Cannes 2010

[Nothing]

You have SUCH a way with words,

Naruse being a second-rate Ozu, of course.

[Michael Kerpan]

> Naruse being a second-rate Ozu, of course.

I once thought you were a possibly intelligent provocateur -- but I am becoming more and more convinced that you are little more than a (more sophisticated than average) garden variety troll.

[John Cope]

You're probably right but I can't wait to see what he says if the Cannes jury gives AW the Palme as a gesture of "solidarity" and support in response to what is happening in Thailand at the moment.

[rohmerin]

Horrible reviews for the new Allen by all the Spanish critics, so, it must be an excellent film.
The Mike Leigh has got the opposite, they say it's a perfect movie.

Jesus, the silent Oliveira starred by the gorgeous Spaniard Pilar López de Ayala has shocked all the critics.

O ESTRANHO CASO DE ANGÉLICA, de Manoel de Oliveira
Francisco Ferreira (O Espresso, Portugal): 10
Scott Foundas (Filmlinc, EE.UU): 10
Leonardo D'Espósito (Crítica de la Argentina, Argentina): 9
Gonzalo de Pedro (Cahiers du Cinéma España, Público, España): 10
Gabe Klinger (The Auteurs Notebook, EE.UU.): 8
Luciano Barisone (Panoramiques, Italia): 9
Carlo Chatrian (Panoramiques, Duellanti, Italia): 9
Paolo Bertolin (Cineforum. Italia): 9
Violeta Kovacsis (Lumiere, España): 8
Robert Koehler: (Variety, EE.UU.): 10
Olivier Père (Director artístico Festival de Locarno, Francia): 9
Carlos F. Heredero (Cahiers du Cinéma España, España): 7
Roger Alan Koza (La Voz del Interior, Filmfest Hamburg, Argentina): 10
Diego Lerer (Clarín, Micropsia, Argentina): 8
Alejandro G. Calvo (Sensacine.com, España): 9
Jaime Pena (El Amante, Cahiers du Cinéma España, España): 8
Carlos Reviriego (Cahiers du Cinéma España, España): 8
Diego Batlle (La Nación, Otros Cines, Argentina): 7
Manu Yáñez (Fotogramas, España): 9
Luciano Monteagudo (Página/12, Argentina): 9
Eulalia Iglesias (Cahiers du Cinéma España, España): 8

[rs98762001]

It's not just the Spanish critics who hate the Woody film.

Aurora seems to be a tough ride, with both defenders and detractors.

[Finch]

House Next Door:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010 ... 0-day-two/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010 ... day-three/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Aurora does seem to provoke love it or hate it reactions; all critics I've read have dismissed The Housemaid as inferior to the original and Wall Street 2 gets the back-handed compliment of being a guilty pleasure.

[Nothing]

solidarity and support with whom, that's the question. From what I can gather about the plot, it is a sympathetic and sentimental portrait of an old man who has "killed too many communists" (the government assassin of Commander Red will no doubt be moved to tears)... Still he's likely to get something, if only because the selection is so thin this year + he happens to be in vogue, whatever that means. But the Palme? That would be stretching it, although hardly unprecendented - are not risible jury decisions to close out the fortnight de rigueur (whenever Isabelle Huppert isn't involved)?

It's actually incredibly hard to predict this year. Erice is the only serious filmmaker on the entire Jury, easily outgunned. On the other hand, there's nothing horribly mainstream and obvious for the others to crowd around. The Innaritu perhaps, or the Bouchareb? Could see Burton and Del Toro going for either of those. The Weerasethakul is a decent outside bet, certainly, or perhaps one of the lesser known directors (eg. the Chaddian film). I think we can rule out Mikhalkov, Amalric, Im, Mundruczo and Liman at the gate.

p.s. lol, it's Birdsong Mk.II, this time with a handicapped twist

[John Cope]

Neil Young has his money on Un homme qui crie.

[Duncan Hopper]

Still he's likely to get something, if only because the selection is so thin this year + he happens to be in vogue, whatever that means. But the Palme? That would be stretching it, although hardly unprecendented

Have you seen it then?

[ellipsis7]

Remember Kiarostami & Erice collaborated on their recent 'Correspondences', so probably another thing going for an AK double Palme with CERTIFIED COPY - let's see how the film is received...

[HistoryProf]

A sequel to Burnt By The Sun makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's been a long time since I've seen the film (which I remember as being wonderful) but didn't pretty much all the major characters get killed at the end?!

