Cannes 2009

[Antoine Doinel]

Peter Bradshaw keeps coming up, incidentally, because he is the most independent-minded of above crowd, the most resistant to peer pressure. Within limits, of course - he still won't sink below a 3.

Actually, he gave Inglourious Basterds a 1/5.

[Dr Amicus]

You seem to miss the point. It is not a question of whether or not the films are good. Good, bad or indifferent, they would be received in the same manner. Eg. Name me one film financed by the British establishment (UKFC, BBC, Film Four) that premiered at a major festival in the past ten years and received a one or two-star review from a mainstream British journalist.

Now that's just begging for someone with more time than me to do some checking...

However, it's certainly NOT my experience - I have never been struck by the gushing reviews of British films by British critics. Indeed, some of the worst reviews of any films over the past few years have been British (OK - so I know Nothing isn't referring to films such as Sex Lives of the Potato Men or Lesbian Vampire Killers, but still). Even sticking to more attractive art-house fare (Loach, Leigh, Arnold etc.), the tone is often more 'not bad, but nothing new' than 'WOW!' This could well be because (arguably) the default mode of British 'Serious' Cinema is realist, and these directors largely fall within that tradition. Now this doesn't mean there is not a huge difference between Loach and Leigh in many substantial areas, but their films fall broadly within the realist' tradition.

So a new British art-house film is readily understood by mainstream critics as falling within the tradition of quality filmmaking - at least that branch that does not include corsets and frills. Therefore, there may well be a pre-disposed cultural preference for this mode of filmmaking - as well as the 'well it's good, but nothing we haven't seen before' (cf many of the reviews for Leigh's All or Nothing) - which is not really the same as a cabal of critics planning their reviews in order to con art house audiences to see the latest British film. As an aside, I remember when Barry Norman chose Distant Voices, Still Lives as one of his favourite films of its year, it was with the proviso that he respected it as an important film and admired the skill with which it was made - but didn't actually like it very much.

As a final thought - who remembers Splitting Heirs? An Eric Idle "comedy" actually selected for the Cannes main competition in the 90s. Not in the 'realist' tradition, and not a costume drama (it owes more to Ealing and Kind Hearts in particular) - and not very good (to put it mildly). Slated by the critics and disappeared at the box office.

[Mestes]

which is not really the same as a cabal of critics planning their reviews in order to con art house audiences to see the latest British film.

Although we can assume the odds of this being true are slim, let's assume for the moment that it is. Would it work? Are art house audiences so intellectually malleable that they whistle their way to the theater to the tune of current critical appraisal? Or is it more likely that they would soon stop reading such reviewers, having been ill-advised in the past.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone cares what a reviewer says. I don't understand why anyone cares which film wins, and which film loses, festival prizes. Does Nothing think that such critical appraisals help determine which films get made, and which films don't get made?

[Dr Amicus]

Are art house audiences so intellectually malleable that they whistle their way to the theater to the tune of current critical appraisal? Or is it more likely that they would soon stop reading such reviewers, having been ill-advised in the past.

Actually, from what I understand, this is the one area of film going which IS quite review led - I remember Barry Norman (him again!) saying the only times he seemed to make a difference was when he gave a foreign language film a rave review.

But of course this can only work if the film is actually pretty good in the first place. Of course some distributors rely on word-of-mouth and competition success - Artificial Eye (IIRC) who distributed 4 Months... in the UK did NOT show it to critics beforehand becuase they didn't want their target audience (who would presumably be reading the review pages) to be put off by the perceptions of darkness that might have been inferred from the reviews, no matter how positive. So, in this case, again IIRC, the film was marketed as a Cannes prize-winner - I don't know how the film ultimately fared though, but the reviews (a week late) seemed to be extremely positive.

[Nothing]

Would it work? Are art house audiences so intellectually malleable that they whistle their way to the theater to the tune of current critical appraisal?

Absolutely. Apart from a few core cinephiles, the majority of an arthouse audience (what one might call the 'crossover audience') is incredibly middle-brow.

Does Nothing think that such critical appraisals help determine which films get made, and which films don't get made?

The critical appraisals are only one part of the chain (perhaps the most visible part). Exhibitors (in particular the City Screen chain in the UK) heavily favour establishment films against independent films; because of this, distributors also favour these films (both Looking for Eric & Fish Tank were pre-sold in most major European territories long before their Cannes premieres); having effectively managed the coverage in Cannes, they are now pretty much guaranteed positive lead reviews across the board and this will increase exhibition exposure further, which the press can then use to justify even more coverage of said film - a cycle of amplification. On a funding level, then, UKFC and BBC can use this 'success' to justify a continuation of their policies. Therefore, the next time someone asks "what is the status with Terence Davies' new project?" they can answer: "Fish Tank and Looking for Eric were in Competition in Cannes, had amazing write ups and did excellent box-office." They control the process from top to the bottom, thus they control the agenda.

Actually, he gave Inglourious Basterds a 1/5.

? Er, that's not a British film.

the default mode of British 'Serious' Cinema is realist

Not at all. Let's say, rather, that the default mode the establishment wishes to fund is social realist (centre-left).*

*edit: and period drama.

