In Contention

Tag: Francois Ozon

  • VENICE: ‘Potiche,’ ‘A Letter to Elia,’ ‘Robinson in Ruins’

    Hey, did you miss me yesterday? Don’t answer that. Sorry for the radio silence, but Saturday proved to be both my busiest and most rewarding day at Venice, serving up five films — none of them stinkers, and one of them perhaps my favourite of the fest so far.

    After capping the day’s viewing with a delightful pasta dinner in the company of two of Variety’s finest, I took the water-bus back to my San Marco hotel room in a pleasant fog of good feeling and red wine, only to find the wi-fi in my hotel room had taken the night off.

    As it turned out, it was just as well: today’s festival schedule being a lean and mostly unappetizing one, I rewarded myself with my first lie-in of the week (sorry, Tsui Hark) and began afresh in the morning. Late-night reviewing is fraught with hazard, anyway, as I’d learned the night before when I nodded off in the middle of writing up “The Sleeping Beauty.” (Before you say, “How apt,” let me remind you that there is no beauty in waking up at 5 a.m. with keyboard-face.)

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  • Tarantino to head Venice jury

    Berlin went with Werner Herzog. Cannes with Tim Burton. Now Venice clearly felt they had to follow suit by tapping an eccentric auteur as jury president for the 67th Venice Film Festival in September. Quentin Tarantino will take the job.

    It will, of course, be Tarantino’s second stab at chairing the jury of a major European festival: in 2004, he held the position at Cannes, somewhat contentiously throwing his weight behind the decision to award the Palme d’Or to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Tarantino made no bones about wielding his influence on the awards that year (the runner-up, Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy” was also a film after his own heart), so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s similarly persuasive in Venice.

    Interestingly, unlike Cannes and Berlin, Tarantino has never actually taken a film to Venice — in contrast to last year’s president, two-time Golden Lion champ Ang Lee.

    Meanwhile, Variety reports that, in addition to Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” the Venice lineup will also include Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” Monte Hellman’s “Road to Nowhere” and Francois Ozon’s “Potiche.” If all goes according to plan, I’ll be on the Lido once more to let you know how it all goes down. For now, I’ve got Cannes on the brain.

  • Berlin fest gets under way

    As far as press coverage goes, the Berlin Film Festival tends to get a bit drowned in the flurry of Oscar season, so you could be forgiven for failing to notice that it actually kicked off last night, with the world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s corporate thriller “The International.”

    Sadly, as I suspected, the film doesn’t seem to be much to write home about. Screen International describes it as “ploddingly talky,” describing stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts as “leaden” and “struggling,” respectively. Variety is no more enthusiastic, deeming it a “mostly ho-hum” exercise. As a fan of both stars and the director, it’s disheartening to see them all punching so far below their weight; Owen, in particular, needs to have a word with his agent. (Why is one of the best actors of his generation stuck in a rut of identikit thrillers? Is “Inside Man 2” really called for?)

    Anyway, onwards and upwards. Tonight sees the premiere of “Ricky,” the new one from François Ozon, who is always interesting even when he misses the mark. (And I must admit that, after the unholy mess that was Ozon’s recent “Angel,” I don’t have the greatest of confidence in this new fantasy-comedy experiment.)

    The weekend will shed some light on two very intriguing titles. Sally Potter’s “Rage,” which features (amongst other things) Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and Jude Law in drag, promises to live up to the batty eccentricity of Potter’s best work — check out Nat Rogers’ illustrated preview here. Meanwhile, Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth,” a seemingly “Babel”-flavoured story of families in crisis, stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, and has long been one of my most anticipated films of the year. Fingers crossed.