Cannes 2007

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

The Tarr, fwiw, was rounded booed. Probably deserved it.

Is such possible??

Please explain/expand...

[Oedipax]

All three of us, Korine super-fans all, were flabbergasted at how disappointing the film is. There are 10 minutes or so of stunning shots - nuns falling through the sky; little red riding-hood pushing Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Temple on a swing in the woods; that kind of thing - all dialogueless. The minute someone speaks, out come cliches in painfully poor performances. I'm still stunned the next morning.

The Tarr, fwiw, was rounded booed. Probably deserved it.

Ack, not good news about Korine... Of course you'll understand I can't really believe it until I see it myself, but yeah, what a letdown if so. Hmm.

Edit: Here's a couple clips from the film.

[yoshimori]

The Tarr, fwiw, was roundly booed. Probably deserved it.

Is such possible?? :cry:

Please explain/expand...

I know a lot of people like Tarr here, and I quite enjoyed most of Satantango. The The Man from London screening was packed. Full lines in front of the Palais 90 minutes prior to showtime. I'd guess a full 15% of the audience, maybe more, left before the midway point, a constant trickle out of the theater's balcony, where we were. The movie has about 10 minutes of plot stretched over two hours, no surprise. But for me the shots had none of the best of those mesmerizing images in Satantango (the walk of the girl with the dead cat, or the one in the rain with the wind blowing the garbage down the street). The whole thing was incredibly slow. I got the feeling that the actors were walking ridiculously slowly so the creeping camera could keep up. Probably not the case, but gives a sense of the feel. Lots of booing at the end, and a smattering of applause. What can I say.

[Nothing]

Ah, there will always be queues around the block at Cannes and then, for the best films, half the audience will walk out and/or boo. It's like a tradition...

The only question is whether the jury will ignore the moomins - ala Cronenberg's award to L'Humanite in '99 - or if they'll be blinded by it, as with Brown Bunny, which should have won the Palme d'Or in '03. I think I can guess which side of the fence Frears and Co. will come down on...

[che-etienne]

Hoberman turns in a nice summation of the festival thus far.

[yoshimori]

Ah, there will always be queues around the block at Cannes and then, for the best films, half the audience will walk out and/or boo. It's like a tradition...

That's not been my experience. At least not this year. Very few boos indeed in the press screenings.

[John Cope]

I think I can guess which side of the fence Frears and Co. will come down on...

No kidding. I can envision Schnabel with the Palme in his palm already.

Oh, and here's a new Mister Lonely review.

[Nothing]

"Werner Herzog as a priest in South America, who may have discovered nuns who fly." oh my

The lack of reviews in the trades is beginning to look intentional now...

Very few boos indeed in the press screenings.

Very few good films?

[John Cope]

Yeah, you know, I'm not so unreasonable as to expect unanimous praise for the likes of Sokurov, Tarr, Van Sant, Korine, Reygadas, et al. but their curt dismissal is another thing altogether and portends poorly for the future. If the truly visionary is shunted off to the margins at Cannes for God's sake what are we left with? The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Give me a break.

[MichaelB]

Yeah, you know, I'm not so unreasonable as to expect unanimous praise for the likes of Sokurov, Tarr, Van Sant, Korine, Reygadas, et al. but their curt dismissal is another thing altogether and portends poorly for the future.

Well, L'Avventura received a Cannes reception that was equally polarised, with much booing and jeering at the premiere, and the following year it was voted the second greatest film ever made in Sight & Sound's decennial critics' poll (after the inevitable Citizen Kane)...

[Nothing]

]L'Avventura received a Cannes reception that was equally polarised, with much booing and jeering at the premiere, and the following year it was voted the second greatest film ever made in Sight & Sound's decennial critics' poll (after the inevitable Citizen Kane)...

Whilst this is true, and there is of course a long history of radical art taking some time to achieve recognition (in every medium), the present situation is somewhat different from 1960, when the audience for arthouse cinema was sizable and very much nurtured.

The increasing negativity of the trades - commercial dismissal of everything that isn't in the crowd-pleasing indie mold - both represents and encourages a depressing situation in which distributors and exhibitors are increasingly disinclined to handle "challenging" work. Eg. Dumont's Flandres, winner of the Grand Prix last year, finally has a tiny UK release in two months time. Why the delay? Because the exhibitors wouldn't handle Twentynine Palms, thus discouraging the major 'arthouse' distributors from touching the follow-up (which is now with Axiom, I believe). Then there is Costa's Colossal Youth, the other great competition entry from last year, which doesn't even have US distribution, let alone in the UK. And, if these films stop getting distributed, eventually they're going to stop getting made too.

Basically, 95% of serious arthouse cinema only exists these days because of French subsidies and/or tortuous European co-productions of the kind that drove Humbert Balsan to suicide. Sarkozy is promising to keep the CNC money flowing for now, but the audiences in France are diminishing and it is debatable how long it can all last. Godard's 'End of Cinema' may soon be upon us. Unless, of course, one happens to be a fan of Little Miss Sunshine and Julien Schnabel...

Screen finally weighs in on Mister Lonely, btw.

[spencerw]

A few pertinent remarks by Dumont himself can be found here

[chaddoli]

The Tarr, fwiw, was rounded booed. Probably deserved it.

bull shit.

