In Contention

Tag: Cannes

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Cannes unspooled, ‘The Road’ unveiled

    Opening night at Cannes 2009• Kicking off a Cannes-loaded week, we offered a two-part profile of this year’s contenders for the Palme d’Or.

    • Meanwhile, this week’s Top Ten list reflected on the greatest runners-up in the festival’s history.

    • As “Up” opened the festival, Pixar maintained its recent critical streak.

    • Within the competition, however, it’s two films from female auteurs — “Bright Star” and “Fish Tank” — that have critics buzzing.

    • Away from the Croisette, there was lots of talk about “The Road” this week, with a new trailer and early review.

    • In a neat coincidence, “The Road” was also the subject of this week’s Page to Screen column.

    • In a major week for debuting trailers, we also got a look at two very different hot properties: “Nine” and “Precious.”

    • Ahead of its June U.S. release, we reviewed Michelle Pfeiffer’s comeback vehicle “Chéri’.”

    • We looked into the box office success of “Star Trek.”

    • We revisited some buried treasures from the 1980s.

    • And finally: is the theatrical experience overrated? Have your say here.

  • Campion: women directors need more armor

    Jane CampionThat Jane Campion is one of three female auteurs competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year is seen as a relative step up for the fairer sex compared to years past, though by any logical standards, a 3-to-17 ratio is still an indication of a globally male-biased industry.

    Campion, however, has an interesting take on the matter: though she blames studio sexism to an extent, though she thinks women themselves have some responsibility for the situation. Noting that the imbalance begins as early as the film school stage, she wondered at a Cannes press conference whether her female peers are more easily deterred by criticism:

    I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world … Without them the rest are not getting to know the whole story. I think women don’t grow up with the kind of criticism that men grow up with. We are more sensitively treated. It is quite harsh when you first experience the world of film-making — you have to have a tough skin. My suspicion is that women are not used to that. We must put on our coats of armour and get going because we need them [female directors].

    I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but from a successful auteur who has endured her share of criticism in past years, it’s an interesting perspective. Thankfully, considering the wealth of high-profile female-directed projects in the wings this year — from “Bright Star” to “The Hurt Locker” to “An Education” — things may be looking up.

    Meanwhile, strong reviews for Campion’s film continue to pour in; Todd McCarthy calls it an “impressive return” for Jane Campion, and amps up the buzz for star Abbie Cornish. U.S. distribution rights were snapped up a few days ago by ex-Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and Bill Pohlad’s new outfit.

  • Scorsese saves ‘Red Shoes’

    The Red ShoesI’m willing to lay a substantial bet that there won’t be a better film screened at this year’s Cannes festival that the brand-new restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 ballet-drama-cum-fairytale “The Red Shoes.” Easily one of the most exquisitely designed works ever put to celluloid, and a jewel in the crown of the great (and recently departed) DP Jack Cardiff’s career, it’s a film I’ve loved since childhood that never fails to show me something new upon each visit.

    The fully restored print will be introduced tomorrow on the Croisette by Martin Scorsese, who arranged and funded the restoration with his longtime editor (and, of course, Powell’s widow) Thelma Schoonmaker. Anyone familiar with Scorsese’s career likely knows the deep affinity the director has for Powell and Pressburger’s work, and there’s a nice piece in today’s Guardian in which he discusses the influence the British team had on his own creative development, as well as his personal friendship with Powell himself:

    I had to explain to him that his work was a great source of inspiration for a whole new generation of film-makers – myself, Spielberg, Paul Schrader, Coppola, De Palma. We would talk about his films in Los Angeles often. They were a lifeblood to us, at a time when the films were not necessarily immediately available. He had no idea this was all happening.

    Apparently, Scorsese and Schoonmaker plan to restore more works in the Powell/Pressburger canon down the line. Bless them. For my part, I’ll be seeing the restoration at next month’s Edinburgh Film Festival. There’s something to look forward to.

