silent figure with dark shadows under his eyes, is poker-faced and never speaks. He simply stands and regards all that happens for 60 years. I don't know what that makes it sound like to you. I was surprised by how it grew on me. The karaoke scene is unreasonably funny.
Elia Suleiman: Not much to say
"Irène," by Alain Cavalier, 77, a frequent Cannes winner and nominee, is a personal, subjective, experimental meditation on the 1972 death of the actress and beauty pageant winner Irene Tunc. Unlike Cavalier's conventional narrative films ("Thesese"), this one actually shows very few speaking actors. It is almost all done with his own first-person narration, and a hand-held camera that examines diaries and other relics of a life ended but not forgotten. More than half Cavalier's own lifetime has passed since Irene died, and his old man's attempts at amends are very touching. The film received an unfairly dismissive review from Variety.
One of the final Official selections, Gasper Noe's "Enter the Void," is a nearly unendurable in-depth investigation of a very shallow idea. The camera positions itself close behind the head of a callow youth, jug-eared and crew-cut, as he films with his video camera and then becomes the camera as the remainder of the film is seen from his POV. The hero, an orphaned American, lives with his sister in Tokyo, where she is a nude dancer and possibly a booker, and he is a druggie and possibly a dealer. If they don't practice incest, you could have fooled me.
After he dies in a shooting at a nightclub named the Void, we live through subjective scenes intended as what he sees after death. They involve flashbacks, replays of what has already happened, and hovering above what's happening now. In Noe's view, the soul does survive the body, which for much of this time has been cremated. These scenes are spaced out with sound and light abstractions resembling 1960s underground films past their shelf life. If Noe's camera plunges into a vortex once, it does so a hundred times: Into white holes, black holes, psychedelic kaleidoscopic holes, over and over and over again, representing the delightful diversity of the Void. The visuals might have been juicier if he had known abut fractals. The film includes obligatory genitals of both genders, and one of the voids the POV plunges into is the mess in a stainless steel pan after an abortion.
Ken Loach and Eric Cantona
Looking for Eric, by the great British director Ken Loach, is a disappointment, his least interesting work. It involves a hapless man named Eric, from Manchester, whose life takes a turn for the better after the spirit of Eric Cantona, the great star footballer for Manchester United, materializes in his bedroom. Cantona plays himself, produced the film, and may have been involved in the financing, which could explain how it came to be made. What I can't explain is why Loach choose to make it. Maybe after so many great films he simply wanted to relax with a genre comedy. It has charm and Loach's fine eye, and the expected generic payoff.
But I had a problem I'm almost ashamed to admit. Loach has always made it a point to use actors employing working-class accents, reflecting the fact that accent is a class marker. I've always been able to understand them--it's the music as much as the words, and then I start to hear the words. This time, his star Steve Evets uses an accent so thick many of the English themselves might not be able to understand it. Ironically, the Frenchman Eric Cantana is easier to understand.
¶
The streets of Cannes, a madhouse a week ago, have grown strangely quieter. The press screenings have empty seats. The daily festival newspapers have called it a wrap. Old friends who have been racing against time all week are now finally making plans to meet at dinner. There are a few films still to play, and some to be repeated. Then the jury will appear on stage in the Auditorium Lumière and reveal its awards, and there will be cheers and boos and a big party under an enormous tent for about 1,000 of the survivors. Sometimes I feel I have spent my whole life at Cannes, and the rest is just trips out of town.
¶
Now for something completely different. I was attending the first Cannes screening for "Le Père de mes Enfants." Before the film began, Thierry Fremaux, director of the festival, appeared onstage and introduced Mia Hansen-Løve and her entire cast, and they walked down a side aside and ascended to the stage. Then they did something unexpected and rather beautiful. They didn't line up in a row and face the audience. That's what a movie cast always does. I've seen it dozens, maybe hundreds of times. You have, too. With perhaps an older actress holding hands with a little one. They file on, they file off.
