Cannes. Soi Cowboy.

"This slowburning, enigmatic drama, mostly about a Danish man and a Thai woman awkwardly living together in Bangkok, is deeper and more likeable than Clay's controversial debut, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael. Gone are the latter film's shock tactics, allowing Clay's cinematic sophistication to sparkle all the better."

"That Clay has a fondness for the ennui generated by simply waiting is clear, as both Robert Carmichael and Soi Cowboy share a structural similarity in which the running time is used against the viewer in an attempt to generate a quiet before the storm-type anticipation that cannot but end with a violent catharsis," writes Boyd van Hoeij at european-films.net. "The problem with Soi Cowboy is that this quiet is awfully quiet. Antonioni, to whom this film pays 'indirect homage' as the director puts it, made ennui exciting cinematographically, but Clay's screenplay and editing leave out almost anything that might make the two main characters worthwhile to take an interest in for an hour or two."

"Little happens in the opening hour - and indeed, after a painstakingly slow opening in the couple's apartment, it's a full 25 minutes before the film's sparse dialogue even kicks in," notes Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily. "After an hour, however, the couple temporarily drops out of the picture, as the film shifts into vivid colour and a looser, more documentary-like camera style... and the story winds up in a sequence that may be fantasy, but is certainly indebted to David Lynch."

Blogging for the Independent, Romney adds: "A very un-British director, Clay is doffing his hat here to auteurs such as Carlos Reygadas and Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Perhaps the least British UK film you've ever seen, Soi Cowboy confirms - as his first film didn't quite - that Clay is a man to watch."

Un Certain Regard.

Update: "To screenwriter-director Thomas Clay's credit, he neither sensationalizes the relationship nor glamorizes its underworld backdrop," writes Maggie Lee in the Hollywood Reporter. "To the film's detriment, he does not dramatize them compellingly either."

Updates, 5/19: "Clay doesn't let us forget his self-appointed auteur status, name-checking his own first film alongside David Lynch's Inland Empire, writes Wendy Ide in the London Times. "But there is little sign of his supposed genius in this pretentious, fraudulent film."

Earlier: Geoffrey Macnab profiles Clay for the Guardian.

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 08.

Last year: Cannes @ 60. And Cannes 06.

Posted by dwhudson at May 17, 2008 6:40 AM