  • Mixed critical response for ‘Tetro’

    Alden Ehrenreich in TetroFollowing its Cannes premiere, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro” has been greeted with something of a collective shrug by the critical community. Most of the reviews appear to follow the lead of Todd McCarthy’s mixed Variety take, in which he praised the cinematography and the performance of relative newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, but largely dismissed it as “a work of modest ambition and appeal … the pale product of an over-tilled field.”

    Screen International’s Lee Marshall is slightly more enthusiastic, crediting the cast with saving “all but the most cringeworthy lines,” and declaring — not entirely in a negative way — that the film has the “melodramatic sweep and overwrought tone of an opera libretto.” indieWIRE’s Eric Kohn also sits squarely in the middle, suggesting the film has the look and feel of a promising debut effort, but is only “mildly interesting” from a director of Coppola’s stature.

    Only Kirk Honeycutt at the Hollywood Reporter sounds really enthused about the film, despite some reservations:

    As a critic, it feels good to write positively about one of the American cinema’s lost directors… “Tetro” erases that memory (of “Youth Without Youth”). It has style to burn, eye-catching acting by an international cast and a story that harkens back to many literary classic with its themes of a family torn apart, brothers in conflict and a son’s rivalry with a towering father figure.

    The film is more than a little self-conscious …Yet somehow the piece comes off as derivative but also original. While living and working in Argentina to make this film, he absorbed enough local color to imagine a fresh, authentic tale of stymied creativity — a subject he certainly would be familiar with — and familial conflict.

    Probably not the comeback that some people were hoping for. But then, some people will consistently hope for the impossible.

  • Teenage star of ‘Fish Tank’ wows Cannes

    Katie Jarvis in Fish TankOnly two films in so far, but it seems we have a formidable contender for the festival’s top honors in the shape of Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank.” The film has just screened for the press, and Arnold — who won the bronze-medal Jury Prize in 2006 with her debut feature “Red Road” — has evidently built on that success, but it seems the real revelation is the film’s 17 year-old star, Katie Jarvis.

    A non-professional making her screen debut, Jarvis is unable to attend the festival, having just given birth to her first child in her Essex hometown. But even in her absence, the young lady is generating enough to buzz to plant her as a strong contender for the Best Actress  award. IndieWire’s Eugene Hernandez calls her “the first major acting discovery” of the festival, while Screen International’s Allan Hunter gushes:

    Following in the wake of Kate Dickie’s extraordinary performance in Red Road, newcomer Katie Jarvis is every bit as impressive as Mia, finding the vulnerability of the teenager without recourse to sentimentality or surrendering any of her anger or sarcasm. It is a performance that should win her a lot of attention and add profile to a film that will have to fight for its audience.

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  • Gilliam wants “another award for Heath”

    Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor ParnassusIt may not be in the Competition lineup, but Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is surely one of the most eagerly — and curiously — awaited films of the Cannes festival. The bulk of the interest, of course, rests on the unfinished final screen performance of Heath Ledger, and how (or, indeed, if) Gilliam’s audacious strategy of completing the late thesp’s characterisation with contributions from three other actors will work.

    All will be revealed when the film makes its Cannes debut next Friday, but for now, Gilliam talks up “Parnassus” in an interesting interview with the Times of London — and the famously bolshy director minces no words when it comes to his awards hopes from the film:

    The planned release date for Doctor Parnassus is in the autumn. “We want to be in that last third for the Academy Awards! Maybe we’ll get another award for Heath. We’re going to get as many awards as possible for him, long after he’s gone.”

    Meanwhile, he’s confident that Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell’s continuation of Ledger’s role is a success, both in terms of artistry and commercial viability:

    We were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror. So you can very genuinely say that these other actors are different aspects of the character that Heath plays. And it works. The point was, we’ve got to keep going. It was a bit like half being there, but apparently on autopilot I can still do a few things … It’s a hard thing to do, walk into a character and take over. But they did it.

