In Contention

Tag: The Class

  • Jeff Wells calls it for Scott Thomas

    There has been so much hype around Kristin Scott Thomas’ apparently devastating performance in Philippe Claudel’s “I’ve Loved You So Long” that a lot of the press I’ve read tends to sideline the film itself.

    Now Jeff Wells has rectified that with a piece in which he declares it the best film of the year so far:

    The film itself is a landmark-level achievement. It’s remarkably tight, absorbing and affectng every step of the way — a genuinely profound growth journey taken with quiet and gentle steps. Whatever happens on the Oscar nomination front, this film has immediately shot to the top of my list of the year’s best films.

    Not that he neglects to discuss the film’s esteemed British star. Indeed, he thinks she’s a shoo-in for an Oscar nod — and possibly more:

    She’ll definitely land a Best Actress nomination, and she just might win, considering that she achieves so much in ILYSL with very little “acting” plus the fact that she’s been around for a couple of decades.

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  • ‘Che,’ ‘W.’ among films announced to play London fest

    Looking down the list of titles in the newly-revealed lineup for next month’s London Film Festival lineup, my initial reaction was one of mild disappointment. Plenty of exciting titles, for sure, but it doesn’t quite match last year’s feast that included everything from “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” to “The Assassination of Jesse James” to “Juno” to “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.”

    My second thought, however, was that the lineup reflects more on what a tepid year for film 2008 is shaping up to be, rather than any lack of effort on festival director Sandra Hebron’s part. Tellingly, this morning Hebron herself cited critical opinion that, in the wake of a roundly derided Venice festival, “it wasn’t a vintage year for cinema.”

    But enough of the hand-wringing. There’s still much to get excited about, including “Che,” the two parts of which, interestingly, will be screened both together and apart; Oliver Stone’s potentially polarising “W”; “Hunger,” featuring a potential dark horse for Best Actor; “Religulous”; “Rachel Getting Married,” “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” “Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson” and, to my immense delight, “Synecdoche, New York.”

    Not to mention that, as previously announced, the festival will be bookended by the world premiere of “Frost/Nixon” and Danny Boyle’s red-hot Toronto hit “Slumdog Millionaire.”

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  • More LFF titles revealed

    The full lineup for next month’s London Film Festival is to be revealed tomorrow — but in the meantime, the latest issue of Sight and Sound reveals a couple more exciting inclusions.

    In addition to the already-announced opening and closing films (“Frost/Nixon” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” respectively), S&S confirms that the French Palme d’Or winner “The Class” will appear, with director Laurent Cantet in attendance.

    The magazine also reveals that there will be twelve international premieres at the festival, including “Sugar,” the baseball-oriented film from “Half Nelson” creators Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, which bowed to warm reviews at Sundance in January. (By “international,” they mean outside the US, obviously.)

    More signs of a great festival to come. I await tomorrow’s announcement like a kid on Christmas Eve.

  • 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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  • Foreign film race begins… get ready to groan

    Variety carries details of the first official entry that I’ve heard of in the Best Foreign Language Film derby – Denmark has put forward “Worlds Apart,” from director Niels Arden Oplev. The country has a pretty good track record in this category, having won back-to-back in the 80’s with “Babette’s Feast” and “Pelle the Conqueror,” while Susanne Bier’s popular “After the Wedding” nabbed a nomination two years ago.

    “Worlds Apart,” which has already secured US distribution, is a small-scale pic focusing on a teenage Jehovah’s Witness forced to make a difficult choice when she falls in love with a non-believer. It all sounds terribly earnest, but that’s right up the Academy’s alley when it comes to this category. Reviewing the film at the Berlin festival back in February, Variety called it a “provocative, well-turned drama,” and speculated that a US remake could be on the cards.

    Apparently, the Academy has invited 96 countries to enter the race this year, with the submission deadline looming large on October 1. They should be looking to regain some credibility in this category after the embarrassing fiasco of last year’s race, which saw a banner year for world cinema reduced to the most tepid slate of foreign-language nominees in recent memory, as landmark pictures like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days,” “Lust, Caution” and “Persepolis” were, one by one, either snubbed or disqualified.

