Cannes Film Festival 2015

[Chris Knipp]

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CANNES 2015 - 13-24 MAY

In Competition

Opening Film
Emmanuelle BERCOT
LA TÊTE HAUTE
(STANDING TALL)
Out of Competition 2h00

***
Jacques AUDIARD
DHEEPAN (TEMPORARY TITLE) 1h49

Stéphane BRIZÉ
LA LOI DU MARCHÉ
(THE MEASURE OF A MAN ) 1h32

Valérie DONZELLI
MARGUERITE ET JULIEN
(MARGUERITE AND JULIEN) 1h50

Matteo GARRONE
IL RACCONTO DEI RACCONTI
(TALE OF TALES) 2h05

Todd HAYNES
CAROL 1h58

HOU Hsiao Hsien
NIE YINNIANG
(THE ASSASSIN) 2h00

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Assassin

JIA Zhang-Ke
SHAN HE GU REN
(MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART) 2h00

KORE-EDA Hirokazu
UMIMACHI DIARY
(OUR LITTLE SISTER) 2h08

Justin KURZEL
MACBETH 1h53

Yorgos LANTHIMOS
THE LOBSTER 1h58

MAÏWENN
MON ROI 2h10

Nanni MORETTI
MIA MADRE 1h42

László NEMES
SAUL FIA
(SON OF SAUL) 1st film 1h47

Paolo SORRENTINO
YOUTH 1h58

Joachim TRIER
LOUDER THAN BOMBS 1h45

Gus VAN SANT
THE SEA OF TREES
1h50

Denis VILLENEUVE
SICARIO 2h01


UN CERTAIN REGARD

Neeraj GHAYWAN
MASAAN
1st film 1h43

Grímur HÁKONARSON
HRÚTAR
(RAMS) 1h30

KUROSAWA Kiyoshi
KISHIBE NO TABI
(JOURNEY TO THE SHORE) 2h08

Laurent LARIVIÈRE
JE SUIS UN SOLDAT
(I AM A SOLDIER)
1st film 1h36

Dalibor MATANIC
ZVIZDAN
(THE HIGH SUN) 2h03

Roberto MINERVINI
THE OTHER SIDE 1h30

Radu MUNTEAN
UN ETAJ MAI JOS
(ONE FLOOR BELOW) 1h33

OH Seung-Uk
MU-ROE-HAN
(THE SHAMELESS) 1h58

David PABLOS
LAS ELEGIDAS
(THE CHOSEN ONES) 1h45

Ida PANAHANDEH
NAHID 1h44

Corneliu PORUMBOIU
COMOARA
(THE TREASURE) 1h30

Gurvinder SINGH CHAUTHI KOOT
(THE FOURTH DIRECTION) 1h55

SHIN Suwon
MADONNA 2h01

Alice WINOCOUR
MARYLAND 1h40


OUT OF COMPETITION

Woody ALLEN
IRRATIONAL MAN 1h36

Pete DOCTER
Ronaldo DEL CARMEN
INSIDE OUT 1h42

George MILLER
MAD MAX : FURY ROAD 2h00

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Mad Max: Fury Road (Nicholas Hoult)

Mark OSBORNE
THE LITTLE PRINCE 1h48


MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

HONG Won-Chan
O PISEU
(OFFICE)
1st film 1h49

Asif KAPADIA
AMY 2h07


SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Samuel BENCHETRIT
ASPHALTE 1h40

Souleymane CISSE
OKA 1h50

Elad KEIDAN
HAYORED LEMA'ALA
1st film 1h45

Natalie PORTMAN
SIPUR AL AHAVA VE CHOSHECH
(A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS) 1st film 1h35

Barbet SCHROEDER
AMNESIA 1h36
Trailer (https://vimeo.com/124401381)

Pavle VUCKOVIC
PANAMA
1st film

[THESE LISTS ARE NOT COMPLETE YET.]

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[Chris Knipp]

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COMPETITION FILMS.
You will find a handsome series of stills for each of the 19 Competition films of this year's Cannes with blurbs at the French magazine Télérama . . . h e r e (http://www.telerama.fr/festival-de-cannes/2015/cannes-2015-les-19-films-de-la-competition-en-images,125820.php#).