IMDB has a capsule summary:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403645/plotsummary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This sounds astonishingly like the most propagandistic films actually made in the USSR during WW2.

the trailer certainly makes it look like the Russian Pearl Harbor minus the love story....pure schlock. reading all of those links I have to say I'm fascinated by the system that keeps a guy like that in such a position of esteem despite the universal dislike for what he's become. Can you imagine if Michael Bay and Bush were best friends and he made a film about the gloriously patriotic Gulf War? Russians never cease to fascinate me in terms of their culture and devotion to propaganda. They have a unique similarity with the U.S. in terms of the incredible diversity of their citizenry - though in their case it's a matter of geographic immensity rather than immigration - and a devotion to language as a means of uniting them all as one. But the societies could not possibly be more different, as well as their histories. I've always longed for more candid cinema from the Russian perspective on the Cold War, but exported stuff always seems to be more bombastic. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - and there has to be a whole host of stuff out there that we in the U.S. have not had a chance to see that we should. Seems like a vein Criterion should be mining too.

[Zot!]

Can you imagine if Michael Bay and Bush were best friends and he made a film about the gloriously patriotic Gulf War? Russians never cease to fascinate me in terms of their culture and devotion to propaganda.

I can tell you that Michael Bay didn't get to premiere Pearl Harbor on an US Aircraft Carrier because the film was politically ambivalent. I'm not clear how the Russian movie's description would make it more of a propaganda piece than the vast majority of American films, though most of the rest of the world has state funded film productions, so it's easier to point fingers.

[Nothing]

Have you seen it then?

Well, firstly, AW's obtuse visual aesthetic has always been his strongest suit, but I can't see this being particularly persuasive to the likes of Beckinsale and Burton. Secondly, to award a state-funded Chinese Thai film at this moment in time would like awarding an Israeli film a week after the Sabra and Shatila massacre - can the jury really be that insensitive (especially a leftist like Del Toro?). Perhaps.

A Screaming Man. Oh dear, I didn't realise this was from the director of the God-awful Daratt.

The Kitano looks like the best thing so far.

[Duncan Hopper]

A Screaming Man. Oh dear, I didn't realise this was from the director of the God-awful Daratt.

Geoff Andrew, tweeting for Sight and Sound seemed to like it.

"Simple, direct but powerful fable telling of paternal betrayal in war-torn Chad"

[Finch]

Peter Bradshaw on the first few days:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may ... s-round-up" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

his take on Stephen Frears' new film:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may ... hen-frears" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Xan Brooks declares Another Year as the festival's standout title to date:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/may ... -mikeleigh" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Matt Noller also continues his Cannes coverage:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010 ... -day-four/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010 ... -day-five/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Duncan Hopper]

Apparently there was booing at the end of KIAROSTAMI'S CERTIFIED COPY, some critics feeling it was a 'sell-out' film.
Screen Daily said it could be described as “Before Sunrise/Sunset for oldies”, but quite liked the film overall.

[ellipsis7]

Yes, Screen Daily is positive...

A captivating cinematic divertissement, Certified Copy marries post-modern reality games with mature romantic comedy in a single breezy and thought-provoking package. This is Kiarostami’s most commercial film to date - not only because of the presence of a radiant Juliette Binoche or its photogenic Tuscan settings, but because it is the first of the Iranian auteur’s metacinematic experiments to conform, at least on one level, to Hollywood genre conventions. The pitch could well be: “imagine a middle-aged Before Sunrise rolled up with Under the Tuscan Sun but spiked with elements of The Game”.

'A few boos after the Cannes press screening (presumably from cineastes who feel that Kiarostami has sold out) will not discourage buyers from looking at a title that has good audience genes.'

Standard for Cannes, only time to worry is if a few of them fall asleep or walk out...

Hollywood Reporter's take...

Certified Copy"
Bottom Line: Kiarostami's sardonic reflection on marriage is playful, engaging Euro art cinema under the Tuscan sun.
CANNES -- After years of working on photography, poetry and more experimental films, Abbas Kiarostami makes an engaging return to narrative cinema in a delicate, bittersweet comedy set in romantic Italy. "Certified Copy" slyly explores the ins and outs of marriage and the many ways men and women fail to think alike. French star Juliette Binoche will give the film a leg up in Europe, though wide international audiences are probably not in the cards for such an off-beat item. This erudite film is spoken in three languages, English, French and a bit of Italian.

The sardonically humorous story of a man and a woman whose marriage has gone cold echoes Roberto Rossellini's critically revered "Voyage in Italy" (1954), in which a British couple played by George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman come to Naples on the verge of divorce and find reconciliation amid the mysteries of nature, art and religious belief. Kiarostami is not so optimistic.

