Cannes 2006

59th Festival du Film

Gabrielle D'Ayr

Film Reviews

Marie Antoinette

Sophia Coppola

A lavish, sumptuous, flamboyant study of the corruption of young Marie Antoinette after her introduction to the French Court, it was Ms. Coppola’s intention (she confirmed this later in her press conference) to show us in 2006n world an 18th century modern and enlightened girl, thrust into the stifling atmosphere - corrupt and jaded - that was Louis XV’s court.  She was horribly unprepared for her role as queen, isolated from all she knew and trusted, and dumbfounded by her husband's apparent lack of interest in anything involving her.

I would say that Ms. Coppola succeeded.  I would not say that she succeeded well.  One can feel Marie’s (Kirsten Dunst) frustration, her isolation and even her despair.  And then we see the entirely modern reaction of a stressed out teenager, which is shopping, shopping, shopping, more shopping and binging on comfort food.  Given that history tells us Marie Antoinette was criticized for her excesses, I can only presume that shopping and comfort food are an age-old remedy for any woman suffering from emotional stress, but here in this film – well I really felt like I was watching “Clueless”.  If not “Clueless”, insert the name of any modern day movie where the heroine needs cheering up after some non-hero does something rather dastardly to her.

Modernity was maybe given too much freedom.  The attempt to portray Marie Antoinette as a young girl ahead of her time got out of hand and almost ahead of our time.  I think we were let down most perhaps by the dialogue.  Honestly, if I had heard “dude” come out of Kirsten’s mouth, it would have been on par with the rest of her lines.  There was something just not quite right and at times even jarring about listening to modern syntax and phrasing while Kirsten flounced around Versailles.  The eye rolls, the shoulder shrugs – too modern, too 20th century teenager who’s had it a lot better than anyone in the 18th. 

Perhaps, then, it was Kirsten herself.  I don’t think she has the versatility to pull something like this off – at least not currently.  Kirsten looks like a modern American girl in every film she does.  Kirsten sounds like a modern American girl in every role she’s played.  She definitely got the modern bit down, but the rest of this role – not so much.  I think it was too big a stretch for her to imagine herself as a young European noble (“teenager” is a modern concept) in the 18th century, ahead of her time or not. 

I know what Sophia Coppola was going for.  Unfortunately, she didn’t quite get there, and in my opinion, made the wrong choice for her lead role.  If the subject matter at least is of interest to you, then I would suggest renting it.  At the very least you can see how many different shades of pink can be put in one scene of a movie.

Red Road

Andrea Arnold

A dark drama, the opening scene let you know that an intense scrutiny is about to follow. It is, as described by Director Andrea Arnold, a character driven drama that is raw and intense.  The darkness does not let you hide.

I find it difficult to review the film without giving everything away.  It needs to be seen, followed rather step by step.  You may in fact be able to anticipate the plot, the story, the characters' intentions, but you will definitely want to see how they get there.  Knowing what is coming in this film doesn't make the jouney of how they get there any less interesting.

It is disturbing and it is real.  I say this about both the film and the underlying social commentary that envelopes the story and is an integral part of the film. Distinctly not a date movie, it is however very passionate and the cast particularly Kate Dickie who plays Jackie gives a tangible emotional performance.

Pain, isolation and scrutiny all are exposed for the viewer to consider..."What would I do?  How would I feel??"

Despite all the darkness, the film is inspirational.  I think the turning point for Jackie is pleasure.  Pleasure in a completely unexpected and perhaps even unwanted situation/environment.  Pleasure that forces her ultimately to consider what she could do and what she could feel.

Southland Tales

Richard Kelly    

Confusion reigns supreme throughout this film.  It's like those disjointed dreams one has where nothing seems to have anything to do with anything else and you flit from scene to scene knowing they must all be related somehow and wondering when it's all going to make sense.  When you wake up, you remember scraps of details, but still can't quite put it all together.  That's exactly what this film is like.

It is not at all like an action movie, the type of which we have seen Dwayne "Rock" Johnson (as he prefers) perform in previously, nor is it like a dramatic or monster movie/show that Sarah Michelle Gellar has won us over with.  As I sat in the press conference and listened to Director Richard Kelly say that he wanted to help actors break out of roles they had been typecast as, I imagined that this was what he was referring to.