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Marguerite et Julien, de Valérie Donzelli
Ce film est rien moins qu'un scénario de Jean Gruault écrit pour François Truffaut, une histoire d'inceste entre frère et sœur, tiré d'un fait divers du début du XVIIe siècle, que le réalisateur n'a donc jamais tourné. Valérie Donzelli, qui avait fait l'ouverture de la Semaine de la critique pour La Guerre est déclarée, retrouve une nouvelle fois Jérémie Elkaïm, qui jouera aux côtés d'Anaïs Demoustier.

[Chris Knipp]

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Cannes 2015 Film blog
Cannes 2015: the Brits aren't coming, but I'm still glad to go

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Peter Bradshaw
Guardian Film Critic

English-language movies will be everywhere at this year’s film festival – it’s just a shame so few Brits are behind them

From the Guardian, London (16 April 2015) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/apr/16/cannes-2015-british-directors-peter-bradshaw-preview)

It is always an exciting moment, and not just for trainspotters. The announcement of the Cannes competition list is effectively the beginning of a new film year, and this is the first with the festival’s new president, Pierre Lescure, who is taking over from the legendary, mandarin-figure Gilles Jacob. Although the bullish, vigorous Thierry Frémaux is, of course, the general delegate and prime mover in the choice of films, the choice of jury members and therefore the likely choice of winners. The dominance of Cannes on the international film festival circuit is such that these are the films that will be seen, distributed, talked about and given prizes in the months to come.

It isn’t, on the face of it, a big Cannes year for Brits. Asif Kapadia’s documentary Amy, about Amy Winehouse, has been selected for a midnight screening, but there are no British directors elsewhere, and so far there is no sign of one of the year’s most anticipated films: Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise, adapted from the JG Ballard novel and starring Tom Hiddleston. Although this may change – there are some more competition films yet to be announced. It is, however, a good year for the British company Film4, which helped to finance Todd Haynes’s Carol, Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster.

At first glance, Haynes and Kurzel’s films are the most eye-catching English-language titles. Kurzel’s Snowtown, in 2011, was a challenging and violent movie. His version of Macbeth stars Michael Fassbender as the title character, Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth and Paddy Considine as Banquo. The pairing of Fassbender and Cotillard looks absolutely explosive, although it will be interesting to see what accent Cotillard will be using (hopefully, the straightforward French-flavoured English she had in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris).

Carol by director Todd Haynes is based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, about a young woman working at a department store who falls in love with an elegant older female customer called Carol. Cate Blanchett plays Carol and Rooney Mara, who has perhaps been off the radar a little lately, plays the younger woman, Therese. This will be a hot ticket, and certainly a film to compare with Haynes’s gay-themed period movie Far from Heaven.

More star power at Cannes is provided by Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro. They appear in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, which looks like a brash and accessible thriller about a young FBI agent (Blunt) who joins an undercover task force to bring down a Mexican cartel mobster (Del Toro) and finds that this involves all kinds of moral quandaries.

Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall is the opening gala, making her the first female director since 1987 to have been chosen to launch the festival. Her drama concerns a troubled tearaway and the judge and social worker who try to help him. It is not a very glam film to open with, but Catherine Deneuve, as the judge, will undoubtedly be a queenly presence on the red carpet.

The other two films by women this year are Mon Roi, by Maïwenn, which is reportedly the passionate love story of a couple with a child and stars Vincent Cassel, Louis Garrel and, in fact, Bercot; and Valérie Donzelli’s Margeurite et Julien, about the siblings Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, who were executed in 1603 for incest.

Michael Caine stars in Sorrentino’s new film, La Giovinezza, or Youth, as a retired British orchestra conductor. The trailer looks gorgeous, although Caine’s expression of stricken ennui has led to comments that the role might otherwise have gone to Toni Servillo. This newspaper is rumoured to make a brief cameo.

There are two other Italian heavy hitters. One is Matteo Garrone, much admired for his 2008 film Gomorrah, based on the whistleblowing book about organised crime in Italy by Roberto Saviano, an author who is still in Rushdie-like hiding. Garrone’s Tale of Tales stars Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel and Salma Hayek, and is a fantasy-horror movie based on the 17th-century folktales of Giambattista Basile.

The other Italian star is Nanni Moretti, who has made-man status at Cannes on account of being a Palme d’Or winner in 2001 for his heartbreaking family story The Son’s Room. His film Mia Madre returns Moretti to the same self-reflexive, personal style of film-making: a director battling to make a movie while her mother lies dying in hospital.

