Cannes 2015

[Spinal]

Opening Film
Standing Tall (La Tete Haute), Emmanuelle Bercot

Competition Jury President: Joel and Ethan Coen
Carol, Todd Haynes
Macbeth, Justin Kurzel
Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
La Loi du March, Stephane Brize
Marguerite and Julien, Valerie Donzelli
The Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone
The Assassin, Hou Hsiao Hsien
Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke
Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Koreeda
The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos
Mon roie, Maiwenn
Mia Madre, Nanni Moretti
Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes
Youth, Paulo Sorrentino
Louder Than Bombs, Joachim Trier
Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant
Sicario, Denis Villeneuve

Out of Competition
Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Irrational Man, Woody Allen
The Little Prince, Mark Osborne

Special Screenings
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Natalie Portman
Asphalte, Samuel Benchetrit
Panama, Pavle Vuckovic
Amnesia, Barbet Schroeder
Hayored Lema’Ala, Elad Keidan
Oka, Souleymane Cisse

Midnight Screenings
Amy, Asif Kapadia
Office, Hong Won-Chan

Un Certain Regard Jury President: Isabella Rossellini
Madonna, Shin Suwon
Maryland, Anna Winocour
The Fourth Direction, Gurvinder Singh
Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan
Hruter (Rams), Grimur Hakonarson
Kishibe No Tabi (Journey to the Shore), Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Je Suis Un Soldat (I Am a Soldier), Laurent Larivere
Zvizdan (The High Sun), Dalibor Matanic
The Other Side, Roberto Minervini
One Floor Below, Radu Muntean
Shameless, Oh Seung-Uk
The Chosen Ones, David Pablos
Nahid, Ida Panahandeh
The Treasure, Corneliu Porumboiu

[Stay Puft]

The Assassin, Hou Hsiao Hsien

http://i.imgur.com/56d7YN5.gif

[baby doll]

Cannes opening films usually suck and I've never heard of this Bercot person, so I wouldn't expect much from that. Like everyone else, I can't wait to see the new films by Cisse, Haynes, Hou, and Jia. I liked Kurzel's Snowtown but too often promising young directors get less interesting when they have more money to work with. Audiard's made at least one great film (Un prophète) and then one that was just alright (the one he made after that). Given Garrone's eclecticism, it's anyone's guess what he'll come up with next (I liked Reality less than Primo amore and Gomorrah, but even that wasn't bad). I haven't seen any of Hirokazu's films since Still Walking, which bored me silly, but I suppose I'll have to give him another shot. (I'm guessing Bordwell's gonna love his new one.) I haven't seen the movie Lanthimos made after Dogtooth which everyone seemed to think was terrible, but Dogtooth is still pretty awesome. I didn't hate Polisse. I've just seen one feature by Moretti (The Son's Room) and it sucked. Sorrentino is probably the most overrated European director now working, though I still sort of liked This Must Be the Place. I haven't seen the last couple Van Sant movies (the last one I saw was Paranoid Park), but I figure he's due for another comeback. I liked Villeneuve better when he was funny. I watch every new Woody Allen movie out of habit but I'm not expecting much. Midnight movies always suck so there's no need to bother with them. I've been meaning to give Kurosawa, jr. another shot for a while now. And I can't remember if I've seen anything of Porumboiu's aside from 12:08 East of Bucharest, but I remember that being fairly awesome.

[Pop Trash]

I haven't seen the movie Lanthimos made after Dogtooth which everyone seemed to think was terrible, but Dogtooth is still pretty awesome.

Alps wasn't "terrible." It was OK if a bit perplexing. I just remember it kind of dragged and wasn't as interesting as it seemed to think it was. I'm definitely curious to see how this new one gets received. Cannes response is often strange though. Keep in mind Clerks II received a standing ovation and Synecdoche, NY (which I think is one of the best films of the 21st Century) got a shoulder shrug of a response from a lot of people.

[Stay Puft]

Cannes has announced the remaining films:

Competition
Cronic, Michel Franco
The Valley of Love, Guillaume Nicloux

Un Certain Regard
Alias Maria, Jose Luis Rugeles Gracia
Taklub, Brillante Mendoza
Lamb, Yared Zeleke
Cemetery of Splendor, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
AN, Naomi Kawase

Special Screening
Don't Tell me the Boy Was Mad, Robert Guediguian

Midnight Screening
Love, Gaspar Noe

[Ivan Drago]

Midnight Screening
Love, Gaspar Noe

My brain is READY.

[Stay Puft]

It has begun!

Too early for daily reports but the opening film, Standing Tall, has screened. Looking through twitter for reactions, and they're decidedly mixed. Much better than last year's opener, but not much more than "ok, at least it wasn't bad, I guess."