Review to look out for is Geoff Andrew's in Time Out or Sight and Sound, he being a major AK critical supporter...

[Duncan Hopper]

None of this is shouting 'Palme d'Or' to me.

[ellipsis7]

Shouting is not a word I associate with AK's cinema... Putting together the two reviews (so far), it seems on one level we have a rom com of a middle aged man and woman meeting in Tuscany, on another a metacinematic exploration of authenticity and copy, the two strands seem to merge in the middle of the film, when we realise that the man and the woman have been already married together, thus urging us to reexamine and reinterpret the earlier scenes, which I suppose are copies of an earlier romance between the two, and the film itself a copy of life, or of actors copying life...

[Michael Kerpan]

ellipsis -- your summary of the AK film makes it sound very much like a HONG Sang-soo film. ;~}

[ellipsis7]

Thanks, Michael... Must look out for Hong then...

[Duncan Hopper]

Shouting is not a word I associate with AK's cinema...

I think you're taking my comment a bit literally.

[ellipsis7]

I was just thinking that in 1997, I was @ Cannes, and THE TASTE OF CHERRY was a last minute addition to the lineup, not even in the published programme, and shown on the very last weekend of the festival, when nearly everyone had gone home, including me... Then it shared the Palme D'Or with Imamura's THE EEL...Like Loach & Leigh, Kiarostami is a Cannes stalwart, and can never be counted out when in competition...

And, as I said, it was worth waiting for Geoff Andrew's review @ Time Out Online...

Certified Copy (2009)
Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Reviewed at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival

The best film so far in this year’s Cannes competition, Abbbas Kiarostami’s first feature made outside Iran is in many ways a departure in terms of style and content, yet at the same time it is utterly Kiarostami and one couldn’t really imagine it having been made by anyone else. In short, it’s simply the tale of a day in the life of an English writer, in Tuscany to promote his latest book, and a French woman who brings her 12-year-old son along with her to hear him speak.

In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and certainly far more ambiguous: after a while it becomes apparent that the man may have known the woman for some years – indeed, they may even be man and wife. Certainly, during the course of a brief day trip to a nearby village, where they do a little sightseeing and a lot of talking, they run the gamut of emotions as they discuss first matters of representation – the man’s book is concerned with issues to do with artistic originals and copies – and then concerns rather closer to home: relationships between men and women, parents and children, and then, it would appear, specific details in the history of their own relationship.

It’s an extraordinary film, steadily building to a very moving final scene by way of a seemingly meandering but in fact very focused narrative held together by meticulous and subtle mise-en-scène. The performances – by Juliette Binoche and opera-singer William Shimell – are excellent, while the whole thing not only touches on all manner of male-female concerns (I imagine everyone will recognise something of themselves at some point in the film) but develops a number of recurrent Kiarostami themes about art and nature, reality and representation, life and death. Superb.

Author: Geoff Andrew

Xan Brooks @ Film Guardian online concurs, while acknowledging opinion differs...

I also catch the evening showing of Certified Copy (Copie Conforme), a Tuscany-set romance from Abbas Kiarostami (Iranian) that stars Juliette Binoche (French) and the singer William Shimell (British). This seemed to split opinion but I liked it a lot. Binoche and Shimell meet for the first time and drive out to a hilltop town where they first accept and then furnish the misconception that they are actually a couple, married for 15 years and struggling to keep the flame alight. Shimell plays an art historian and there is much talk of copies and forgeries, what's real and what's fake. But what this quiet, contemplative film seems to be suggesting is that we are all forgeries and that we dramatise our lives for the benefit of ourselves and those around us. And if that's the human condition, who says it's not authentic?

[Duncan Hopper]

Like you say, Geoff Andrew is not really a good barometer for Kiarostami, he'd give his home movies 10/10.
However, some good reviews are starting to surface now, I really hope it is indeed good because when Kiarostami is good, he's very good indeed.

[bigP]

Roger Ebert is very positive toward Leigh's Another Year and less so for Kitano's Outrage of which he states -

Kitano is a gifted Japanese director who has made many films I admire, but this must be his worst.

Todd Brown at Twitch Film, however, gives a very positive review for Outrage writing that -

...he (Kitano) is absolutely back in peak form...it is clearly his best since Zatoichi and one which stands comfortably beside both Sonatine and Fireworks to create a trio of truly iconic international crime films.

and Roger Ebert on Godard's Film: Socialisme