June 1, 2008

Cannes 08. Review orphans.

Cannes 08 To well and truly wrap the coverage of the coverage of this year's Cannes Film Festival until the magazines and journals run their overviews and assessments, what follows is a batch of reviews, beginnings of entries that never quite fattened up sufficiently to be presented on their own.

Un Certain Regard

  • "Stage-bound dialogue lurches from one monologue to the other in thesper Matheus Nachtergaele's helming debut The Dead Girl's Feast," writes Jay Weissberg in Variety. "Set in a remote Amazonia community that's installed a young mystic as a living saint, pic is maddeningly self-indulgent, pulling out many of the usual indie Latin cinema hallmarks, such as animal bloodletting, without bringing anything new to the concept."

  • "Moving confidently from one episode to the next and one style to another in the tracks of his main character, director/cinematographer Chung Mong-hong has made a distinctive calling card here, smartly zipping through the different genres from tearjerker to gangster," writes Dan Fainaru, reviewing Parking for Screen Daily. "Though not 100 percent convincing by itself as a story, such reservations fade in the light of strong performances from a solid ensemble cast with impeccable credentials, including some of the better known faces in Taiwan and Hong Kong cinema."

Directors' Fortnight

  • "Familiar themes get a fresh spin in well-crafted coming-of-ager Acne, an assured feature debut from Uruguayan writer-helmer Federico Veiroj," writes Alissa Simon in Variety. "Low-key serio-comic drama about a 13-year-old Jewish boy adjusting to bad skin, raging hormones and dysfunctional family builds on his prizewinning short As Follows. It also displays influence of the Control Z production team responsible for 2004 charmer Whisky." In the Hollywood Reporter, Peter Brunette finds Acne "modest to the point of invisibility, but not without its small charms."

  • "A film its actors will never see, Blind Loves traces four blind people in the Slovak Republic and investigates, in a seamless meld of documentary and fiction, how they experience love," writesLee Marshall in Screen Daily. "Touching and original, this first full-length outing from documentary and music-video director Juraj Lehotsky works by unsettling the audience: the question of who's acting (and how much) becomes tangled up with issues about the boundary between sighted and non-sighted perceptions of the world to intriguing effect."

  • "Writer-helmer Claire Simon's docu roots decisively win the battle over her dramatic inclinations in God's Offices, an initially intriguing but finally pointless assembly of interviews with women seeking advice at a family-planning center." Derek Elley, Variety.

  • HarryTuttle on Yin Lichuan's Knitting: "We find reminiscence of early Hou Hsiao-hsien (The Boys of Feng-Kwei) or early Jia Zhang-ke (Xiao Wu, Unknown Pleasures) without reaching a comparable plot development. It tells us about the broken lives of our contemporaries in China, the issues of having to seek work away from your home, to leave behind your family, to overcome uncomfortable situations and disappointing dreams."

  • "Two damaged dreamers seek their place in Iran's capital in Lonely Tunes of Tehran, a lyrical but monologue-heavy depiction of life on the margins," writes Alissa Simon in Variety. "Full of Samuel Beckett-like absurdities, third feature from Saman Salour (From Land of Silence, A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral) is a low-budgeter, shot without a production permit, using non-pros. Featuring some striking images - particularly in opening tableaux - and fresh sociological perspectives, it confirms helmer as an idiosyncratic auteur with a strong visual sense."

  • "Unable to speak French, an elderly Japanese painter wanders through Paris' Belleville looking for a place to sleep in tedious comedy Monsieur Morimoto, a self-indulgent second feature from French helmer Nicola Sornaga," writes Alissa Simon in Variety.

  • "On War tries to plunge deep into its heart of darkness and winds up more in the vicinity of its navel," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "Casting a very game Mathieu Amalric as his filmmaking alter ego, Bertrand Bonello offers up an extended rumination on life, liberty and man's relationship to nature, but for all its visual wonders, which are estimable, the film's initially amusing self-awareness gives way to self-seriousness and an impenetrable narrative rather too early in the game."