Gus Van Sant is a favoured director at Cannes, and he returns with a new film, The Sea of Trees, written by Chris Sparling (who scripted the ultra-minimalist claustrophobia drama Buried, featuring Ryan Reynolds). Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe star in the story of a depressed American who encounters a Japanese man lost in Aokigahara, the dense 14-square-mile forest at the base of Mount Fuji known as “Sea of Trees” or “Suicide Forest” – a place where people come to take their own lives. It promises to be a film in Van Sant’s reflective, austere manner, rather than his more mainstream Hollywood mode.

Yorgos Lanthimos, whose Dogtooth showed in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2009 and made him a director to watch, is the standard-bearer of the new Greek wave of movie-making. He comes back with The Lobster, a film with a glorious premise. In a dystopian future, unattached people are forced to find a partner within a certain length of time; if they fail to do so, they will be transformed into animals and released into the woods. It stars Colin Farrell and Léa Seydoux, and the idea of animal transformation for these actors is glorious. This is keenly anticipated, to say the least.

Louder Than Bombs, starring Jesse Eisenberg and written by Eskil Vogt, is the new film by the Norwegian director Joachim Trier (distantly related to Lars von Trier, who like Josef von Sternberg added Von to the family name). Trier’s drama Oslo, August 31st made a great impression in the Un Certain Regard section in 2011. Louder Than Bombs is his first English-language movie, and reportedly a complex, Rashomon-type drama centring on facts that emerge about a war photographer after her death, as a retrospective of her work is being assembled.

It is a strong list for Asian auteurs, with the biggest of big names bringing films to Cannes: Japan’s Hirozaku Koreeda, China’s Jia Zhang-ke and Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Jia’s Mountains May Depart stars his longtime collaborator Zhao Tao in an enigmatic story of a man whose heart is broken in the 1990s when the woman he is in love with marries someone else. This marriage founders, and the final third of the movie is set in Australia in 2025, where the woman’s estranged son is working in a casino.

Hou’s The Assassin, starring Taiwanese star Qi Shu, is a martial arts film based on a short story about a female killer during the Tang dynasty who is commanded to kill the man she loves.

Our Little Sister, by Hirozaku Koreeda, is based on Akimi Yoshsida’s manga story Seaside Town Diary, about three sisters in their 20s who are joined by their teenage half-sister when their father dies. Koreeda’s films are always absorbing, and this is one of the films at Cannes that I am looking forward to most. On a pure whim and a hunch, I might bet on a Palme d’Or for Our Little Sister.

Jacques Audiard is now more or less the keeper of the flame of French cool, and a new film by him at Cannes is always a mouthwatering prospect. Dheepan is about a Sri Lankan warrior called Erran who flees to France and winds up working as a caretaker in Paris. Other than that, not much is known. Stéphane Brizé’s La Loi du Marché (English title: A Simple Man) stars that warhorse of French character-acting Vincent Lindon, as a guy who works as a supermarket store detective and is required to spy not only on potential shoplifters but also on his own colleagues.

László Nemes, a Hungarian director and former assistant to Béla Tarr, is presenting his debut feature, Son of Saul, in the Cannes competition. It has been described as a terrifying and powerful drama about a prisoner in Auschwitz in 1944. It will be interesting to see if Nemes takes his film at a Tarr-style slow tempo.

All in all, a very attractive list. As ever, I can hardly wait.

[Chris Knipp]

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Cannes 68 Juries

Competition
Joel & Ethan Coen – Présidents
(Réalisateurs, Scénaristes, Producteurs – États-Unis)
Rossy de Palma (Actrice – Espagne)
Sophie Marceau (Actrice, Réalisatrice – France)
Sienna Miller (Actrice – Royaume-Uni)
Rokia Traoré (Auteur, Compositeur, Interprète – Mali)
Guillermo del Toro (Réalisateur, Scénariste, Producteur – Mexique)
Xavier Dolan (Réalisateur, Scénariste, Producteur, Acteur – Canada)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Acteur – États-Unis)

Un Certain Regard
Isabella Rossellini, Italian-American actress (President)
Haifaa al-Mansour, Saudi Arabian film director
Nadine Labaki, Lebanese film director and actress
Panos H. Koutras, Greek film director
Tahar Rahim, French actor

Cinéfondation and short films
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritanian film director (President)[36][37]
Joana Hadjithomas, Lebanese film director
Rebecca Zlotowski, French film director
Cécile de France, Belgian actress
Daniel Olbrychski, Polish actor