What these actors did was make a statement with body language. They stood around. They behaved as if they were really there. They took possession. As if they were at a cocktail reception. None of them faced the audience while standing at attention. They relaxed. Some stood a little forward, others a little behind. Some looked offstage, or at a friend in the audience, or at each other. They spoke a little among themselves. They didn't ignore the audience, nor were they very aware of it. They were relaxed and at all times graceful. Annie Liebowitz couldn't have arranged them any better for a Vanity Fair cover. Whether this was planned I have no idea. I doubt it. It felt natural and instinctive. That's all. I just thought I'd mention it.
¶
Hanging out in the lobby of the Hotel Splendid with Chaz and the celebrated cineaste Pierre Rissient. Supporting role by our assistant, Carol Iwata.
¶
How much longer until the movie starts? Virtual waiting during six minutes before a morning press screening. The money shot is at the end: Every Lumiere screening begins with the stairway climbing from the sea to the stars.
¶
Pierre holding court at his home away from home
One is forced to admire your inexhaustible enthusiasm and immersion in your chosen field of work!!
Ah, September Song. I love Tony Bennett's version best. This song always gives me the goosebumps. This and Till.
Cruz is to Almodovar what Dicaprio is to Scorsese. I just hope the academy will realize the talent and range of Leo as they have with Penelope.
I enjoy these Cannes blog posts and have recommended them to some friends here in Melbourne. The note on Almodóvar's latest reminds me I need to catch up on his recent films - the last of his I saw was KIKA, and that was well over a decade ago.
If ENTER THE VOID is as nasty, or nastier, than IRREVERSIBLE, this may officially be the 'Cannes: Blood and Guts' year.
I liked your GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE review (not a Cannes film, unless I've got things mixed up) and noted how you skipped mentioning that it was shot on digital video (i.e the Red camera). This isn't a fault of your review, more, to me, perhaps a quiet indication that relatively inexpensive HD digital video is now perhaps ready for prime time as a replacement for 35mm. With this equipment, Soderbergh could shoot a new feature film a week if he wanted to.
Reading about Cannes makes me want to spend some extended time in France, Cannes-season or not. I suspect the experience would stay with one and, if you were relaxed and open to the culture and environment, broaden one's mind permanently. At least, that's what I hope.
Your pieces are always a pleasure, but this one's a keeper: my Netflix Queue for next year (west central Illinois will not soon see the likes of these).
And thanks for the shot of the Cinématographe Lumière. How comforting it must be to see the Brothers every year, looking off into a future even they didn't anticipate; I wish the word "cinématographe" had stuck instead of "movies."
A bientot!
You often quote Gene Siskel on the subject of judging a film by whether a documentary of the same actors having lunch would be more interesting. Ever tried to imagine the documentary of the Cannes jury discussing their decisions? A hidden camera documentary, of course; unobtrusive and accurate.
So, were they (the cast of Le Père de mes Enfants) standing around like the cast of SNL at the end of the show? I always found kind of silly, especially when they do goofy things like jumping up and down.
It sounds like it's been an incredible festival. I wonder if Quentin Tarantino had a chance to talk to Alan Resnais? I remember watching a documentary on BBC some years ago where, like pretty much everyone else who has seen "Last Year at Marienbad," he waxed poetic about the film for a long time.
And "Le pere des mes enfants" sounds particularly intriguing.
Have you had a chance yet to see "The Red Shoes?" I'd love to read your thoughts on the restoration. So sad that Jack Cardiff was unable to live to see his masterpiece restored (I say his because I would say it is as much his film as Powell and Pressburgers...I can't imagine it without his contribution!)
Best,
BR
Writing about film comes to you so naturally like leaves to a tree!
"A L'Origine",hmmm, sounds kind of like turning air into gold... And I adore Almodovar, I didn't realize this was premiering at Cannes. I'll have to put all of these titles on some sort of list to watch out for. I remember last year how you were telling all of us about "Slumdog Millionaire".
The festival entry that you've made an inescapable 'must' for me is 'The Antichrist'. While Dogville was ok and Manderlay was the same thing(therefore unwatchable for me), I've long been a fan of von Trier. By the way, when will Breaking the Waves assume it's rightful place in the Great Movies archive?
I'll be looking for Broken Embraces, too, but living in Indianapolis I'll have to wait for the DVD at Barnes and Noble.
