Wrapping Cannes, 5/29.

"This year he got lucky"? Surely Manohla Dargis and AO Scott, reporting on Sunday night's awards ceremony in Cannes for the New York Times, mean that only in the best sense. Regardless, they do conclude, "Coupled with Mr Loach's victory, Ms Arnold's made this an unusually strong year for British filmmakers, though their harsh portrayal of their country's past and present are not likely to please the tourist board."

An "exceptional year for the British film industry," write Charlotte Higgins and Mark Brown, who go on to quote Loach in the Guardian:

In Britain we have a really rich film culture which rarely gets on to cinema screens. Our writers, dramatists and visual culture are much stronger than people think. We are limited by what the Americans want us to do. We need film distributors, and especially exhibitors [cinemas] to put our films on the screen. We need to be seen as part of European and world cinema, not as an extension of America.

"Was Loach a compromise choice?" asks Peter Bradshaw. "Or a 'lifetime achievement' award for a Cannes favorite who has been in the running for the big prize on seven previous occasions? Such speculation is by the way, and perhaps churlish. Loach has made a fine and powerful film... [and] has toughly pursued an unfashionably political, engaged cinema."

"What does this tell us?" asks the Telegraph's David Gritten. "Well, it's not that 'the French adore Ken Loach,' as one report put it this morning," he blogs, referring to Hugh Davies's report in his own paper, the Telegraph. No, "what this victory tells us is that Loach is hugely respected in the world's film community, but a prophet with insufficient honour in his own country. He has a niche following in Britain who admire his work, but he has found it hard to reach a broader audience with his left-of-center films, most of which are outstanding."

Exactly. "Lucky"?!

Roger Ebert calls Loach's win "a surprise and a delight in about equal measure."

"We can't begrudge the Palme d'Or," blog Mary and Richard Corliss at Time. "If only Loach's movie had been as sharp and powerful an his acceptance speech."

Cineuropa's Fabien Lemercier gathers quotes from all the winners.

Meanwhile, the Australian reports on the winner of the Jury Prize handed out as part of the Un Certain Regard section, Ten Canoes.

Mike D'Angelo, blogging at Nerve, compares this year's Competition lineup with those of years past - and finds it wanting. Jonathan Romney, writing in the Independent, agrees.

If you had other things on your mind this past couple of weeks, the Telegraph runs Sukhdev Sandhu's diary, a fine and quick way to snap up the gist and move on, if you're so inclined. There you'll also find David Gritten arguing: "Big-bucks movies are killing quality at Cannes."

"Cannes can turn all that attention into a harsh red glare when a movie does not deliver," warns Anne Thompson in the Hollywood Reporter. "With the speed of the Internet, movies are declared winners and losers within moments of their final closing credits." David Poland responds.

"[T]o look at the American movies represented in Cannes is to see politics everywhere," wrote AO Scott in the NYT a few days ago.

Anthony Kaufman: "Of the nine films I most anticipated seeing at Cannes, two exceeded expectations (Volver, Red Road), another three delivered about what was expected (Taxidermia, Climates, Babel), a couple fell short (Fast Food Nation, Flandres)."

From Jason Solomons's overview in the Observer: "The stylistic tics of Italy's Paolo Sorrentino in The Family Friend drove me barmy; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates, from Turkey, is self-obsessed art cinema at its most cold; Nanni Moretti's The Caiman was over-reliant on the director's self-regarding charm. Richard Kelly's Southland Tales was so bad it made me wonder if he'd ever met a human being." And he decides that "the new hotbed of cinematic invention is Belgium."

As he left a few days ago, the Guardian's Xan Brooks reflected on the highlights: "In the cafés and bars people have been raving about titles such as The Host (a Korean monster movie), John Cameron Mitchell's sexed-up Shortbus and the Raymond Carver adaptation Jindabyne." More highs, more lows from Dave McCoy at MSN Movies.

Matt Dentler's got pix.

The latest indieWIRE L'Atelier du Festival interview: Buick Rivera director Goran Rusinovic.

"Cannes is a curious thing," writes Caveh Zahedi. "It's vulgar, it's phony, it's rubbish, and yet, it is the still the highest honor that a filmmaker aspires to."

Via They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, Simon Haupt scopes his highs and lows in the Globe and Mail, Geoff Pevere finds the Americans talking politics and the AP's Angela Doland admires the Latin American entries.

Movie City News gathers takes on the fest from Gautaman Bhaskaran in the Seoul Times, Simrat Ghuman for India's IBN and Turkey's Zaman.

Posted by dwhudson at May 29, 2006 8:09 AM