Caméra d'Or
Sabine Azéma, French actress (President)[38][39]
Delphine Gleize, French film director
Melvil Poupaud, French actor
Claude Garnier, French cinematographer
Didier Huck, French Technicolor executive
Yann Gonzalez, French film director
Bernard Payen, French film critic and curator

International Critics' Week
Ronit Elkabetz, Israeli actress and film director (President)[4][40]
Katell Quillévéré, French film director
Peter Suschitzky, English cinematographer
Andréa Picard, Canadian film curator and critic
Boyd van Hoeij, France-based Dutch film critic

L'Œil d'or
Rithy Panh, Franco-Cambodian documentary film director (President)[41][42]
Nicolas Philibert, French documentary film director
Irène Jacob, Franco-Swiss actress
Diana El Jeiroudi, Syrian documentary film producer
Scott Foundas, American film critic

Queer Palm
Desiree Akhavan, American-Iranian film director and actress (President)[43]
Ava Cahen, French journalist
Elli Mastorou, Belgian film journalist
Nadia Turincev, French film producer
Laëtitia Eïdo, French actress

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Competition jury

[Chris Knipp]

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All the rest of the lists.

Un Certain Regard.
Fly Away Solo* Masaan Neeraj Ghaywan India
Sweet Red Bean Paste あん An Naomi Kawase Japan
Journey to the Shore 岸辺の旅 Kishibe no tabi Kiyoshi Kurosawa Japan
I Am a Soldier* Je suis un soldat Laurent Larivière France, Belgium
The High Sun Zvizdan Dalibor Matanić Croatia, Slovenia
Trap Taklub Brillante Mendoza Philippines
The Other Side The Other Side Roberto Minervini United States, Italy
One Floor Below Un etaj mai jos Radu Muntean Romania
The Shameless 무뢰한 Mu-Roe-Han Oh Seung-uk South Korea
The Chosen Ones Las elegidas David Pablos Mexico
Nahid* ناهید Nahid Ida Panahandeh Iran
The Treasure Comoara Corneliu Porumboiu Romania
Alias Maria Alias María José Luis Rugeles Gracia Colombia, Argentina, France
The Fourth Direction Chauthi Koot Gurvinder Singh India
Madonna 마돈나 Shin Su-won South Korea
Cemetery of Splendour รักที่ขอนแก่น Rak Ti Khon Kaen Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand
Disorder Maryland Alice Winocour France
Lamb* Lamb Yared Zeleke Ethiopia, France, Germany, Norway

Directors Fortnight.
Opening film: Shadow of Woman Philippe Garrel,
A Perfect Day Fernando León de Aranoa
Allende (Allende mi abuelo) Marcia Tambutti
As mil e uma noites (1001 Nights) Miguel Gomes
Les Cowboys Thomas Bidegain
Kiss of the Snake El abrazo de la serpiente Ciro Guerra
Fatima Philippe Faucon
Gokudo daisenso (Yakuza Apocalypse : The Great War of the Underworld) Takashi Miike
Green Room Jeremy Saulnier
Much Loved Nabil Ayouch
Mustang Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Peace to Us in Our Dreams Sharunas Bartas
Songs My Brothers Taught Me Chloé Zhao
Efterskalv (The Here After) Magnus von Horn
Le Tout Nouveau Testament Jaco Van Dormael
My Golden Years (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse) Arnaud Desplechin
Closing film: Dope Rick Famuyiwa

Out of Competition.
Mad Max: Fury Road Mad Max: Fury Road George Miller Australia, United States
Standing Tall (opening film) La Tête haute Emmanuelle Bercot France
Irrational Man Irrational Man Woody Allen United States
The Little Prince The Little Prince Mark Osborne France
Inside Out Inside Out Pete Docter United States
Ice and the Sky (closing film) La Glace et le ciel Luc Jacquet France

Midnight screenings.
Amy Amy Asif Kapadia United Kingdom
Office* 오피스 Opiseu Hong Won-chan South Korea
Love Love Gaspar Noé France

Special screenings.
Macadam Stories Asphalte Samuel Benchetrit France
Our House Oka Souleymane Cissé Mali
Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad Une histoire de fou Robert Guédiguian France
Afterthought* היורד למעלה Hayored lema'ala Elad Keidan Israel
A Tale of Love and Darkness* סיפור על אהבה וחושך Sipur al ahava ve choshech Natalie Portman United States, Israel
Amnesia Amnesia Barbet Schroeder Switzerland, France
Panama* Panama Pavle Vučković Serbia

[Chris Knipp]

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First Cannes 2015 hits emerge: CAROL, MY GOLDEN YEARS, AMY.

