May 28, 2007

Cannes. California Dreamin'.

California Dreamin' "In its closing ceremony on Sunday the festival bestowed two of its most important prizes on Romanian films, affirming the vitality of this recently emerging cinema," write Manohla Dargis and AO Scott in the New York Times. Besides the Palme d'Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, "the jury for Un Certain Regard, a sidebar to the main competition, gave its highest honor to California Dreamin', a first feature by Cristian Nemescu set in Romania during the Kosovo war of 1999. It was a poignant victory, because Mr Nemescu died in an automobile accident last year at the age of 27."

Dan Fainaru, writing for Screen Daily, presumes the honor is "more for its intentions than the actual outcome." This "is the rough cut of a film that might have looked entirely different once completed.... Overlong, bloated and unfocused, somewhere in-between a raucous Balkan comedy and a thoughtful reflection on Romania's present state, it could have gone any number of ways in Nemescu's hands, but without his input, this is the kind of material better fit for an archive in memory of a promising talent than exhibited in public."

"With California Dreamin' the young Nemescu leaves us with an unconventional 'will,' fully of irony and disappointment yet without the scepticism that characterises some of Eastern European cinema," writes Camille de Marco at Cineuropa. "On the contrary, it is full of love for life and faith in the future."

Update, 5/29: "It's not the most subtle allegory for the American habit of forcibly exporting democracy and turning foreign misadventures into messy conflagrations," notes Dennis Lim at IFC News. "But it has energy, wit and heart to spare and, as an anti-American smackdown, even maintains an affection for its ostensible targets. Nemescu's first and last film provided a largely apolitical Cannes edition with its missing Iraq movie and a festival of mostly familiar faces and known quantities with its major discovery."

Cannes @ 60. Index.

Posted by dwhudson at May 28, 2007 3:52 AM