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  • Can’t win ’em all

    UpSo as is the norm with Pixar productions, “Up” is apparently capturing the heart of virtually every critic it encounters. Jeff Wells offered a few mild caveats, but he was largely won over as well. So I was interested to read Kaleem Aftad’s three-star review in the Independent, which offers the first hard-and-fast criticism of the film I’ve seen to date:

    Watching with tinted glasses cannot hide the deficiencies of this adventure. It is increasingly apparent that Pixar is a company that operates best when dealing with nostalgia. Like the outfit’s previous film, WALL-E, Up is superb in setting up characters and a world that hankers over memories of yesteryear, but once the adventure moves into its obligatory action denouement, it enters a world of stereotypes that disappoints.

    Indeed, action sequences have been Pixar’s Achilles’ heel, with overly long and tedious effects letting down Cars and The Incredibles. In Up, the blockbuster moments that should be of Around the World in 80 Days proportions are instead surprisingly uninventive.

    Apart from the kooky animals (nowhere near as endearing as The Jungle Book ones), the destination is a boring land of plateaus and uninspiring forests. Muntz pops up as a Wizard of Oz-inspired villain. The nostalgic past is replaced by a horrible sentimental present that lacks emotional punch.

    Not having seen the film, I have no idea how valid these jabs are, but it’s useful to get some perspective. Interestingly, unlike several critics who are signficantly more enthusiastic about the film, Aftad has no problem whatsoever with the film’s 3-D element, justifying it on the grounds that it emphasises “optical reality rather than just an eye-popping spectacle.”

    In contrast, the Guardian’s Xan Brooks, who loves the film, sides with Roger Ebert, complaining: “It’s a film that was always going to come in three dimensions, no matter what digital wizardry they garnished it with.”

  • ‘Spring Fever’ screens at Cannes

    Spring FeverMany pundits were predicting that Lou Ye’s erotic drama “Spring Fever” could nab the Palme d’Or, if only as a political gesture against the Chinese censors who imposed a five-year filmmaking ban on the director — which he has defied with this film. Following last night’s press screening, however, those hopes have taken a bit of a knock, as it appears to be more an intriguing curiosity than a surefire arthouse success.

    Screen International’s Howard Feinstein is beguiled by the film’s elaborate floral imagery and “astonishing” cinematography, but feels its narrative opacity and explicit sexual content might limit it to the gay festival circuit:

    Close-ups of flowers not only open and close the film, they also pop up intermittently, mirroring shifts in both the story line and the state of mind of its gay protagonist. This integration of visuals and narrative, however, is the exception rather than the rule in this ambitious and – by mainland Chinese standards – daring project. The screenplay is so convoluted and contains so many loose ends that the intense style (fragmented editing, jerky, handheld camera) only highlights the movie’s occasional lapses into incoherence.

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  • Cannes soup

    Palme d'OrThere’s a bewildering wealth of quality Cannes coverage out there, and it tests the realms of possibility to mention it all. In the interests of economy, however, here’s a selection of the more interesting festival-related nuggets I found today:

    Eugene Hernandez at IndieWire has a superb piece up in which he approaches a broad selection of industry figures and bloggerfolk with the question of whether Cannes matters much these days. The response of many is sad yet predictable: that the festival does indeed matter from the purist’s perspective of showcasing artistically nourishing films, but that with the commercial window for foreign and/or arthouse fare increasingly narrowing, it has less bearing on the U.S. market than it should. Still, I liked the succinctly idealistic take of one interviewee: “When Cannes no longer matters, film will no longer matter.”

    Back to the films themselves, the New York Times’ Joan Dupont offers her own rundown of the key titles in the mix, picking up, as others have,on the prevalence of controversial auteurs in this year’s lineup. She also provokes this soundbite from the fest’s executive director Thierry Frémaux, explaining why this year’s Competition line-up is so heavy on previous winners and established names:

    “Yes, the big names are back, and with big films … The selection reflects our concern for auteurs — that’s our job. You need to be strong to be in competition; everybody’s watching you. That’s why we think that many films are better off in Un Certain Regard. The filmmakers don’t always agree.”

