Cannes. Eldorado.

"A couple of genial idiots in a beat-up Chevy hit the Belgian blacktops in Bouli Lanners's funny and melancholy road picture Eldorado with widescreen images that suggest the American West and a soundtrack to match," writes Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter.

"Wacky rural humor and a yearning for country roads run smack into urban decay and city nightmares as Lanners puts his getaway trip into a hard u-turn in a story of ultimately frustrated generosity."

"This off-beat tragicomic road movie from Belgium is one of the sleeper hits of the festival," writes the London Times' Wendy Ide. "Screening in the Director's Fortnight sidebar, it's a far cry from the dour, grey perception of Belgian cinema fostered by the work of people like the Dardenne brothers.... The landscapes and soundtrack choices evoke American road movies of a bygone era; the sensibility is definitely European."

This is a "small but damn-near perfectly formed serio-comedy," writes Leslie Felperin in Variety. It "strikes a just-so balance between absurdist humor and sadness. Yet pic never puts a wrong foot forward in the direction of sentimentality or cliche."

Aurore Engelen talks with Lanners for Cineuropa.

---

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 08.

Last year: Cannes @ 60. And Cannes 06.

---

Posted by dwhudson at May 23, 2008 10:02 AM