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THE LOBSTER

Ranked set of Mike D'Angelo 2015 Cannes tweet reviews .

FINAL TWEET:
That's it for me. Favorites: Sicario (Villeneuve; still can't believe it), Carol (Haynes), Mustang (Ergüven), My Golden Years (Desplechin).

Sicario (Villeneuve): 83. People are calling this conventional; it’s actually quite radical. I wrote some words… http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1034-day-6-reversals-of-fortune/

Carol (Haynes): 76 Tough race for MVP among Haynes, Blanchett, Mara, Lachman, Burwell, the Clovers, and Noel Coward (for the BRIEF ENCOUNTER homage). [CAROL summary: "Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman." > Patricia Highsmith's 1952 novel The Price of Salt.

Mustang (Ergüven): 70. At first I was all Why are these 5sisters behaving like a single organism? Then I was all Ohhh. Ending wrecked me.

My Golden Years (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse) (Desplechin): 69. " kinda loved the Desplechin." [See D'Anglo's comments on The Dissolve (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1030-day-4-a-romantic-trio/).]

Green Room (Saulnier): 67. Boasts all the virtues folks claimed for BLUE ROOM without the accompanying idiocy. Good gory fun.

[B]Rams (Hákonarson): 66. Easily the best movie about feuding Icelandic sheep farmers I have ever seen ever. Funniest sight gag of the fest.

Inside Out (Docter): 66. Some of the shtick gets a tad cute for my taste, but if we must have messages in cartoons, more like this please.

The Lobster (Lanthimos): 65. Struggling to find as much real-world resonance as I’d like, but this is much more DOGTOOTH than it is ALPS.

Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike): 64. Takes its time getting revved up, then hits GOZU levels of batshit insanity. Enjoy it in M. Madness, TIFFers.

Youth (Sorrentino): 63. Superb for as long as it keeps its touch light: then it starts straining for effect, and the spell is broken.

Son of Saul (Nemes): 61. Imagine if SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the greatest movie ever made, had been about Hanks trying to save one mother’s son.

The Measure of a Man (Brizé): 60. Ambitiously attempts to do TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT with a passive protag. Stacks the deck, but still potent.

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

Cemetery of Splendour (Joe): 58. More readily parsed and less visually ravishing than his best films. Mysterious on the surface level only. [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]

Irrational Man (Allen): 58. My favorite of the plots he recycles; shaky execution, but great fun as pure story once it kicks in. A+ Winston

Louder Than Bombs (Trier): 58. Loved the kaleidoscopic structure and disregard for tying up loose ends. Actual content less enthralling.

Trap (Mendoza): 52. Here’s an environment. Do you like my environment? Immerse yourself in the environment I offer you. That is all.

Mon roi (Maïwenn): 51. As in many dysfunctional-relationship films, the uphill part is a lot of fun, the downhill part a total drag.
Also Louis Garrel should exclusively play the funny best friend (+brother, here) for the rest of his career. He’s actually not bad at that.

One Floor Below (Muntean): 55. This felt less like Muntean to me than like CRISTI PUIU’S REAR WINDOW. Better that than Puiu’s actual films.

The Wakhan Front (Cogitore): 55. Intriguing, but never quite becomes anything more than that. Didn't need answers, exactly, but something.

The Assassin [Hou Hsiao-hsien] : 54. As usual w/Hou, I'd rather have spent 15 mins leafing thru a picture book of stills from this (stunningly gorgeous) film.

Valley of Love (Nicloux): 53. Has anyone observed that this is basically the same film as THE WAKHAN FRONT, despite no surface similarities?

Dheepan (Audiard): 50. What everyone else said about the ending that seems like it wandered in from a bad Bruce Willis movie. Damaging.

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.

Macbeth (Kurzel): 49. Maybe my love for Polanski's version (which I recently rewatched) is getting in the way? Seemed meatheaded to me.

Mountains May Depart [Jia Zhang-ke]: 47. Film Comment calls it "You had me at 'Jia Zhang-ke.'"

The Treasure (Porumboiu): 48. Like ADJECTIVE, a slow, l argely monotonous build to a final-scene "punchline." Not a mode I much enjoy.*

Chronic [Michel Franco]: 46. Or AMOUR 2: PLATONIC BOOGALOO. There’s a germ of a strong idea here, but it’s mired in pointless backstory, dumb provocation.