    I can’t say I agree, either. It’s precisely two decades since a miniature character study from a 26 year-old first-time director walked off the Palme d’Or and changed the face of American independent filmmaking in the process — would Steven Soderbergh have been relegated to the Un Certain Regard sidebar today? I suspect so, and that demonstrates a cautiousness that can only curb Cannes’ capacity for trend-setting.

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  • Lukewarm early notice for ‘Tetro’

    Todd McCarthy apparently posted a review for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro” on the Variety site, but it seems to have mysteriously vanished — I guess embargos stills hold sway in some cases, after all. Still, if you cannot contain your curiosity, Jeff Wells has quoted a juicy chunk of the review, and the prognosis is not terribly positive.

    There’s enthusiastic praise for young actor Alden Ehrenreich, who apparently reminds McCarthy of all three leads of “The Departed” (there’s a curious mental image), but the film, according to the critic, becomes mired in murky theatrical stylistics — which I’m afraid squares with the vibe I personally got from the film’s trailer.

    I don’t really want to requote criticism that was obviously prematurely released in the first place, but I know there’s a lot of interest in this title, so it’s there if you want it. The film screens tomorrow at Cannes.

  • SPC snaps up new Haneke film

    The White RibbonOne day into the Cannes festival and the gears of commerce are already grinding, with Sony Pictures Classics looking particularly alert. The independent outfit announced two substantial acquisitions today, most notably Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon,” a period drama themed around issues of fascism and community that is one of the bookies’ favorites for the Palme d’Or.

    SPC have pretty good instincts on the Croisette — last year’s purchases included “The Class” and “Waltz With Bashir.” As with Haneke’s last film, “Caché,” they will be handling all North American distribution, and they appear to have high hopes for the film. Here’s an extract from the press release:

    The White Ribbon is set just prior to the start of WWI, where the quiet life of a small German village is mysteriously eroded by a series of inexplicable events. The film is a co-production between X-Filme Creative Pool in Germany, Les Films du Losange in France, Wega Film in Austria and Lucky Red in Italy. THE WHITE RIBBON was produced by Margaret Menegoz (CACHÉ, Funny Games), Stefan Arndt (Run Lola Run, Goodbye, Lenin!), Veit Heiduschka and Michael Katz.

    “We have been pursuing THE WHITE RIBBON since it was a kernel of an idea in Michael Haneke’s mind. We are convinced this is his masterwork. It is a privilege and a pleasure to be releasing Michael’s latest film and to work again with him and his amazing producers Margaret Menegoz and Stefan Arndt,” said SPC in a statement.

    Not content with that coup, Sony has also nabbed U.S. rights to the festival’s closing film, “Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky.” (Not exactly that catchiest title, that.) Starring Danish star Mads Mikkelsen and telling the story of the affair between the two eponymous cultural icons, it is not to be confused with Anne Fontaine’s Audrey Tautou-starring biopic “Coco Avant Chanel,” which SPC is also distributing Stateside — as savvy commenter Glenn points out, this is likely a move to prevent a head-to-head biopic battle.

  • Taking a stab

    Someone asked me to offer my best (read: worst) guesses as to which Cannes films might get lucky on awards night. I originally wasn’t going to, on the principle that it’s a self-defeating exercise to handicap films one barely knows anything about, but then I saw the Guardian is plucking odds out of thin air, so why not? Awards punditry … the game the whole family can play.

    And hey, I may as well gift you with the opportunity to come back in two weeks’ time and laugh at my clairvoyant incompetence. I’m nice that way. My guesses after the cut — feel free to share your own in the comments.

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  • All eyes on ‘Up’

    UPDATE: I was expecting Jeff Wells to come up with a slightly contrarian take on “Up,” and he doesn’t disappoint. Not that he doesn’t like the film — “peppy,” “delightful,” “visually luscious” and “touching” are some of the adjectives he tosses its way — but he does qualify his praise with concerns that the film compromises itself somewhat by trying to be all things to all men:

    It’s not meant as a putdown to say that Up is too immersed in buoyant punchiness and mainstream movie-tude, which basically boils down to Pixar’s always-front-and-center task of giving the family audience stuff to laugh at and go “oooh” and “aahh” about, to finally matter all that much. It’s too entertaining, in put it another way, to sink in all that deeply.