IN ANY CASE. First in on the Noe.

[Antoine Doinel]

Actually, he gave Inglourious Basterds a 1/5.

? Er, that's not a British film.

My bad -- I thought you were speaking generally, not specifically about his review of British films.

[Mestes]

Would it work? Are art house audiences so intellectually malleable that they whistle their way to the theater to the tune of current critical appraisal?

Absolutely. Apart from a few core cinephiles, the majority of an arthouse audience (what one might call the 'crossover audience') is incredibly middle-brow.

Interesting. I guess my basic solipsism has prevented me from seeing this herd mentality in the art house audience.

IN ANY CASE. First in on the Noe.

Truthfully, I won't read this or any other review of the Noe film until after I've seen it. I already know I enjoy Noe from his previous films, and I do not wish my personal appraisal of the film to be polluted by another voice. Perhaps this is the reason I am blind to your vision of critical conspiracies.

[Dr Amicus]

the default mode of British 'Serious' Cinema is realist

Not at all. Let's say, rather, that the default mode the establishment wishes to fund is social realist (centre-left).

Perhaps, but for many years the overwhelming critical consensus on British Cinema has been to privilege those films seen as 'realist' (and, dear God, there's a can of worms daring someone to open it with just that one word) - and 'realism' is often taken as referring to working or lower-middle classes. I would suspect the more recent critical favour for costume drama (probably mid 80s onwards - say from Room With A View, as too many earlier examples, such as Gainsborough, were considered trashy) deserves another thread (tying in with conservatism in the 80s, nostalgia, and indeed anti-nostalgia). But these also get public financing, assuming you include the BBC with this (Miss Potter, The Duchess), and tend to be more likely to cross-over to the mainstream - Miss Potter made around £6m in the UK, more than any Loach or Leigh film.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Promising reviews for Haneke's 'The White Ribbon'. His chances of walking off with the Golden Palm must be very high, though I'm intrigued to see what Tsai Ming-Liang can do with 'Face'. Fingers crossed both get picked up for the London Film Festival.

[Finch]

I'm intrigued by Entering the Void as well, and that comes from someone who hates Irreversible with a passion. It wasn't the graphic rape and killing of a man with a fire extinguisher that angered me but the rampant homophobia (if there is a film more morally conservative, lionising heterosexuality as the only morally, socially and culturally acceptable orientation, a film more backwards in its judgement of the many different forms of sexuality than this piece of shit then I have yet to see it). There are thousands of straight rapists on this planet, yet Noe reveals the perpetrator to be a bisexual. And that's not even mentioning the gay club from hell. If Noe wanted to contrast the destructive element of the male against the female as pure and healing, life-giving, he could have done so without indulging in excessive minority bashing.

Add to that the embarassing Kubrick nods (pregnant Monica Belluci resting below a poster of 2001's Star Child), and the jaw-dropping banality of the second half, and it all amounts to very little. Even accounting for the fact that Marcus and Pierre are shown to be racist, and that the backward structure of the film admittedly denies you any identification with Marcus and Pierre when Pierre kills the man and shows up the killing for the senseless act it is, that still doesn't begin to balance out the sheer awfulness, stupidity and obnoxiousness of this film as a whole. Rotten to the core.

There, I feel better now... (at least Void doesn't sound like more of the same).

[kaujot]

From Ebert's blog, on Enter the Void.

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.

Spoiler

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.

[colinr0380]

I'm intrigued by Entering the Void as well, and that comes from someone who hates Irreversible with a passion. It wasn't the graphic rape and killing of a man with a fire extinguisher that angered me but the rampant homophobia (if there is a film more morally conservative, lionising heterosexuality as the only morally, socially and culturally acceptable orientation, a film more backwards in its judgement of the many different forms of sexuality than this piece of shit then I have yet to see it). There are thousands of straight rapists on this planet, yet Noe reveals the perpetrator to be a bisexual. And that's not even mentioning the gay club from hell. If Noe wanted to contrast the destructive element of the male against the female as pure and healing, life-giving, he could have done so without indulging in excessive minority bashing.

Add to that the embarassing Kubrick nods (pregnant Monica Belluci resting below a poster of 2001's Star Child), and the jaw-dropping banality of the second half, and it all amounts to very little. Even accounting for the fact that Marcus and Pierre are shown to be racist, and that the backward structure of the film admittedly denies you any identification with Marcus and Pierre when Pierre kills the man and shows up the killing for the senseless act it is, that still doesn't begin to balance out the sheer awfulness, stupidity and obnoxiousness of this film as a whole. Rotten to the core.

There, I feel better now... (at least Void doesn't sound like more of the same).

It doesn't nullify your homophobia argument (and other difficult questions that are raised about the fear of the other in the shifty vaguely criminal arabs and distrust of shifting sexuality and gender) but I remember reading a very interesting interpretation of Irreverisble as being all male at one end of the film and all female at the other, with the fateful meeting of the sexes in the gynaecological/anal tunnel at the central rape scene. I also feel that the heterosexual relationships at the other end of the film seem deeply flawed in their own, less violent, way that leads to the strange (happy?) almost immaculate conception ending that returns 'to the void' we all come from.