Press screenings however are underway (they anticipate what is officially screening next) and Mike D'Angelo has already reported on two:


Umimachi Diary (Kore-eda): 60. Extremely sentimental, even for him; needed more bite to offset the treacle. So many lovely moments, though.


Tale of Tales (Garrone): 49. Liked one tale out of three. I think. It's hard to be sure given how poorly and pointlessly they're intercut.

Guy Lodge seems a bit more positive on Tale of Tales:


TALE OF TALES (B-) Apparent moral: only one woman may be happy at a time. Transporting at best, toe-curling at worst, never dull in between. [...] Been a while since I saw such a complete spectrum of performance quality as in TALE OF TALES. Bebe Cave a marvel, Vincent Cassel appalling.

[Peng]

So looking forward to that Koreeda now. Mike is not big on the director but that score indicates it's still his second favorite after After Life.

[Stay Puft]

Ah, this is cool. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky is doing the Cannes reports for A.V. Club this year. His first one is up here:
http://www.avclub.com/article/fractured-fairy-tale-highlights-our-first-day-cann-219408

Mike D'Angelo is also doing his daily reports, as before, over at The Dissolve. His first one is here:
http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1024-day-1-a-triple-helping-of-wtf/


So looking forward to that Koreeda now. Mike is not big on the director but that score indicates it's still his second favorite after After Life.

Yeah, he was surprisingly positive on it, but I'm still a little wary. The overall consensus on the film is positive, but that always seems to be the case with new Koreeda joints and I can't say I've been much of a fan since Still Walking. Vishnevetsky goes in a little hard on it in his A.V. Club report; it's probably the harshest thing I've read about the film but still not completely negative:


Instead, my first film of the festival is Our Little Sister (Grade: C+, but could go up), Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest two-plus hours of pointless lateral camera movements accompanied by twinkly piano. Adapted from a josei manga called Umimachi Diary, the film concerns three grown-up sisters who meet their teenage half-sister after their’s father’s death, and invite her to live with them in their big dilapidated house in seaside Kamakura. It inhabits an idealized universe, where everyone acts touchingly decent and every article of clothing hangs just right.

[Ezee E]

PREDICTIONS

TOP AWARDS (Palme D'Or, Grand Prix, the 3rd prize one):
Son of Saul
Dheepan
MacBeth

Acting awards:
Gerard Depardieu (seems like the Coens would love to award him for some reason)
Rooney Mara or Isabelle Huppert

Other awards:
Screenplay - Youth
Director - The Lobster's Lanthimos
Cinematography - Sicario (How could the Coens say no to Deakins?)

[Stay Puft]

Been pretty busy the last few days, quite a bit to catch up on.

Son of Saul is certainly a contender. Some are also naming Tale of Tales as a contender, on the basis of Garrone's previous two films winning awards, and this one being so unique and singular. The new frontrunner, however, appears to be Carol, from Todd Haynes. There have been some muted reviews, but even those are generally positive; for the most part, the reactions have been overwhelmingly and passionately positive. Mike D'Angelo has already named it his favorite of the fest (with a 76 rating, a huge lead over everything else he has rated so far). Almost assuredly taking home acting awards if it doesn't grab one of the top prizes, but who knows, could even grab a share of them. I don't think there's a hard rule about films getting more than one prize, is there?

More recently, I've seen a lot of people on twitter pegging Vincent Lindon as the frontrunner for Best Actor. The Measure of a Man sounds like a promising film, something I hadn't even heard about before the festival. I can't say I'm familiar with Stéphane Brizé's work, though Lindon has been in some of my favorite French exports over the last few years (La moustache, Bastards).

In Out of Competition news, Inside Out premiered today and has been getting glowing reviews. Mad Max: Fury Road was similarly met with an ecstatic response on the Croisette earlier in the fest. Critics have been saying both of these films could have easily competed with anything in the official Competition. This is also true of films like the new one from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which Cahiers says is outrageous to not have in Competition, and the new Desplechin, which has been called a return to form and an impressive coup for the Fortnight sidebar. It's also not finished screening yet, but the three-part Miguel Gomes epic in the Fortnight is apparently something of a marvel. Guy Lodge and Scott Foundas have seen the first two parts now and are already calling it the most exciting thing screening in Cannes.

It seems like, with a couple exceptions like Son of Saul and Carol, Cannes 2015 is shaping up to be all about films screening outside of the official Competition.

[Watashi]

Can Mad Max or Inside Out not be eligible for competition? Is there a rule of what can be eligible or not?