As ever, Mr. Ebert, you prove yourself to be one of the most evocative writers out there. You encapsulate feelings and events and thoughts so eloquently and rightly- it continues to astound me. I am a casual movie goer but I come back to this site just to read what you have to say, even if its about movies I will never see. Moreover, I have never made a movie, I have never written about one and I have never thought about going to Cannes but I would like to go there after what you have written about it these past few days.
Keep up the great work. You are an inspiration for all aspiring essayists out there.
Can't wait to see those great films when they come on DVD! Thanks for the updates, Roger.
Thanks for giving us had-no-idea untraveled folks a fine taste of the Cannes phenomenon. 'Twas the utmost thou hadst in thee. I imagine when you get home you will sleep 72 hours straight.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Elia Suleiman's, "The Time That Remains." I thought his 2002 "Divine Intervention" was brilliant. I think he's the Middle East answer to Buster Keaton. I hope Suleiman walks away with a prize and a North & South American Release.
I'll catch it at the Angelica, I guess.
Best,
Jack Baxter
Thanks for all the updates, Roger.
I'm curious to know what you thought of Ken Loach's behavior regarding the Edinburgh Film Festival: http://www.imdb.com/news/ns0000003/ Personally, I think it's despicable.
Also like to know your impressions of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a film which sounds like a return to form from Terry Gilliam.
Although I disagree 100% with his politics, I still consider Ken Loach to be one of the five, maybe even just three best living English-language directors (even though many of his movies still need subtitles). I suspect the reason his latest endeavor failed in the eyes of even his greatest admirers is that he attempted to enter the realm of magical realism when his forte is straight realism. I have yet to watch an attempt at translating magic realism successfully to the screen by anyone; it is a literary genre that depends so strongly on the power of words, that even the most evocative imagery doesn't quite cut it.
Interesting, the Lumiere video. They let people in with cameras @ Cannes? In N. America if you did that, jackbooted security thugs would drag you out of the theatre and throw you in jail.
I'm hoping that your take on 'Looking for Eric' is mistaken as I had high hopes that Loach would come good with this. 'Kes' features one of the definite footballing (soccer if you prefer) scenes which resonates strongly with Brits of a certain age. I was hoping that his involvement and love of the game and his recent form would produce something special but seems I may be disappointed.
Incidentally are there any films which strongly feature soccer that you care for? I don't know if 'The Damned United', will make it to the States but that's one of the few films to get to the nature of why the game is so fascinating and appealing to so many worldwide. Maybe because it doesn't feature too much in the way of action as it's notoriously hard to transfer to the screen
I always especially love these "round-up" reports that cover a bunch of movies. It's this time of year that I start making my list of movies I want to see here in Toronto in September, since a good deal of entries are plucked from Cannes, and some from Sundance as well.
It really sucks about the new Ken Loach, he was a on a roll, too with "Sweet Sixteen", "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" and "It's A Free World".
You could almost have an entire overlooked film festival dedicated to his lineup of movies. His "Ladybird, Ladybird" I discovered because of Siskel & Ebert.
What wonderful flavor for those of us who will never get to Cannes! Now I long for a jolly documentary, filmed by a film student who looks over your shoulder as she follows you around from hotel to coffee shop to bookstore to screenings to interviews to dinner, as you point out your favorite hangouts. A low-budget, seat-of-the-pants homage to the city and the festival. How about it, Roger?
Speaking of Ken Loach: as we all stand ready to replace our DVD's with Blu Rays, it's still not possible to get a Region 1 version of his early masterpiece - KES. If it was available, it would probably be on Roger's list of Great Movies already. Am I wrong?
Ebert: It is a masterpiece.
Baffling that you won't share your opinion of the new Tarantino...
Roger, you truly are one person that can see interesting films before they arrive at the rest of the world. My only wish would be to notice these newer movies in a theater, the way it is meant to be shown, before having to see it on a DVD months or even a year or so after completion. As can be implied, the film theaters in my area do not bother to show these movies, unless of course they can take in net worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That means the new Alain Resnais film, "La pere des mes enfants", will not be shown in most of New York for a long while. Frankly, it ticks me off to no end, as I am a keen observer of Resnais over the years.