I'm still disturbed by the film beyond just the violence on display, and struggle with the meaning behind it, though I've always been fascinated by it for that reason. Along with the Haneke (and of course Antichrist!), I can't wait for the chance to see Enter The Void for myself.

[Nothing]

Final predictions, now that all the reviews are in:

Palme d'Or: Les herbes folles, Alain Resnais
Grand Jury Prize: The Time That Remains, Elia Suleiman
Jury Prize: Enter the Void, Gaspar Noe
Best Director: Bright Star, Jane Campion
Best Actor: Fish Tank, Michael Fassbender
Best Actress: Vincere, Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Best Screenplay: Das Weisse Band, Michael Haneke

[James]

Anybody know where the award show can be watched in English as it happens on Sunday?

[Finch]

It doesn't nullify your homophobia argument (and other difficult questions that are raised about the fear of the other in the shifty vaguely criminal arabs and distrust of shifting sexuality and gender) but I remember reading a very interesting interpretation of Irreverisble as being all male at one end of the film and all female at the other, with the fateful meeting of the sexes in the gynaecological/anal tunnel at the central rape scene. I also feel that the heterosexual relationships at the other end of the film seem deeply flawed in their own, less violent, way that leads to the strange (happy?) almost immaculate conception ending that returns 'to the void' we all come from.

I'm still disturbed by the film beyond just the violence on display, and struggle with the meaning behind it, though I've always been fascinated by it for that reason. Along with the Haneke (and of course Antichrist!), I can't wait for the chance to see Enter The Void for myself.

Colin, good point about the depiction of Arabs in Irreversible. One reviewer, I can't recall who, seemed to argue that the film raises questions about the issue of racial tensions in France. I just wish the film wasn't so crude and discriminatory, and flat out simplistic on so many levels. I would never object to gays and lesbians being portrayed as flawed and even unsympathetic but when a film demonises us like Irreversible does, I get very angry about it. In this respect it makes me grateful when a film like Brokeback Mountain, as flawed as it is, redresses the balance in how gays and lesbians are portrayed on film.

Re Entering The Void: I'll try my best to avoid any reviews before seeing it myself, now that I almost read too many spoilers about the Von Trier. Other films in the line-up that I'm going to see are the Audiard, the Haneke, the Tarantino (one critic said Harvey Weinstein sat stone-faced through the press conference, and a few people have speculated that the film may be recut) and maybe Bright Star (not the keenest on costume dramas, to be honest).
Would be very surprised if Haneke walks away from Cannes without a prize. I'd tip the lead from A Prophet for Best Actor instead of Fassbinder.

[Nothing]

I'd tip the lead from A Prophet for Best Actor instead of Fassbender.

Quite possible. Unless Audiard takes Best Director. Maybe they'll create a special 'Lifetime Achievement' award for Resnais, therefore sliding Suleiman or Haneke in for the Palme d'Or. There are a variety of ultimate possibilities... However, I've paid my money and will take my choice #-o

[Matt]

From Ebert's blog, on Enter the Void.

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.

A booker?

[domino harvey]

From Ebert's blog, on Enter the Void.

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.

A booker?

Are you suggesting a move from Booker to Hooker?

[Nothing]

heh:

"Speaking to Agence France Presse, festival director Thierry Fremaux responded, that it was a “ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship, (it is) scandalous coming from an ‘ecumenical’ jury which what is more is headed by a film-maker.”

[Hail_Cesar]

Anybody know where the award show can be watched in English as it happens on Sunday?

It plays in french on TV5 (Canada). It start in 4 minutes

[James]

Anybody know where the award show can be watched in English as it happens on Sunday?

It plays in french on TV5 (Canada). It start in 4 minutes

Thanks for the help, but I don't get Canadian television.

[Hail_Cesar]

I'm commenting live on the other forum.

[Hail_Cesar]

Already finished, the palme d'or goes to White ribbon Can't wait to see it...

[Fierias]

Palme d'Or - The White Ribbon (Haneke)
Grand Prix - A Prophet (Audiard)
Jury Prize - Fish Tank (Arnold) and Thirst (Park)
Best Director - Kinatay (Mendoza)
Best Screenplay - Spring Fever (Lou)
Best Actor - Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Best Actress - Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)
Camera d'Or - Samson and Delilah (Thornton)
Lifetime Achievement - Alain Renais

[Finch]

Palme D'or - The White Ribbon
Best Actor - Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Best Actress - Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)
Best Director - Brilliante Mendoza (Kintay)
Jury Prize - Joint Award for Fish Tank & Thirst
Best Script - Spring Fever
Special Festival Prize: Alain Resnais
Grand Prize - A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)

Wonder how many critics will say that Haneke's win smacks of favouritism on Huppert's part (though, no doubt, Ribbon was loved by many critics). Surprised at the choices for Best Director and Script, especially the latter as many reviewers dismissed the Ye as a soap opera.