[Winston*]

Can Mad Max or Inside Out not be eligible for competition? Is there a rule of what can be eligible or not?

The festival chooses 20 films to compete in competition before the festival, which those two are not a part of.

[Watashi]

The festival chooses 20 films to compete in competition before the festival, which those two are not a part of.

Yeah, I know, but it would be cool to see Cannes mix it up a bit and include a crazy post-apocalyptic car chase movie and a Pixar film. Better than the latest Gus Van Sant snoozefest.

[Stay Puft]

As for what's going on in Competition, well...

Gus Van Sant is receiving the critical thrashing of a lifetime for The Sea of Trees. I won't dwell on that, but go peruse twitter if you want to experience the ether.

The only standout this weekend was Carol. The rest of the films, like Mon Roi from Maïwen and Mia Madre from Nanni Morretti, are hardly the talk of the town. Nothing overwhelmingly positive or negative, nothing terribly exciting. Reactions noted, reviews filed, discussion moves on.

The Lobster failed to spark the same excitement as Dogtooth, but has still seen respectable reviews. I noticed a recurring theme on twitter with critics saying it starts strong but runs out of ideas in the last third, but others are much more positive, with Ignatiy Vishnevetsky for example giving it a B+ and naming it his personal favorite of the Competition so far (being one of the few a bit more muted in enthusiasm for Carol), saying:


It’s a funny, unsettling, occasionally gruesome riff on the way a society can prioritize long-term relationships while codifying them into meaningless gesture. Dressed in identical clothes, the guests gather in the ballroom, where the married hotel managers serenade them with duets or perform skits about the importance of having a partner. The dialogue and performances are deliberately affectless (and inherently comic), suggesting a world of pure values, where every sentence is a declarative statement.

As the shocks and surreal-satirical conceits pile on, they accumulate meaning, leading to a semi-ambiguous finale that questions whether it’s even possible for two people to be in love on terms other than the ones their culture has laid out for them. There’s comedy that’s weird for its own sake, and then there’s this.

One of the Competition films I'm excited to see is the new Joachim Trier, Louder than Bombs, which is his first English language feature. Unfortunately, some are saying he has hit the "foreign to English" snafu, with Peter Bradshaw for example calling it a surprising disappointment. Others, such as Mike D'Angelo, are admiring its craft while saying the actual content is a forgettable melodrama. Vishnevetsky, however, has picked up the defense, handing out his second B+ of the fest and saying:


With its dead ends and changes in perspectives, Louder Than Bombs is the kind of multi-faceted, ambitious, incompletely resolved American drama that American filmmakers never seem to get around to making: novelistic in subject and structure, but completely cinematic in the way it expresses itself, even if Trier’s camera style never rises to the sophistication of his influences. Still, this is a film of superb performances, mysteries, and moments of earthy poeticism, like the way a drunk girl’s piss snaking down a driveway cuts into a teenage boy’s tear. Some might complain that this is a movie about people doing nothing about nothing, but it contains plenty.

And coming up this week: the Asian Cult! Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhang-ke are bringing new movies to the Croisette. Much hype.

[Ezee E]

Waiting for Gaspar Noe.

[Stay Puft]

Waiting for Gaspar Noe.

In the meantime, here's the latest and extremely NSFW poster for the film:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/new-nsfw-extremely-graphic-adults-only-poster-for-gaspar-noes-love-20150426

That's our Gaspar!

[Ivan Drago]

Waiting for Gaspar Noe.

This.

Youth and Natalie Portman's film, too.

[Ezee E]

This.

Youth and Natalie Portman's film, too.

Portman's movie has premiered to mostly good reviews.

There's a decent amount of movies despite not too many heavy-hitting directors.

[ledfloyd]

The new Desplechin, Hou, and Jia are all getting really good notices. The Apichatpong seems to be pleasing people, but blowing fewer minds than his previous films.

[Stay Puft]

The first set of awards have rolled out.

Fipresci prizes have gone out to Son of Saul (official comp), Masaan (un certain regard) and Paulina (critic's week). Paulina also won the top prize for Critic's Week. The Ecumenical Jury Award for the official comp went out to Nanni Moretti's My Mother.

Perhaps most importantly, the Palm Dog went to Lucky, from Arabian Nights. For context, the Palm Dog is a recent tradition, awarded every year by a panel of British journalists. A French reporter was quoted this year as saying, "Luckily, I like dogs. But seen from the French perspective, this is a bit bizarre. The British are weird."