    So what am I saying, boiled down? That it’s really quite well made and has an almost stoner sensibility in portions but may be a little too good for the lowbrows and at the same time isn’t really deep and resonant enough to penetrate with quality-cinema buffs? Something like that.

    Wells will no doubt have to fend off accusations of curmudgeonliness for that take, but whether I wind up agreeing with him or not, I understand what he’s getting at. At the very least, it’s healthy to hear a perspective that diverges from the unreserved praise doing the rounds: if Pixar movies are indeed the adult auteur works so many critics insist they are, then they merit more complicated critiques.

    EARLIER: Kudos to Jeff Wells for this hilarious snap from this morning’s “Up” press screening at Cannes. Made me laugh, anyway.

    Up press screening at Cannes

  • ‘Map of the Sounds of Tokyo’ trailer

    Thanks to AwardsDaily for pointing out this trailer for Isabel Coixet’s new effort, which will be the final Competition title to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. That’s the same slot that proved so lucky for “The Class” last year, but speaking for myself, this trailer doesn’t suggest similarly great things ahead — much as I like Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi Lopez, this looks a little fey for my liking. Still, as I mentioned in my Cannes preview recently, Coixet is the only auteur making her first appearance in the Competition this year, so we wish her well.

    WARNING: Nude scenes render the trailer strictly unsuitable for work.

  • Trades head over heels for ‘Up’

    UpWith all the positive word that’s been trickling out this past week, it’s no surprise to hear that “Up” has scored universally breathless raves from the trade papers.

    Actually, it’s no surprise under any circumstances — with the sole exception of “Cars,” it’s one of the safest bets in the in the industry that every Pixar production will arrive on an overwhelming wave of critical goodwill, with the usual go-words of “wondrous,” “captivating,” “inspiring,” and more often than not some jab about how the studio is currently making the greatest films in American cinema.

    Not that I’m being facetious — I loved “WALL-E” too last year, even if not all Pixar’s efforts inspire the same reverent devotion in me that they seem to in most critics. I’m just saying the reviews give me no idea yet where my heart will lie on this one.

    We can expect more “Up” buzz throughout the day: the Cannes press screening is going on as we speak, ahead of the film’s official opening of the festival tonight. For now, here’s McCarthy’s Variety valentine:

    Depending on what you think of “Cars,” Pixar makes it either 9½ out of 10 or 10 for 10 with “Up,” a captivating odd-couple adventure that becomes funnier and more exciting as it flies along. Tale of an unlikely journey to uncharted geographic and emotional territory by an old codger and a young explorer could easily have been cloying, but instead proves disarming in its deep reserves of narrative imagination and surprise, as well as its poignant thematic balance of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled.

    Unsurprisingly, no one puts a foot wrong here. Vocal performances, most importantly from Asner, Plummer and nonpro Nagai, exude a warm enthusiasm, and tech specifications could not be better. Michael Giacchino’s full-bodied, traditional score is superlative, developing beautiful themes as it sweeps the action along on emotional waves.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 Cannes runners-up of all time

    Cinema ParadisoI’ll be honest with you, readers. Struck with the idea of waking (after its winter nap) our weekly lists feature with something suitably Cannes-themed, I started with the obvious: the 10 greatest Palme d’Or winners of all time. Simple, snappy, uncomplicated.

    Or so I thought. But as I began whittling down the titles, I came to the disheartening realization that my list looked pretty much like that of everyone else who has had a go. By the time you’ve included the inarguable likes of “Apocalypse Now,” “The Leopard,” “The Third Man” and “Taxi Driver” (and hell, that’s before I even reached 1980), there’s precious little room for idiosyncratic argument, however obtuse you may be.

    (It also leaves a sadly narrow window for personal favorites: it was when I was balancing the numbers and realized that I had to boot either “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” or “The Knack” that I began to have doubts about the enterprise.)