He didn't succeed.  A huge Buffy fan, I can tell you that she was nothing if she wasn't a ditsy blonde who happened to be able to pack a punch.  It was always less entertaining when she had to be serious or authoritative.  The Rock, The People's Champion...well obviously I watched wrestling and it wasn't much of a stretch to see him go from wrestling star, action star to acting as an acting star.  If there was more to that role I missed it.  I was amused by the drumming fingers in nervous even fearful tension; very comical.  Good acting however, generally dictates that the audience doesn't kow you're acting.  So while I appreciated Dwayne's comic abilities - I was never convinced he wasn't trying to play a role.  Of an Actor.  Which he already is.  Whatever.

There was definitely a message, not so covertly entangled with the plot and very thinly veiled shots at the establishment along with stereotypical American identities throughout.  We had the racist cop, the ridiculously inept politician controlled by his power hungry wife and manipulating aide, and the socially retarded porn stars who manage to become pop idols and affect public opinion with the aid of any real intelligence to get in the way.

I'm not sure what the message was unless with all the confusion, tired stereotypes, fractured scenes and serious lack of cohesion - the point was just that:  chaos. Americans are living confused, stereotypically fractured lives and being led up the garden path by controlling power hungry politicians who just want to back a financial winner - especially if that's them.

But I'll tell you this...I want to see it again.  See if I can make more sense of it the second time around, as perhaps we should take a look at the lives we're leading and try make them make more sense.  Maybe that was the message.

The DaVinci Code
Ron Howard

If being in Cannes for the Festival du Film is not enough excitement for any Francophile or filmophile, the premier of the much anticipated DaVinci Code was scheduled to open the festival on the 16th of May.  I missed it.  Nevertheless, I presented myself eagerly for the "day after" showing assiduously eschewing any conversation regarding the film.

I left the theatre in a happy glow and immediately Skyped my other half in the States while scrolling through various film images in my head.  "How was the film? he asked immediately knowing how much I wanted to see it,  "I heard it blew!" "No!" I was immediately defensive.  And deflated.  How could anyone have not like my movie?

If I told you that this was a conspiracy theory cop flick with religious overtones, I would be accurate if not sadly lacking in creativity.  Professor Robert Langdon (Tom
Hanks), world renowned iconologist is thrust into a murder investigation when the curator of the Louvre in Paris is found murdered in the Galleries.  Together with Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), codebreaker for the French Police, they are compelled by the dead man to solve a mystery he has left for them without either of them  understanding why the other is necessary to solve the puzzle.  All this while the French Police and the murderer both pursue them zealously.  Erroneously, they comprehend that they must discover the murderer and the clues left behind point them in that direction.  The dizzying trail leads them on a quest for the ages that offers proof, not of something so trivial as the name of a murderer, but of a truth that undermines 2000 years of beliefs.  And makes the Catholic church look a bit silly.

I do feel that Professor Langdon's purpose could have been expanded on more.  The film presents him as an expert in iconology, but never shows us why it is only Professor Langdon that can be of assistance in this particular case; why it is that he is contacted.  Also, there is some confusion or reversal of roles where Sophie is a code breaker with the French Police, yet Langdon seems to does all the code breaking as well as revealing the meaning behind the symbols.   There was also never a very clear understanding how Sophie became involved in the first place.  In the book there is a very key sentence that tells us French SOP in this case would be to call in their codebreaker.

To my dismay, I have heard more negative comments than positive ones. Well I'm just going to have to disagree with everyone else because I liked the DaVinci Code.  It did what I think movies are supposed to do, which is entertain.  I didn't leave the theatre disappointed because the film did not reflect the book well or had glaring spots of "artistic license? that seemed irrelevant to the plot. If I had never read the book, I would not have been totally lost.  Conversely having read the book, I was not let down in the director's rendering of the story on film.

The story is engaging.  The "facts" presented as proof to an alternate truth were as shocking on film as they were in the book and even better conveyed.  I don't think (and I apologize in advance to those who are) most people have so clear an image of the "Last Supper" by Leonardo DaVinci fixed in their head that they could, while reading, envision perfectly what the text is relaying.

