Cannes. Summer Palace.

"Sex and politics are on full boil in Lou Ye's Summer Palace, an engrossing, estimably ambitious epic about the generation of Chinese students who came of age brutally in 1989 when army tanks took aim at protesters agitating for democratic reforms," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times (and yes, it does look like I'm going to have to quote that piece at least four times today. If I were on the Pulitzer committee...) "It would be a shame," she continues, "if this behind-the-scenes wrangling got in the way of the film, which beautifully blends the political with the personal much as Flaubert does in Sentimental Education, his moral history of a generation set against the backdrop of revolution, and Philippe Garrel does in Regular Lovers, his film about May 1968 and its aftermath."

For more on that wrangling, though, see Robert W Welkos in the Los Angeles Times and Grady Hendrix.

Allan Hunter in Screen Daily: "The fourth feature from Suzhou River director Lou Ye is easily his most accessible, although not necessarily his most accomplished as a sprawling narrative threatens to evade his control."

Variety's Derek Elley calls the film "an occasionally involving but way over-stretched tapestry that plays like a French art movie in oriental dress."

The Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandu: "Thirty minutes too long, this is still a raw and unsettling new work."

Earlier: Xan Brooks in the Guardian, Geoff Andrew in Time Out and Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter.

Update: "A snooze and a half," declares Mike D'Angelo at Nerve. "Lou has a sharp eye, but narrative economy and compelling characterizations continue to elude him."

Update, 5/20: George the Cyclist saw the film with a programmer for Facets: "[W]e were both riveted."

Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE: The movie's first half is its strongest.... If Chinese censors demand cuts to the film, unfortunately, they probably won't be the ones that Summer Palace needs."

Updates, 5/21: Gary Meyer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian: "The film is often powerful, vibrant and involving, if a bit difficult to follow at times."

The Observer's Jason Solomons: "Although it's over-long and meandering, I enjoyed this stylish, atmospheric, often tender film immensely and, given that Wong Kar Wai was speaking of his pride at being the first Chinese Jury President and how much it meant for his nation, one can reckon on an award for this."

Updates, 5/23: Time's Richard Corliss: "Hao Lei, the young actress who plays Yu Hong, has an urgent eroticism that mesmerizes the audience (or at least this member of it). She made me think both of the young Joan Chen, who was a teen idol before coming to the West in the early 80s, and of the divine, androgynous Leslie Cheung, best known for his role as the female impersonator in Chen Kaige's Farewell to My Concubine. In other words, she's hot and she's cool."

A "fascinating mess," comments J Hoberman in the Voice.

Update, 5/26: For Sheila Johnston, writing in the Independent, "it runs out of steam as the characters go their separate ways and become mired in self-pity."

Posted by dwhudson at May 19, 2006 7:14 AM