Now, this might be a bit off the topic per se, but I would like to know your position on this matter:
The advent and impact of the television medium has been known and debated on for decades. Both the film and television outlets produce interesting works, and in some cases even great forms of entertainment. Both media also have their share of utter dreck.
Nominally, the medium of films is more independent in content and formatting, and is treated as if we were looking at a completed work of visual crafts. Television, at least in fictional forms, seems more in tune with a continuous plot device that brings forth a series of installments in a matter of several years on average; the result being a more paint-by-numbers approach to storytelling with modified appearances on each installment. As well, a television series can abruptly end without an effective epilogue of some kind. In the process, a series on television is no different in format than the movie serials such as "Flash Gordon" you grew up with in your youth, I presume.
Yet, there are certain shows that have made it to the small screen that are considered on par with the more self contained movies: a number of which have been even considered as if they were great movies. David Thomson, in his 2008 book "Have You Seen...", lists among his personal best 1001 movies at least two television productions: "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which is to say what the Pythons had done on the BBC prior to "Holy Grail", and "The Sopranos", the well received HBO series that ended two years ago. In an interesting note, amongst the Great Movies, "The Decalogue", "The Up Documentaries", and "Fanny and Alexander" were intitally made for the television networks that were prominent in the home countries of Krysztof Kieslowski (Poland), Michael Apted (Great Britain/United Kingdom), and Ingmar Bergman (Sweden).
I suppose where I am getting at is thus; can a noted and influential televison program, preferably a fictional series that has ended or a noted movie initially shown on television first, be considered a Great Movie? Here are just two examples I have encountered over the years.
The first is M*A*S*H, uniquely a well-received and even breakthrough Robert Altman movie completed in 1970, that became a well-received and landmark television series from Alan Alda and Larry Gelbart, amongst others, that unfolded from 1972-1983. Now, personally, I think Altman's M*A*S*H is more influential and lasting, due to the rather newer cast at the time, the Vietnam backdrop in both film and context, as well as it being a landmark Altman film showing his techniques in multilayered plots and dialogue being presented. The televison series M*A*S*H, while somewhat similar, is different in quite a number of ways; one being the gradual shifting of humor early in the series' run to its more philosophical and political aspirations and ideals regarding the futility of war. Both forms of M*A*S*H, when taken in seperate form, are unique and amongst the greatest works in their fields of media.
If, in so many words, we can mention that Robert Altman's M*A*S*H is a great movie, and that Alan Alda's M*A*S*H is a great televison series, should we state that while both movie and televison series are different and unique, they are both needed to be seen whenever the time is right for the viewer to get a theoretical full viewing of M*A*S*H the idea and concept? Or is it possible that Altman's M*A*S*H is a great movie on its own, and that Alda's M*A*S*H is a great work on its own that could be considered a great movie played out over 11 years? To tell you the truth, I do not know. But it is interesting to consider.
Now, in a more easier conundrum, in that this did not originate from a movie of any kind, HBO from 2002-2008 showed a groundbreaking, innovative, and even movielike series from David Simon and Ed Burns entitled "The Wire". In my opinion, "The Wire" was the best television series being shown in those years, and perhaps might be one of the very few television series that is amongst the greatest of all time. For a series that ran some 80 episodes, and was perhaps even better than some of the well noted movies of the time, could it be said that "The Wire", when all taken together, could be considered a Great Movie that played out over 6 years? I think, due to its importance and impact on the art of storytelling, it is. That is, though, just my own opinion. But it seems an interesting opinion in this regard.
In any case, thank you again for giving myself and others the opportunity to state our opinions and theories. I do hope this makes for some rather interesting reading and debate in the near future.
Best Regards,
Robert Kelly
rkelly83@optonline.net
In your element, you bestride like a collossus...
Ebert: Please elaborate. :)
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I know my inquiry may have nothing to do with the Cannes Festival, but it does, however, come from the love of cinema. Because I cannot see all the movies in all its meanings as you have in my life, and because I trust movies give a true account of the human condition, I would like to know what movie(s) you think is the most exact diagnosis of the human condition.
I wondered about this during "Half Nelson". During the movie, if I may elucidate with an allegory, I concieved that in Judgement Day the Son of Man himself would be exhausted with hearing all the necessary theatrics from both the living and the dead. So a Daedalus presents to God three movies that would sum up all of man's sins, errors, cupidities, ignorance-- all of its truth in scope and depth.
