In Contention

Tag: Shirin

  • EDINBURGH: ‘Antichrist’ added to lineup, and first day jitters

    Willem Dafoe in AntichristAfter wrestling with dodgy wireless setups for the better part of the evening, I am happy to tell you that I’m comfortably installed in an Old Town coffee shop with an immaculate connection, so I can fill you in on the day’s doings.

    Outside, it’s one of those balmy Scottish summer evenings with woozy, disconcertingly long daylight hours (the upside of coming in this season) while hordes of kilted, tourist-baiting middle-aged men parade the streets playing popular tunes adapted for the bagpipes (the considerable downside).

    Anyway, I’m even happier to tell you the big festival news of the day. In a major get for a festival that usually deals in more low-key fare, Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist” has made a last-minute appearance on the programme. Edinburgh likely benefited from the film’s unexpectedly early UK release date of July 24 — otherwise you can bet the London Film Festival’s Sandra Hebron would have been all over it. Score one for the little guys.

    The film will have its public screening next Wednesday, June 24. However, I’ll be seeing it at the press screening on Monday, and will do my level best to have a review for you shortly afterwards. Apologies to the Von Trier haters who thought the distraction of a festival might stem the “Antichrist” talk from my end for a while. I now await Monday with a mixture of breathlessness and extreme nerves.

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  • Binoche and Kiarostami team up again

    Ahead of last year’s Venice Film Festival, I got terribly excited about the projected collaboration between Juliette Binoche and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami — well, what arthouse devotee wouldn’t?

    As it turned out, this was either a wrongfooting or a simple miscommunication, for the film that was being talked up — a romantic drama set to be Kiarostami’s first film shot outside his home country — wasn’t the one that appeared at Venice.

    Instead, audiences were presented with “Shirin,” an experimental, non-narrative piece in which over a hundred actresses (one of whom was indeed Binoche) were depicted as audience members watching a theatre piece never shown on screen. More gallery installation than cinema, it was a work of befuddling beauty, but little more.

    Happily, however, Screen International reports that the initially discussed Binoche/Kiarostami vehicle is now going ahead. “Certified Copy,” a mainly French-language effort, will begin shooting in Tuscany in early June. As far as I can gather, it’s a love story centred on the affair between a French gallery owner and a British writer that blossoms on the latter’s Italian book tour, though details may have changed since last year.

    In any case, when you’ve got one of the world’s greatest living actresses working with one of its greatest living filmmakers, and in the Tuscan countryside to boot, it’s churlish to ask too many questions, no? I’m looking forward to whatever they come up with.

  • Countdown to Venice: the future of festivals?

    So the Venice Film Festival kicks off tonight with its glossiest title, the out-of-competition “Burn After Reading.” Reviews ought to start trickling in tonight, though it’s worth bearing in mind that festival fever can often give the premature illusion of critical consensus.

    Screen International has a very handy rundown of the festival lineup – both in and out of competition – which paints a much clearer picture of the more international entries than anything else I’ve read so far.

    Less-covered competition films that particularly caught my eye include “Inju: The Beast in the Shadow,” a Franco-Japanese thriller starring the excellent Benoit Magimel, marking a return to fiction film for Oscar nominee Barbet Schroeder, “Jerichow,” a German riff on “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” and, by far the least heralded of the US entries, “Vegas: Based on a True Story,” a portrait of down-and-outs in the titular city from Iranian director Amir Naderi.

    (Not to mention an out-of-competition contingent that includes new works from such weighty auteurs as Claire Denis, Agnes Varda and Abbas Kiarostami, whose “Shirin,” starring Juliette Binoche, I’ve already mentioned is my most anticipated film of the fest.)

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  • Venice puts cinema ahead of stars

    There are some major surprises in the competition lineup for next month’s Venice Film Festival, not the least of which are the global flavour and soberness of the lineup itself. In previous years, the Lido has proved a launchpad for starry, surefire awards vehicles (“Atonement” and “Michael Clayton” both made successful bows there last year, while recent festival hits include “Far From Heaven,” “The Queen” and Golden Lion winner “Brokeback Mountain.”)

    Looking down this year’s list, it’s difficult to find much that has quite the same cache – and the competition looks all the more intriguing for it. Artistic director Marco Mueller has commendably narrowed the English-language contingent, and has taken greater risks within that selection, most notably nabbing an unexpected “wet premiere” (as in straight from the lab) of Darren Aronofsky’s latest, “The Wrestler.”

    The film, about a retired pro wrestler struggling to make a comeback, sounds like an interestingly low-key change of pace for Aronofsky after his beautiful folly “The Fountain” (another Venice debutante) fell foul of pretty much everyone two years ago. This project finds the former wunderkind working from someone else’s screenplay for the first time, which could prove a healthy change, and there are some interesting changes of the guard elsewhere too – most notably swapping regular cinematographer Matthew Libatique for the exciting Maryse Alberti (continuing what might be a banner year for female DPs). With an almost too perfectly cast Mickey Rourke in the lead, and support from the ever-terrific Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, a warm festival reception could put this on the Oscar charts.

    There will be fewer megastars parading the Venice carpet than in previous years, but when one of them is Charlize Theron, how many do you need? Together with Kim Basinger, she will be at Venice to promote the competition title that, together with the new Miyazaki, I’m personally most excited about: Guillermo Arriaga’s helming debut, “The Burning Plain.”

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