  • "A wonderfully exciting surprise here last night was the premiere of a first feature by a very young Argentinian filmmaker, Pablo Aguero (he is all of 31), Salamandra," writes Facets' Milos Stehlik. "Set in a 'lost valley' in Patagonia, a hangout for renegades and hippies from all over the world, the film is as ambitious as it is original.... I'd go see this film again if it were playing somewhere right now." More in detail from HarryTuttle.

  • "A young pickpocket goes about his business on the streets of Moscow, avoiding friendship or intimacy wherever possible, until insight into one victim's life seems to throw a ray of warmth on his benumbed soul in Shultes," writes Leslie Felperin in Variety. "Debutant Georgian-born writer-helmer Bakur Bakuradze demonstrates a flair and a taste for the bleak which could take him far on the fest circuit, but..."

  • "'The Pyrenees mountains are to the Alps what the Directors' Fortnight are to the Official Selection.' The above quote was made by one of the Larrieu brothers on stage, just before they screened Le Voyage aux Pyrénées for a theater that was as packed as it was good-humored," notes Cahiers du cinéma's Emmanuel Bourdeau. "The quote is lovely and amusing and we'll try to use it in the next few days.... What matters to the Larrieu brothers seems to be this: is it possible to make a film in the mountains without it becoming at the same time an erotic film?" More from Duane Byrge in the Hollywood Reporter.

Critics' Week

  • "It takes about an hour until Blood Appears in writer-director Pablo Fendrik's violent sophomore feature, but when it comes, it comes in buckets," quips Jordan Mintzer in Variety. "Narrative kicks off with an explosion of semen in plain daylight and terminates in a pool of pus and blood, both of which belong to Leandro (Nahuel Perez Biscayart), a grungy teenage drug dealer whose principal goal is to make it with a severely underage street vamp (Ailin Salas).... Blown-out colors and dizzying closeups don't make this ketchup fest any easier to digest."

  • "A gritty, emotionally charged coming-of-ager, Everybody Dies but Me offers up a bare-bones portrait of adolescent angst in the violent suburbs of Moscow," writes Jordan Mintzer in Variety. "Scripted like Mean Girls-meets-Kids, and shot with a handheld immediacy that reveals director Valeria Gaia Germanika's docu roots, the film features highly convincing perfs by three teenage nonpros, whose big mouths and Siberia-sized chutzpah bring chaos to their parents, peers and ultimately one another."

  • "A single French father and his shy teen daughter discover romance - and deal with a shift in their own relationship - during a Swedish summer holiday in modest but wistfully charming comic drama Grown Ups," writes Alissa Simon in Variety. "Debuting French helmer Anna Novion proves an astute observer of human interactions, catalyzing development of central pair with two supporting characters coming to decisions about their complicated love lives."

  • "An ambitious first film, Home starts out with one interesting idea but never quite manages to find another to back it up," writes Dan Fainaru at Screen Daily. "Home switches moods throughout, seeming at one point to be veering towards a Haneke-style cataclysm before it drops away. The presence of Isabelle Huppert and Olivier Gourmet should generate some interest in Gallic markets, but its shaky dramatic construction and hesitance to flesh out the plot may see it stall elsewhere." Mathieu Loewer talks with director Ursula Meier for Cineuropa.

  • "One of the best advertisements for contraception since Rosemary's Baby, writer-helmer Emily Atef's sophomore feature, The Stranger in Me, presents a pared-down portrait of one woman's harrowing struggle against the baby blues," writes Jordan Mintzer in Variety. "By putting the humanity of the protagonists first, their stories are the basis for compelling narratives that are easily accessible for a larger audience than their exotic topics might at first seem to suggest," writes Boyd van Hoeij in a piece on Stranger and Andreas Dresen's Cloud 9 at european-films.net.

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 08.

Last year: Cannes @ 60. And Cannes 06.

Posted by dwhudson at June 1, 2008 8:07 AM