With respect,
~hf
Ebert: ow. Maybe...just maybe..."Ikiru."
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19960929%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010329%2F1023
Dear Roger,
my question is why do you give so much credit to the oscars?
"CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves."
This might be a very dumb question but do you have any idea how the Cannes Jury choose the best film to win the Palme D'or ? They say don't look at the films, look at the personalities of the Jury. How much influence does the President has on the Jury?
I remember reading that when Pulp Fiction won in 1994, people got angry because it beat RED. Now when I looked it up, Red did not even win the second prize Grand Prix so how could they be angry about that?
I really don't understand much their policy. It would be nice, if you or somebody here could give me some hints about that.
By the way, I'm glad that Chaz loved the experiences she had in Vietnam, I love my country too.
Best regards.
Quan, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Ebert: The jurors are sworn to never discuss how and why they voted.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
It was such a pleasure to see you at the American Pavilion in Cannes. I had spent years sitting at a desk from 9 to 5, reading your reviews and blogs and dreaming without ever actually doing. I finally took action, quit my job and held a screening of my short film at the Marche du Festival. When you shook my hand, I was so overcome with emotion that I could barely mutter a "Thank you." Well, thank you again for the continued inspiration to make films and see films that either place me firmly in my body or move me to new heights. You have helped me navigate away from a state of passivity and the middle ground that I found myself stuck in. It has been strange, the last few days, seeing Cannes so empty, but it has given me the opportunity to see so many films that I missed while I was shamelessly promoting my own work. I am still haunted by the brilliant Antichrist and I fell deeply in love with The White Ribbon. I enjoyed Broken Embraces but it is not on the top of my list. Tomorrow, I will be in line for Inglorious Basterds and I am split between Bright Star and A l'Origine. After reading your online journal, I might have to abandon Bright Star and follow your recommendation and see A l'Origine, they are unfortunately screening at the same time.
It has been a wonderful festival and it was lovely to see you,
Courtney
Thanks for the "waiting for the movie" movie and especially that last 120 seconds. I had my first Cannes experience last year and I strongly remember the chills that simple trailer gave me each time it came on the screen.
I'm wondering if you know the history of the use of Saint-Saëns "The Aquarium" as the defacto Cannes theme. Of course when I hear it I think DAYS OF HEAVEN but does its use at Cannes predate that film?
Whats up with "Colin," the $70 zombie flick which CNN reports today is taking Cannes by storm? Huh?
Ebert: Didn't generate general festival buzz but apparently found much interest in the Market. Here's CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/21/Colin/index.html
This entry somewhat, only somewhat, heartens me. From what you and others have reported this festival has been full of movies of despair, violence, and pessimism. I read of little to no hope or joy in the films at this year's festival. Not even, god forbid at Cannes, the joy of film making.
PS to Holden Francois - In addition to Ikiru (one of my favorite films) I'd nominate Kieślowski's "Decalogue." If including all 10 short films is cheating then I pick the expanded "A Short Film About Killing," a Cannes Jury Prize winner.
Ebert: Maybe there was a reason they wanted to start things off with a cheery film like "Up."
The movie about the thief sounds like it would be an absurdist comedy made by the Coen brothers if it had been made in America.
Roger,
So glad to read above that you give another plug to "Tell No One." What a wonderful, entertaining movie! It amazes me that, at times, there can be such strong anti-French sentiment in the United States when France is probably the only country in the world that makes truly American-style films, namely, thrillers. Over the years there have been so many fun French suspense films ... "Wages of Fear," "Rider on the Rain," "The Butcher," "The Professional," "The Swimming Pool," and so on. Today, aside from Scorsese's "The Departed," French filmmakers are easily making the best, most intelligent thrillers around.
I jumped out of my chair when I read your title. My dad -- 44 years my senior, now 83 -- used to sing "September Song" to me at bedtime when I was little. Maybe a bit mournful for a lullaby, but I think having a son late in life made him feel the fragility of this mortal coil. He must've been on my mind; his chief legacy to me has been a love of movies. Great stuff, thanks.