[che-etienne]

Yeah, you know, I'm not so unreasonable as to expect unanimous praise for the likes of Sokurov, Tarr, Van Sant, Korine, Reygadas, et al. but their curt dismissal is another thing altogether and portends poorly for the future. If the truly visionary is shunted off to the margins at Cannes for God's sake what are we left with? The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Give me a break.

Let's back up a minute. I would typically have to agree with you, but Van Sant has received a lot of praise this time around it seems, and is a regular Cannes favorite. So far the reactions to the Sokurov film that are available online have also been favorable. The negative responses to Tarr are disappointing, but as someone pointed out the booing has been played up by the media. Let's remember there have also been positive responses to the Tarr film, such as Dargis's assessment. This goes also for Reygadas. Only Korine seems to have been uniformly criticized, but both Kenny and Lim liked much of it.

I think we need to hold off judgment for now. Let's not condemn the critics until we know they're being particularly pedestrian about pandering to their readers. Besides, those at Cannes still represent only a fraction of the critical community.

Cannes is and pretty much always has been a showcase for the casually interested. By which I mean it is a forum for the public to get a little update on the state of the world cinema industry. In this respect, it's always been more about the hand-shaking and navel-gazing that occur both on the red carpet and behind the scenes. If sometimes, the sixties especially, the festival has been more adventurous and the films and their critics more controversial that's because the political climate at the time often made it popular to be that way. Tarr, Sokurov, and Korine did get invited to the festival after all! That's at least a start, after the abuse they've often suffered at the hands of mainstream critics.

Personally, since most of us haven't even seen any of the films in question yet, let's not assume either that they're masterpieces. "The Man from London" may very well be an indulgent piece of shit (though I highly doubt it). I'm excited to see it, whether it is or not. That goes the same for Sokurov and to a lesser extent Korine - simply because I'm not familiar with his work - and Reygadas.

I think this year's festival is quite exciting. A lot of great talent is being represented in one way or another.

[Nothing]

The Van Sant, Sokurov, Reygadas, Korine and even the Tarr are all getting some good reviews - but they are also being dismissed as festival fare with no to low commercial prospects.

[che-etienne]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Van Sant already has distribution for "Paranoid Park". He also has a following here, and many people know his more celebrated, older films as well as his Hollywood ventures.

It's true the others won't have very many commercial prospects, and this has dogged especially Tarr and Sokurov for nearly the whole of their careers, but I think it'd be exaggerating if we were to make the case that a lack of interest by distributors is a sign of Cannes in a decline. We all know films like these have never drawn enthusiasm from distributors. It can be hoped that they'll at least acquire US distribution sometime on their festival run. I agree that the situation is poor for such artists, but this is nothing new. Nor do I think we can say it's gotten much worse than it hasn't already been for a long time.

[John Cope]

I agree with you, but I think what we'd all like to see is something truly worthwhile and otherwise marginal win the big prize. The Schnabel pic, for instance, doesn't need any further promotion.

[Grimfarrow]

ALEXANDRA was OK but rather disappointing. The music score sounds like it should have belonged to a Hollywood movie.

Any thoughts on Mister Lonely?

The Tarr, fwiw, was rounded booed. Probably deserved it.

It also got a 10-minute standing ovation at its gala premiere. No boos.

[yoshimori]

Well. I'll leave it to those who love Tarr more than I - for me Satantango is the only film of his I would want to see again - to decide the place of The Man from London. As Oedipax said after the reports of a disappointing Mister Lonely, he'll still have to see it himself.

I perhaps liked Alexandra a touch more than grimfarrow. The movie's "premise" - grumpy grandma goes to the front lines - is pretty funny, but is pulled off with Sokurov's apparently utter seriousness. That clash of elements was interesting to me (cf. the "love story" in Father and Son) but the film meanders into some kind of sappy politics.

The Roy Andersson film, You the Living, is Songs from the Second Floor part 2. Very funny first hour, much less so the last 30 minutes.

The Schnabel plays on the same manipulative ain't-it-awful sympathies as My Left Foot and The Sea Inside. I found it irritating. Janusz Kaminski's images, however, are perhaps his most daring. A technical prize might be workable here, but if this wins anything else, I'll be pissed but not surprised.

Tonight Kawase, tomorrow Kusturica, then I'm outta here.

Overall the fest has been fun enough but the films a little underwhelming. Projection in the theaters here is absolutely stunning. I'll never watch a film anywhere else again!

[Michael Kerpan]

Anyone (other than Yoshimori) planning to see her film?

Alternatively, has anyone heard anything at all about it?

[Suzukifan]

Caught a radio clip this morning concerning an Israeli film at Cannes. Apparently it's about an Egyptian band getting lost in an Israeli airport and was reported to be pretty humorous and pretty well received.

Anyone have the bona fides?

[yoshimori]

Anyone (other than Yoshimori) planning to see her film?

Ha!

[Michael Kerpan]

Anyone (other than Yoshimori) planning to see her film?

Ha!

Somehow I didn't notice you had already said you were going to see this when I posted. Thus my editorial (parenthetical) addition. Not that I'm not interested in your reaction. ;~}

[John Cope]

Going back to Alexandra for a minute, the Variety review was actually pretty damn good, in every sense of the term.

[Oedipax]

Caught a radio clip this morning concerning an Israeli film at Cannes. Apparently it's about an Egyptian band getting lost in an Israeli airport and was reported to be pretty humorous and pretty well received.

Anyone have the bona fides?

GreenCine (whose Cannes round-up has been great) has some reviews.