And  I really must comment on the flashbacks.  Unless there is something really wrong with the way a story is produced, I don't notice specifics.  However, given that I knew there was a lot of material and backstory, I did wonder how the director, Ron Howard, would choose to portray enough to keep the flow while keeping it from becoming distracting and boring.  I thought they were fabulously well done.  That impressed me quite a bit.  Not only did it give us enough of the backstory and keep the audience from ennui - it looked really cool.

See the movie.  I may be going against the grain of popular opinion here, but I take comfort in the fact that Jesus Christ's opinion wasn't exactly popular in the begininng either.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Brett Ratner

Well the title really says it all.  There's even a point in the movie where Logan AKA Wolverine even commands the troops to "..hold the line!" and if director Brett Ratner is to be believed there are no more X-Men waiting in the wings (no pun intended).

In latest episode of the X-Men trilogy (an entirely un-pc titleby the way) , we find Professor Xavier and company some considerable time after the phyrric victory against the evil human menace which saw the untimely death of Jean Gray and the uneasy, almost alliance with Magneto.

Rogue (Anna Paquin) in particular appears to have graduated from her teens into a young woman, Scott is a broken man unable to cope with his loss, Storm (Halle Berry) has a new haircut and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is ever so slightly less malcontent.

Positive progress has been made with the mutants having their own representative in the United States Government; the current Secretary of Mutant Affairs being The Beast played by Kelsey Grammar.  It is through the government, in fact, that the latest threat to mutant kind living in peace sans persecution arises - a cure.

Together with newcomers Kitty, who can walk through walls, "Tinhead" and Angel, our favorite molecular misfits battle against the forces that prevent Professor's Xavier's fondest dream of unity from becoming a reality.  In this final conflict, it appears to a combination of all their previous foes - Magneto, Mutants and Man.

Without giving any of the suprises away - there were a lot of suprises.  If you're expecting for a rousing, feel-good, I-can-climb-Mount-Everest-now, YEA! movie, this isn't it.  It is thoughtful and provoking, if not always consistent in its message.  I would like to have seen more development of Angel's story, and truthfully playing at 1hr 45 mins, if they did shoot footage and later cut it, I would have left it in.

All told however, I loved it.  It will appeal fantastically to America's popcorn eating movie-going masses in grand style.  Lots of action, lots of things blowing up, lots of
people flying around and lots of suprises!  If I sounded a tad sarcastic at the beginning, Wolverine must have rubbed off some.

Cannes 2005

Cannes, even off season, is a buzz with jack hammers, cars honking, motorcycles revving and assorted sounds not necessarily associated with a city so small. Even the gulls are unbelievably noisy; they sound alternately like children screaming, or people arguing.

So when the celebrated festival comes to town, the result is best compared to controlled pandemonium or rather, an oversold arena of a rock concert. There are people everywhere, from everywhere, and, chances are, even in the most innocuous of encounters you are likely to brush up against film folk of some kind. This, obviously, is the place to make your mark in a world wide scene.

With that in mind, Korean superstar filmmaker War Wong Kai crossed the deadline with minutes to spare (and some might say some editing) with his long overdue entry 2046, the futuristic story of a train that takes the rider into the future to search the past. It is illustrated, beginning and end, with an incomplete 3D modeling of a train going through various loops and turns; the effect is incredibly stylistic and visually compelling. Tony Leung plays a writer/playboy who is working a scifi novel about the future 2046, which also happens to be his room number in the boarding house he stays in. The story alternately leaps into the future, where a future Leung has fallen for his android. One never quite knows where in time and space the movie is set; is it the story of a man in the future reflecting on the past or a man from the past projecting into the future?

Though universally panned by French critics, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a near masterpiece and a virtual showcase for the talents of Geoffrey Rush. Depicting Seller’s rise to fame as a BBC radio star with a penchant for multiple characters, the story continues with his meetings with Blake Edwards and the origins of the Pink Panther series, his wacky and self deluded infatuation with Sophia Loren (in one scene telling his family that he loved Loren more than them), conversations and interactions with his strangely possessive mother and and distant and sidelined father and his ill fated romance with Britt Ekland. Rush’s Sellers constantly breaks the fourth wall; talking to the camera in various characters, even as his mother.