Love (Noé): 45. Might have worked had he been able to get Cassel, Bellucci and (say) Demoustier to do it. Even then, they’d have to improv.

In the Shadow of Women (Garrel): 44. Second film in a row where he treats infidelity as if it’s uncharted territory, unearths nothing new.

Marguerite & Julien (Donzelli): 44. Employs random gimmicks—anachronisms, frozen tableaux, &c.—to disguise its nonexistent point of view.

My Mother (Mia madre/Moretti) 41 "Meh."

The Sea of Trees (Van Sant): 37. Should be lower, but it’s so dumb that it’s kind of perversely touching. A “serious” Robin Williams film. He added this tweet: Oh, SEA OF TREES probably *is* more akin to a Nicholas Sparks flick, isn’t it? I didn’t think of that because I’ve only seen THE NOTEBOOK.

Journey to the Shore (Kurosawa): 22. The Sea of Trite. [Un Certain Regard.]

I'm running behind today, but briefly: walked out of Korean thriller THE SHAMELESS last night; meh on Moretti; kinda loved the Desplechin.

[CAROL] I guess I should throw Highsmith in there too, huh? (Oh, and for the ratings hounds: 76. Desplechin: 69. Moretti: 41.) <Strange thing to say since the film is based on Highsmith's novel.>

*Those who loved POLICE, ADJECTIVE should get excited about Porumboiu's THE TREASURE. Those who did not, however, should not.

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[Chris Knipp]

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GUARDIAN reviews.

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MY MOTHER (Nanni Moretti) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/16/my-mother-review-nanni-morettis-meta-movie-is-his-best-since-the-sons-room) (Peter Bradshaw) Four out of five stars. "His best since THE SON'S ROOM."
Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre is warm, witty and seductive: his best film since The Son’s Room, returning him to the themes of cinema, life, family ties and family guilt, though given here a gentler and more lenient view. He even playfully reprises another signature image: a motor-scooter — a girl is taught to ride one by her nervy middle-aged parents.

DISORDER [orig. title MARYLAND](Alice Wincour) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/16/disorder-review-cannes-film-festival-2015-matthias-schoenaerts-thriller) (Benjamin Lee) Three our of five stars. Disorder review - unsettling paranoid thriller descends into formula. Matthias Schoenaerts breaks free from his Hollywood miscasts to play a tortured soldier but the script fails to reward him.
While it’s nice to see Schoenaerts back in a role that suits him, it’s far too easy to compare it to his other soulful bruisers, where he’s had much more to play with. Kruger tries admirably with an underwritten role but their chemistry is slight

AMY (Asif Kapadia) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/16/amy-review-asif-kapadias-amy-winehouse-film-is-a-tragic-masterpiece) (Peter Bradshaw) Five out of five stars. Amy Winehouse film is a tragic masterpiece. This sounds like an obvious must-see. See the teaser trailer HERE. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=75&v=A97-pQJD6Hw) As with his SENNA, composed without talking heads.
Inevitably, it is the song Rehab itself which is Winehouse’s personal and musical moment of destiny, the moment of almost diabolic inspiration and autobiography and automythology which triggered her supernova of fame. The idea of defiantly not going into rehab challenged a celeb-pap industry which always slavered spitefully over famous people getting punished for their gilded lives by being unhappy. But Winehouse’s attack on the hypocrisy of the whole business, and also the song’s personal ambiguity and complexity, were misunderstood.

A PERFECT DAY (Fernando Leon de Aranoa (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/16/a-perfect-day-review-cannes-2015-film-benicio-del-toro-tim-robbins)) (Henry Barnes) Three out of five stars. Del Toro and Robbins in imperfect aid work adventure... Director Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s tonal mishmash sees Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins hit the road in the Balkans, doing their best to help the locals trapped by post-civil war institutional inertia.