And here are the prizes for Un Certain Regard, as decided by Isabella Rossellini's jury:

Un Certain Regard Award
Rams, by Grimur Hakonarson

Jury Prize
The High Sun, by Dalibor Matanic

Best Director Prize
Journey to the Sea, by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Un Certain Talent Prize
The Treasure, by Corneliu Porumboiu

Promising Future Prize (tie)
Masaan, by Neeraj Ghaywan
Nahid, by Ida Panahandeh

[Pop Trash]

I predict Todd Haynes or Hou Hsiao-Hsien will win the Palme d'Or.

[baby doll]

I predict the Coens will give the Palme d'or to Sea of Trees just to see the look on everyone's faces.

[ledfloyd]

So... Audiard, huh?

[Watashi]

It's so adorable watching a bunch of film bloggers whine and complain over a film they haven't even seen.

[Stay Puft]

Audiard outta nowhere.

The full list of awards:

Palme d'Or
Dheepan, by Jacques Audiard

Grand Prize
Son of Saul, by Laszlo Nemes

Best Director
Hou Hsiao-hsien for The Assassin

Best Actor
Vincent Lindon for The Measure of a Man

Best Actress (tie)
Rooney Mara for Carol
Emmanuel Bercot for Mon Roi

Best Screenplay
Michel Franco for Chronic

Jury Prize
The Lobster, by Yorgos Lanthimos

Camera d'Or
La Tierra y la Sombra, by Cesar Augusto Acevedo

Palme d'Or for Short Film
Waves '98, by Ely Dagher

[Watashi]

I know I've complained about it before in previous Cannes threads, but the one film per award rule is dumb. So very dumb.

[Winston*]

It's so adorable watching a bunch of film bloggers whine and complain over a film they haven't even seen.

What are they outraged about? Audiard consistently makes good films.

[Pop Trash]

What are they outraged about? Audiard consistently makes good films.

Mike D'Angelo and Ignaity V. are the only two critics I've been following and they were both nonplussed about it. I liked (but didn't love) A Prophet and The Beat My Heart Skipped. A Prophet is basically Goodfellas in prison.

[Winston*]

Being nonplussed is kind of D'Angelo's modus operandi.

[baby doll]

I know I've complained about it before in previous Cannes threads, but the one film per award rule is dumb. So very dumb.It makes sense to me as it allows the jury to give awards to a greater number of films. Besides, it's enough of an honour to win one award at Cannes; more than that would be redundant.

[Peng]

I don't mind that rule, but not the one about not giving it to anything or anyone they perceive to be big profile. I suspect that's why it's Mara but not Cate (or both). Like Stephen Frears talking about how all his jury liked No Country for Old Men but didn't think it needed the "profile boost".

[Ezee E]

PREDICTIONS

TOP AWARDS (Palme D'Or, Grand Prix, the 3rd prize one):
Son of Saul
Dheepan
MacBeth

Acting awards:
Gerard Depardieu (seems like the Coens would love to award him for some reason)
Rooney Mara or Isabelle Huppert

Other awards:
Screenplay - Youth
Director - The Lobster's Lanthimos
Cinematography - Sicario (How could the Coens say no to Deakins?)

not too shabby.

[baby doll]

I don't mind that rule, but not the one about not giving it to anything or anyone they perceive to be big profile. I suspect that's why it's Mara but not Cate (or both). Like Stephen Frears talking about how all his jury liked No Country for Old Men but didn't think it needed the "profile boost".I don't think that's a rule. Still, I can understand juries not wanting to give an award to a film that a lot of people are going to see anyway at the expense of a less commercial one since the whole point of festivals like Cannes is to generate publicity for movies that would otherwise not receive a whole lot. It's basically Affirmative Action for art cinema but I'm comfortable with that.

[Spinal]

If a film is being shown "In Competition", it should be in the competition.

(This post brought to you by Aaron Sorkin.)

[Dukefrukem]

So Sea of Trees was booed here?

[Ezee E]

So Sea of Trees was booed here?

In Cannes, yes. I bet it gets booed in the US too.

[baby doll]

If a film is being shown "In Competition", it should be in the competition.

(This post brought to you by Aaron Sorkin.)It's not the World Cup. It's just a platform to promote movies.

[Spinal]

It's not the World Cup. It's just a platform to promote movies.

I'm not the one who came up with the word 'competition' to describe this platform to promote movies.

[baby doll]

I'm not the one who came up with the word 'competition' to describe this platform to promote movies.Never trust labels.

Incidentally, there are plenty examples of mainstream American releases winning the Palme d'or over arguably more deserving works from other countries (Wild at Heart and Fahrenheit 9/11 being two of the fishier Palme winners of the past quarter century).

[Grouchy]

It's not the World Cup. It's just a platform to promote movies.
One of the very few times I've agreed with baby doll on something.