Winner of the second prize at Cannes, Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook’s Old Boy, creates a perfect mix between Hong Kong martial arts movies and Japanese noir sensibilities. A business man is mysteriously abducted and held for years for no apparent reason. After given a chance to escape, he seeks out his captors with revenge on his mind. Twists of fate, themes of honor (strong in all Asian film), and an upset in perspective as to who is perpetrator and victim rounds out this dark action flick. It has cult status written all over it.

One of the great things about Cannes is the market; choc-a-block with films from all over the globe, the “marchet” has just about every subject covered from every corner of the world. A gem in this regard is the Short Film Corner. Along with their collaboration with the Clermond-Ferrand Film Festival, the ‘corner’ showcases shorts from all over, featuring a critic’s choice via the International Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight and Cannes competition categories. A few standouts: Los Elefantes Nunca Olvidan (Elefants Never Forget), a story about a Mexican boy avenging his sister against an enemy who seems not to recognize him: His father. Exceptionally well acted (especially the child actor, Guillermo Munoz), Lorenzo Vigas Castes’ stark portrayal of this family dynamic is riveting and believable. Julie Delphy’s turn behind the camera, J’ai Peur, J’ai Mal, J’ai Meurs sadly suffers from the actor as director curse; a heavy handed focus on dialogue with long shots on the actors and not on the film as a whole. Sandra, our suffering protagonist, is whisked onto an ambulance but is freaking out because drivers from the American hospital don’t know how to get where they are going. Director Micha Wald’s hilarious Alice et Moi is another take on family interactions, this time with an interfering aunt and her two nosy girlfriends. Vincent Lecuyer is great as the harried Simon who has been conscripted into taking his ‘aunties’ to the shore. Simon is having girl trouble with his petit ami Alice and his car mates can’t help but interfere. Even funnier to anyone who has been nagged to death on a road trip.

Closer to Jacques Tati in spirit, competition winner Flatlife by Flemish director Jonas Geirnaert, is an animated bad luck story between four neighbors in the same apartment building--when one plugs in an iron, the other’s lights go out and so on. Surprising in its quiet complexity and quirky nuances is Maria de Meideros’ (who played Anais Nin in Henry and June and Bruce Willis’ love interest in Pulp Fiction) Mathilde au Matin, about a mugging with a twist. Meideros maneuvers this six minute piece through silences, conveying so much with glances and stares that even the cell phone (which plays a pivitol role in the story) seems unnecessary. Could it be that Meidoros’ acting ability is trumped by her directing talents? Heady praise indeed.

Of course the darling of the festival was the provocative Fahrenheit 911, the eagerly anticipated film by American gadfly Michael Moore. Embarassing an already embarrassing president (in one scene Bush will never live down--staying in a classroom with 5 year olds for 7 minutes after being told America was under attack), Moore draws a chalk line from Bush family to Bin Laden family through the Carlyle investment group and various political and financial ties. Even more astounding (and this is from an American perspective) is the news footage rarely if ever shown on U.S. television. Who knew several members of the Black Caucus could not obtain a single vote from the house to back an inquiry into voting irregularities? Who knew the rancor Bush was meted during the inaugural ride?

Moore’s films have never been great; even the heralded Bowling for Columbine was a choppy mess, barely able to follow a single strain of thought. It seems Moore shares a zeitgeist with his arch nemesis--how can both men be so lucky after doing such bad jobs? Perhaps the directive of Bush removal has given impetus to this piece and also a clearer vision. Regardless of the motivation, Fahrenheit 911 is devoid of the scattershot logic and red herrings found in his past work. On the business side, few films have had the feeding frenzy of Moore’s latest offering; almost every distribution company threw their hat in the ring for a chance to screen the film in the States. Eventually winning out was Harvey Weinstein, co- founder of Miramax, who after putting forth the money to fund the 6 million dollar project decided to keep his hand in the till as well. It remains to be seen whether the “change” Moore hopes to engender in his American audiences will manifest in the presidency or just the become sound of shekels being removed from their pockets.