CAROL (Todd Haynes) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/16/carol-review-cate-blanchett-captivates-in-woozily-obsessive-lesbian-romance) (Peter Bradshaw) Five out of five stars. Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt has become an entrancing movie directed by Todd Haynes, beautifully made and outstandingly intelligent
Todd Haynes’s Carol is an amour fou which plays out with sanity and generosity: it is a superbly realised companion piece to his 50s Sirkian drama Far From Heaven and an overt homage to Lean’s Brief Encounter. The film is based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, about the love affair between a virginal shopgirl and the beautiful older married woman that she serves in the pre-Christmas rush in a Manhattan department-store: they are played here by Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. Just occasionally, along with the classic echoes, Carol has the obsessive frisson of Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing and – with the flourishing of a revolver – Haynes conjures a fraught kind of Nabokovian despair and futile melodrama. (Carol will be released in the US by Harvey Weinstein. It seems to be THE big hit of the fest among anglophone critics, more like #3 with French critics.)

A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS (Nathalie Portman) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/15/cannes-2015-a-tale-of-love-and-darkness-review-natalie-portman-film-directing-debut) (Andrew Pulver) Three out of five stars. A Tale of Love and Darkness review - Natalie Portman's love letter to Israel. Natalie Portman has gone back to her home country for her directorial debut, a serious, well-made adaptation of Amos Oz’s memoir of the early years of Israel’s statehood.
3 / 5 stars

SEA OF TREES (Gus van Sant) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/10/the-sea-of-trees-review-gus-van-sant-matthew-mcconaughey) The Sea of Trees review: a fantastically annoying and dishonest tear-jerker. (Peter Bradshaw) One out of five stars. Gus van Sant dunks into sentimentality with a glossy drama that stars Matthew McConaughey as a man stalled in a plan to take his own life by a stranger he meets in Japan’s Aokigahara woods.
Gus Van Sant returns to the Cannes competition, and returns — horribly — to a middleweight syrupy-commercial mode of film-making into which he is capable of switching so easily. He may have permanently deserted the more challenging and rigorous style of movies like the Palme D’Or-winning Elephant, Last Days or indeed his poetically mysterious Gerry. . .For all its apparent sombreness and thoughtfulness, The Sea Of Trees is an exasperatingly shallow film on an important and agonisingly painful subject - depression and suicide. This it slathers in palliative sentimentality. The gooey musical score with strings and woodwind, kicking in from the first airport scene, unmistakably signals brimming-eyed self-pity and self-forgiveness

(The Sea of Trees is the worst Competition film of the year by universal consent, Anglophone and French critics polls both agree.)

AFTERTHOUGHT (Elad Keidan) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/15/cannes-2015-afterthought-review-israeli-film-haifa-elad-keidan)(Andrew Pulver)
Here is an extremely odd, but somehow thoroughly distinctive, Israeli film that, with its rambling, seemingly disconnected narrative grammar, passages of deliberate boredom and irritation and a dry-as-the-desert sense of humour, starts out as a baffling and somewhat shambolic-seeming creation. But as its elliptical processes become more apparent, and bits of necessary information are sparingly doled out, director Elad Keidan’s aims and ambitions slide gradually into focus.Three out of five stars. Afterthought review - Israeli film takes the stairway to Joycean epiphanies.

THE LOBSTER (Yourgos Lanthimos) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/15/the-lobster-review-cannes-film-festival-2015)(Peter Bradshaw) Three out of five stars.
Yorgos Lanthimos has come to Cannes with another macabre adventure in black-comic absurdism: his first English-language feature. It’s an adventure which begins by being bizarre and hilarious but appears to run out of ideas at its mid-way point, and run out of interest in what had at first seemed to be its central comic image: humans turning into animals. . . The Lobster is a satire on the subject of our universal obsession with relationships, and our conviction that couplehood is the supreme expression of human happiness, a civilized institution which distinguishes us from the beasts. . . In a dystopian future, or strange alternative present, adults who are single, either through failure to find a partner or bereavement, must check into a hotel with other singles and find a genuinely compatible partner (the union’s authenticity has to be approved by the management) within 45 days, or they are transformed into an animal of their choice and released into the forest.

WOODY ALLEN (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/15/woody-allen-agreeing-to-make-amazon-tv-series-was-a-catastrophic-mistake)says his Amazon streaming series is "a catastrophic mistake" -- Catherine Shoard.
“It was a catastrophic mistake for me,” Allen said, speaking with what appeared to be a mix of irony and genuine anxiety. “I’m struggling with it at home. I never should have gotten into it. I thought it was going to be easy. You do a movie and it’s a big long thing; to do six half-hours you’d think would be a cinch. But it’s not: it’s very, very hard.”

