Cannes, 5/18.

The Guardian's Xan Brooks: "Last night I attended the press screening of Summer Palace, Lou Ye's epic, elegiac tale of youthful dreams and adult disillusion, set against the backdrop of Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin wall. It's a torrid romance with a sharp eye for the details of Chinese life, evoking a culture where cool, lusty teens dance the conga to cheesy state-sanctioned pop records before slipping out back, tugging off their nerdy cardigans and screwing each other senseless.... [A] first-rate drama that cast a curious spell over its audience."

But Time Out's Geoff Andrew finds "that Lou's over-extended blend of troubled romance and existential meditation on the almost inevitable loss of erotic and political idealism comes over as a severe disappointment from the writer-director best known in the UK for the very fine Suzhou River." More from the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt.

Also, Gary Younge: "Artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon's latest work, Zidane, a 21st century portrait, which premieres next week at Cannes, reveals why the connection [between soccer and philosophy] for some is second nature. Gordon, 39, trains cameras on the star of France and Real Madrid, Zinedine Zidane, and then follows only him for the duration of an entire Real Madrid-Villarreal game."

The LA Weekly's Scott Foundas has arrived in Cannes and revived his blog.

Jeffrey Wells: "The first profoundly good film of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival screened early this morning - Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley." Related: In the Hollywood Reporter, Stuart Kemp talks with Loach and reports on his next project.

More HR reviews:

• Ray Bennett on the "charming collection of vignettes," Paris je t'aime (and the BBC has the latest update over the legal squabble between the film's producers).

• Megan Lehmann on Rolf de Heer's Ten Canoes - she likes it.

• Bernard Besserglik on the "finely observed slice of life," Bled Number One, and on Ici Najac, A Vous la Terre (Najac Calling, Over to You Earth), which "purports to be a call to arms against globalization. In fact it is a celebration rather than a manifesto, a wry shrug at the contradictions involved in living off the land in the digital age, and all the more enjoyable for that."

Also, Anne Thompson: "It is a seller's market at Cannes this year as a plethora of American buyers prepare to scour for possible gems." As for the films, she measures the buzz on her blog.

"Every day through the end of the 2006 Festival de Cannes, including weekends, indieWIRE will be publishing interviews with filmmakers participating in the L'Atelier du Festival, which according to Cannes, "was created in 2005 to reveal a new generation of filmmakers through the world, whose works, still at the project stage, might one day be honoured by being selected for the Cannes Film Festival.'" First up: Road, Movie director Dev Benegal.

Also at iW: Today's Market Daily and Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez's dispatch covering opening day festivities.

It's a little early to place bets on the Palme d'Or, but Salon's Andrew O'Hehir's got two hunches: "Rachid Bouchareb's Indigènes, a purportedly rousing story of Algerians fighting for de Gaulle's French army against the Nazis (even though they've never been to France); and Aki Kaurismäki's Lights in the Dusk, a whimsical, downbeat Finnish fairy tale about a Chaplinesque hero victimized by a vicious society."

Fabien Lemercier previews Director's Fortnight opener, Princess, by Anders Morgenthaler, for Cineuropa.

Tom Hall has a story to tell about IFC's Cannes Cam.

Posted by dwhudson at May 18, 2006 11:02 AM