    The thing is, unlike the Academy Awards, the Palme d’Or goes to a genuinely great film more often than not. Sure, there are errors of judgment now and then. (“The Child” over “Cache?” What were they thinking?) And some years present a slate so rich there are bound to be slights however you deal the cards. (I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to choose between “Pulp Fiction” and “Three Colors: Red” in 1994.) But Cannes is a festival that, an impressive amount of the time, gets it right in hindsight. Too right — for my list, anyway.

    And so it was that I decided to turn my attention to the runners-up. Cannes has always awarded a silver medal of sorts, under various monikers over the years: the Special Jury Prize, the Grand Prix du Jury and, currently, the simply but sweetly named Grand Prix. A significant number of future classics have been handed this accolade, but it’s a sadly undersung one: as with so many things in life, first place is all that counts in the history books.

    So I’m taking a moment to give this honorable category of winners their due. What follows is my selection of the 10 greatest runners-up in Cannes history. There’s a daunting range of films to choose from (check out the full list here and here), so this list turned out to be pretty agonizing too. (No “L’avventura?” Mon dieu!) A couple of titles here were robbed, but many of them were simply unlucky to come up against formidable competitors. All of them, however, deserve to recognized as the Cannes champs they are.

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  • Go-to spot for Cannes coverage

    A brief endorsement, if you don’t mind.  Cannes starts up tomorrow with the opening night world premiere of Pixar’s “Up,” and though In Contention won’t be on the Croisette, Guy will be chasing down morsels of information throughout the fest on a daily basis.  One of his frequent stops, I imagine, will be Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere, and allow me to just say that this is the time of year when Jeff really lights up.  His Cannes coverage is consistently superlative and well worth your daily stop so make sure you keep up with his shenanigans.

  • Cannes: sizing up the Competition, part two

    Charlotte Gainsbourg in AntichristContinuing yesterday’s survey of the runners and riders in the race for the Palme d’Or…

    “ANTICHRIST” (Lars Von Trier)

    The pitch: You’ve seen the trailer. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe star as bereaved parents who retreat to a remote woodland cottage to nurse their grief, only to be terrorised by unnamed forces of evil. (English dialogue)

    The history: Over his seven previous Competition appearances, Von Trier has enjoyed a gradual ascent from the Technical Grand Prize for 1984’s “Element of Crime,” to the Jury Prize for 1991’s “Europa,” to the Grand Prix for 1996’s “Breaking the Waves” (1996) to, at last, the Palme d’Or for 2000’s “Dancer in the Dark.” Nothing since then, however, with his masterful “Dogville” coming up surprisingly (and undeservingly) empty-handed.

    The outlook: The film may appear to be familiar (albeit bloody terrifying) horror fare in the trailer, but we should know by now never to presume what a maverick like Von Trier has up his sleeve. Cannes is usually averse to the genre, so whether the film made the lineup because it’s something more subversive, or simply because it’s directed by one of their favourite sons, remains to be seen. Either way, the film will need to be something special to get Von Trier back in the winner’s circle – after all, “Dancer in the Dark” proved so polarising, juries have been unwilling to take a chance on him since. He tends to put his actresses through the wringer, so perhaps there’s a chance for Charlotte Gainsbourg here – but who knows?

    “SPRING FEVER” (Lou Ye)

    The pitch: Erotic drama follows a young man hired to survey a married man’s homosexual affair; tangled relationships ensue as the spy and his girlfriend become sexually drawn to the adulterous couple. (Mandarin dialogue)

    The history: Not counting an unfortunate 2006 withdrawal after his “Summer Palace” fell foul of Chinese censors, this is Lou’s second Competition appearance.

    The outlook: There is a great deal of goodwill in the world-cinema fraternity for Lou, who has fought a continuous battle with the Chinese censorship board. His last film, the politically charged “Summer Palace,” resulted in the director receiving a five-year ban from filmmaking – a ruling Lou is flagrantly flouting by screening his new film (which was shot in secret on handheld cameras) at this year’s festival. It’s a courageous move, and I think there’s a strong chance the jury might like to demonstrate their support for the embattled auteur with a prize of some variety.

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