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Loi Du Marche
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Louder Than Bombs
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Sicario
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Margurite & Julien
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Hollywood Reporter and Variety both mostly enthusiastic about Mountains May Depart, but both also find the third, Australia-set section lacking. High praise for Zhao Tao in particular. Best actress, maybe?

Youth
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Mountains May Depart
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Apparently, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "The Assassin" got an enormous ovation with everyone hailing it as stunningly beautiful.

Reporting from Cannes, Barbara Scharres (from Chicago's Siskel Film Center) reviews Hou's new film The Assassin:
http://www.rogerebert.com/cannes/cannes ... e-assassin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dheepan
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The Assassin
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Chronic
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Valley of Love
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IndieWire's ecstatic review for Miguel Gomes' six-hour, three-part series/epic "Arabian Nights."

With Carol and The Assassin, this could be a better than expected festival. Uneven but at least with a handful of mighty peaks.

hearthesilence wrote: Uneven but at least with a handful of mighty peaks.

I didn't notice the Jayne Mansfield retrospective was playing.

hearthesilence wrote:With Carol and The Assassin, this could be a better than expected festival.

And Cemetery of Splendour.

Is anyone tracking (in one easy to find location) which films in the various competitions are getting picked up by which US distributors?

Werewolf by Night wrote:Is anyone tracking (in one easy to find location) which films in the various competitions are getting picked up by which US distributors?

You can find acquisitions here.

OK. FWIW. Now that the fest's over, a quick summary of my reactions of the films I saw, in rough order of preference. [Haynes and Hou fans, no need to let me know that these are two of the best reviewed films in the competition. I've been following the reaction pretty closely.] For me, 2015 was even worse than 2014. At least last year we got the Dumont.

Great:
none

Good:
Franco, Chronic [Roth was great, script a fab combo of doc and sinister simmering.]

Interesting:
Kurosawa, Journey to the Shore [typically KK performances set to music from like Bach chorals and Lassie movies.]
Lanthimos, Lobster [more Bunuelian/Godard than his previous films.]
Kawase, An [I like her films better, as here and, say, Shara, when she's trying to do something a bit more mainstream.]
Apichatpong, Love in Khon Kaen [probably his worst film, but still engaging at times.]
Han, Coin Locker Girl [desperately wants to be a Park Chan-Wook film, and largely succeeds at that.]
Jia, Mountains May Depart [frustrating; 10 minutes of thrilling cinema - the opening and closing dance numbers, set to Pet Shop Boys' "Go West" - and 125 minutes of horrid scripting and iffy acting.]
Noé, Love [beautiful silliness]

So-So:
Desplechin, Nos Arcadies [Desplechin light]
Maïwenn, Trier, Villeneuve, Audiard [all delivered well-made but pretty generic, quickly forgettable movies.]
Nemes, Son of Saul [technical tour de force - especially the sound - but one note, and not a particularly engaging one.]
Porumboiu, Treasure [80 minutes of (mostly) tedium in the service of a decent, but not fab, pay-off.]
Miike, Yakuza Apocalypse [if you like Miike's violent and silly side, you'll probably like this.]
Nicloux, Valley of Love [feels unfinished, but Depardieu and Huppert are eminently watchable.]
von Horn, Here After [needs more Haneke or Ostlund]
Oh, Shameless

Weak:
Winocour, Maryland
Bercot, Standing Tall [too hip for it's own good; terrible non-pro lead performance.]
Haynes, Carol [TV-movie with stars.]
Kore'eda, Our Little Sister [I hope the 3 main adult women are models and not actresses. I never want to see them move or speak again.]
Hong, The Office
Shin, Madonna
Muntean, One Floor Below
Gomes, Arabian Nights [could only get through part 1. would rather watch a generic doc on the Portuguese economy.]
Garrone, Tale of Tales [where's Fellini when you need him?]

Even worse:
Hou, Assassin [incompetent handling of the action sequences; the rest is deadly dull.]
Singh, Fourth Direction
Mendoza, Taklub
van Sant, Sea of Trees [embarrassing and reprehensible.]

It's incomprehensible to me that the Hou or the Apichatpong or the Gomes could be anything but great. I suppose that means I'm going in with a bias but I can live with that. On a related note, I kind of want to get behind Sea of Trees just to be contrarian. We'll see if I can back that up. Meanwhile, what about Macbeth?

MacBeth
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Well, since the festival is over does anyone want to predict what might win? Well I'll try.
Palme d'Or: "Carol" (I did have a dream once and "The Assassin" won in it)
Grand Prix: "The Lobster"
Jury Prize: "The Assassin"
Prix d'interprétation féminine: Zhao Tao for "Mountains May Depart"
Prix d'interprétation masculine: Géza Röhrig for "Son of Saul"
Prix de la mise en scène: Paolo Sorrentino for "Youth"
Prix du scénario: "The Assassin"
Camera d'Or: "Son of Saul"

John Cope wrote:It's incomprehensible to me that the Hou or the Apichatpong or the Gomes could be anything but great.

Well, for some context, I am not a huge fan of recent Hou - though I do particularly love City of Sadness and Goodbye, South Goodbye. Still, this one strikes me as several notches below even his recent work. Minority opinion, it seems. No one likes Apichatpong more than I - Dogfar Goes to Hell (or whatever it's called in English) and Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century are some of my favorite films ever. This one doesn't compare. Not a fan of Gomes, so ...