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  • Sean Penn defends ‘Che’

    Benicio Del Toro in CheBritish film magazine Sight & Sound has a nice new tradition of interviewing the jury president of the most recent Cannes Film Festival, which makes for interesting reading. (Last year’s prez, Stephen Frears, presciently predicted in his interview that “No Country for Old Men” would “do really well,” despite not winning anything at the festival.)

    Unsurprisingly, 2008 president Sean Penn is rather more candid in his interview with  Richard T. Kelly. After admitting that he had four clear favourites in the competition (two of which, “The Class” and “Che,” were unanimously awarded their respective Palme d’Or and Best Actor prizes), he then launches into an impassioned defence of Steven Soderbergh’s polarising opus, as well as an attack on the journalists who dismissed it:

    Right through the festival I had no awareness of what the ‘buzz’ was, and I shut people down if they tried to talk about movies in front of me. But when I did a little bit of catch-up browsing afterward I read some of the stupidest, ugliest, most cynical responses to what had gone on, and I had the front-seat to be aware of their inconsistencies.

    “Che” is a great example. I pray it finds distribution in the four-hour-plus form I saw, because otherwise people will be missing out.  The film-making is stellar: there are so many details in the execution of that huge story. Every sentiment about Guevara I’ve heard passionately expressed when I’ve travelled in Cuba and South America was not only dramatised, but without exposition, seamlessly, fulfilling the narrative. Then you have one of the first tour de force performances in film history that doesn’t rely on the close-up.

    This is a film, I later find, that had some negative responses…I was in a jury room of nine people with more expertise in their big toenails than any of the people writing in these papers: nine out of nine wanted to go out and change the world afterwards.

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  • Sight & Sound weighs in on Cannes

    OK, so Cannes is old news, but for me it’s never really over until Sight & Sound prints its annual Cannes review – for my money, the British magazine offers the most expansive and thoughtful coverage of the festival around. It’s not available online, but it’s worth grabbing a copy if you can. Meanwhile, I’ve picked out a few highlights from editor Nick James’ commentary on the key festival films.

    Interestingly, James agrees by and large with the jury’s selections. He names “The Class” as his favourite film of the festival, declaring it “so electrifying, satisfying and inspiring that it’s hard to believe it isn’t the work of professional fiction weavers at the top of their trade.” He also joins the chorus of approval for “Gomorra:” “So compelling is the detail that there’s no need for thriller conventions … Garrone’s direction makes incredible use of desolate locations and the acting is impeccable.” I must admit I am getting more excited about this film with every notice I read.

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  • No surprises as Cannes jury surprises

    Well, I missed that one badly. As is so often the case, the Cannes jury threw a curveball, handing their top prize to a late-breaking film that had generated very few column inches. Admittedly, I should have paid more attention to “The Class,” French auteur Laurent Cantet’s school-based docudrama.

    I was a huge fan of Cantet’s 2001 film “Time Out,” an ingeniously constructed character study, and while his 2005 follow-up “Heading South” was a major disappointment, Cantet’s name on the competition list should have rung more bells – not least when the very warm reviews started rolling in yesterday. Variety called it “one of the most substantive and purely entertaining movies in competition at Cannes this year.”

    Congratulations to Cantet then, and to France, scoring their first home victory at Cannes since “Under Satan’s Sun” triumphed in 1987. The other awards threw up fewer surprises, with Benicio Del Toro taking Best Actor as I, and many others, predicted. Meanwhile, “Three Monkeys” and the Italian one-two punch of “Gomorra” and “Il Divo” all took home major silverware, if not necessarily in the categories that I anticipated.

    I must admit to being shocked that the widely beloved “Waltz With Bashir” went home empty-handed; an omission for which Sean Penn and fellow juror Natalie Portman seemed almost apologetic. No matter: Ari Folman’s animated war documentary leaves the festival with a dedicated following, and I’m certainly putting it on my Best Animated Feature shortlist.

    The full list of competition winners follows:

    Palme d’Or: “The Class”

    Grand Jury Prize: “Gomorra”

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