John Cope wrote: On a related note, I kind of want to get behind Sea of Trees just to be contrarian.

I like your style. Good luck though.

John Cope wrote:Meanwhile, what about Macbeth?

Oops. I forgot. Saw it this morning. Ehhh. Looks fine. A few nice touches (silence during the Banquo's ghost scene, burning Birnham Wood, etc). Light on character. Nothing to write home about. Some nice dialogue though.

ordinaryperson wrote: Well, since the festival's over does anyone want to predict what might win? Well I'll try.
Palme d'Or: "Carol" (I did have a dream once and "The Assassin" won in it)
Grand Prix: "The Lobster"
Jury Prize: "The Assassin"
Prix d'interprétation féminine: Zhao Tao for "Mountains May Depart"
Prix d'interprétation masculine: Géza Röhrig for "Son of Saul"
Prix de la mise en scène: Paolo Sorrentino for "Youth"
Prix du scénario: "The Assassin"
Camera d'Or: "Son of Saul"

Since Haynes and the Coen brothers are part of the same scene professionally (New York-based filmmakers who typically do projects at the same budget with the same resources, facilities, etc.), I would think Haynes would have an edge, but it would be great to see Hou finally get the Palme d'Or.

ordinaryperson wrote:Well, since the festival's over does anyone want to predict what might win?

I think you've probably got it down, though I might have Hou and Sorrentino swap awards.

And yoshimori, thanks for the rundown. Re: Mountains, was the script consistently shoddy, or did one of the three segments stand out to you as particularly good/satisfactory/terrible?

Amy Racecar wrote:Re: Mountains, was the script consistently shoddy, or did one of the three segments stand out to you as particularly good/satisfactory/terrible?

The third part, 2025 Australia -- the future indicated by pretty much nothing other than jokes about Google Translator and the decline US Dollar and the proliferation of handguns -- was the most ludicrous. Somehow, Zhao Tao's son, the child of a billionaire, needs a part-time job delivering dumplings for a take-out service so he can "accidentally" run into the more-than-twice-his-age Chinese teacher (Sylvia Chang!) he starts an affair with. That kind of thing. But the simplistic part one is weak too. In 1999 Fenjyang, Tao is forced to choose between the rich but emotionally infantile Jinsheng and the homely but sincere Liangzi. The dialogue (at least in translation) and performances reminded me of high school drama class. Part two is better, probably, since there's a little boy who really loves his scarf in it. But it also has some outrageous emotional 180s. The boy can't stand his mother in one scene, then is all comforting her in the next. Jia hasn't made any of this work. In the first press screening, there were regular (unintended) laughs from part of the audience.

That said, the opening shot, in which Zhao Tao fronts a band of amateur dancers in some celebratory choreography set to The Pet Shop Boys' “Go West”, is so powerful, both musically and in its ironic promise of progress and togetherness, that when it is hinted at twice later in the film it still causes goose bumps. And the ideas at the core of the film – the breakneck evolution of contemporary Chinese culture, and the melancholic continuity of much of human nature despite that evolution – suggest that Jia still has the big ambitions he evidenced in The World. Too bad he couldn't pull it off. Not even close, iyam.

Meanwhile ... Isabella Rossellini et al just gave the UCR prizes to Rams and High Sun. I missed/skipped both because of scheduling/lack of interest post-trailers. Kurosawa won Best Director; Porumboiu, "Un certain talent", whatever that means. No acting prizes. Nothing for Apichatpong, it seems ... but he doesn't really need a prize.

ordinaryperson wrote:Well, since the festival is over does anyone want to predict what might win?

Palme d'Or: Son of Saul
Grand Prix: The Lobster
Jury Prize: Sicario
Prix d'interprétation féminine: Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara for Carol
Prix d'interprétation masculine: Tim Roth for Chronic
Prix de la mise en scène: Hou Hsiao Hsien for The Assassin
Prix du scénario: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Valia Santella for Mia Madre
Camera d'Or: Son of Saul

Un Certain Regard winners

Spoiler

Un Certain Regard Award – Rams by Grímur Hákonarson
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize – The High Sun by Dalibor Matanić
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa for Journey to the Shore
Prix Un Certain Talent – The Treasure by Corneliu Porumboiu
Un Certain Regard Special Prize for Promising Future: Nahid by Ida Panahandeh and Masaan by Neeraj Ghaywan

Didn't realize this happened already but Critics’ Week Winners:

Nespresso Grand Prize: Paulina
France 4 Visionary Award: Land and Shade
SACD award: Land and Shade
The Gan Foundation Support for Distribution Award: The Wakhan Front
Sony CineAlta Discovery Prize: Chickenpox
Canal+ Award: Ramona

Palme d'Or: Jacques Audiard, Dheepan
Grand Prix: László Nemes, Son of Saul
Best Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Assassin
Best Actor: Vincent Lindon, The Measure of a Man
Best Actress: Emmanuelle Bercot, Mon roi / Rooney Mara, Carol
Jury Prize: Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster
Best Screenplay: Michel Franco, Chronic

Wow. Didn't see that coming. I've never been that taken by his work, but I'll definitely check out Dheepan.