MON ROI (Maiwenn) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/17/mon-roi-review-vincent-cassel-maiwenn) (Peter Bradshaw) One out of five stars. "Breaks a leg then takes a tumble."
Mon Roi, directed and co-written by Maïwenn (that is, film-maker and actor Maïwenn Le Besco) is an unendurable confection of complacent and self-admiring nonsense: shallow, narcissistic, histrionic and fake. This director’s Polisse — about a division of the Juvenile Protection Squad in Paris — was presented in Cannes a few years ago; it was a film widely admired and despite its group-improv spasms of over-acting and a somewhat preening cameo from the director herself, it certainly had qualities. But Mon Roi defeated me: it is an outrageous 130-minute firework display of drama-queen over-acting and bad acting: impossibly irritating and self-indulgent, featuring people who are clearly on some important level supposed to be irrepressible, adorable and richly life-affirming — but are actually tiresome prats

[Chris Knipp]

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Blogger David Jenkins (http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/features/articles/cannes-2015-my-golden-years-30286)on Desplechin:
Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Years/Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse

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The new feature from Arnaud Desplechin is a rites-of-passage masterpiece. . . .This is a tremendous film from Desplechin, all the more so due to the fact that he never once looks like he's trying, or forcing, or declaiming, or contriving, or reinventing. Memory is presented as a form of natural magic, and the question of reliability is moot because the character of Paul has been sculpted as to be coldly rational and free of self-consciousness, yet totally trustworthy. Let's wait and see, but this could very well emerge as the director's masterpiece, so consummate is its dewy-eyed vision of love as our prime conduit into the past. It's a film which could happily spiral on into infinity, and you kinda wish it would...[Directors Fortnight]

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Quentin Dolmaire of My Golden Years
plays the filmmaker's alter ego Paul Dédalus

[Chris Knipp]

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Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid in Louder Than Bombs

LOUDER THAN BOMBS (Joachim von Trier) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/18/louder-than-bombs-review-muffled-english-language-debut-by-joachim-trier)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Two stars out of five. Louder than Bombs review: muffled English-language debut by Joachim Trier
Shifting to English, and the template of Anglo-Hollywood, has perhaps created a tonal and structural difficulty for Trier, and the resulting film feels not merely like a knockoff of American Beauty, but like a pastiche of something by Atom Egoyan or Denis Villeneuve: a tiresome Euro-American pudding. There is one very striking closeup sequence of Isabelle Huppert’s face, reminding us what potential this performer will always bring to any film project. But the rest of this is very flat, very self-conscious and bafflingly disappointing.
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Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin in Green Room

GREEN ROOM (Jeremy Saulnier) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/17/green-room-review-horror-cannes-film-festival-2015-patrick-stewart) (Benjamin Lee/GUARDIAN) Four stars out of five. Green Room review - gruesomely effective neo-Nazis vs rockers horror.
There was a great deal of fuss surrounding director Jeremy Saulnier’s debut film, the stylish revenge thriller Blue Ruin. Yet aside from a memorably heady atmosphere, I found it rather underwhelming. His attempts to add something new to a tired formula ultimately ran dry.
For his sophomore feature, he’s made a brave move up the rainbow with Green Room, a savage horror film that also takes a familiar subgenre but this time, he elevates it quite superbly. (Directors Fortnight.)

[Chris Knipp]

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INSIDE OUT (Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen/Pixar) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/18/inside-out-review-cannes-film-festival-pixar) (Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. While it might not challenge their greatest films, this is a smart and visually inventive piece of entertainment. [Cannes Out of Competition (with Mad Max, The Little Prince, Irrational Man & the opening night film Standing Tall)]

DÉGRADÉ (Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser) ( (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/18/degrade-review-film-of-hairy-events-in-gaza-strip-beauty-salon-could-use-a-trim)Jordan Hoffman/GUARDIAN) Two out of five stars. Dégradé review: film of hairy events in Gaza Strip beauty salon could use a trim.
Dégradé is one of those movies that ends up being more important than good. Written and directed by twin brothers from the Gaza Strip, where there have been no functioning cinemas for nearly 30 years, this a film very much from that troubled part of the world, but behind the headlines. Shot concurrently with the 2014 war, Dégradé is set almost exclusively inside a hair salon. (A set was built in Jordan.)

More D'Angelo Tweet ratings:


Green Room (Saulnier): 67. Boasts all the virtues folks claimed for BLUE ROOM [RUIN] without the accompanying idiocy. Good gory fun.


The Measure of a Man (Brizé): 60. Ambitiously attempts to do TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT with a passive protag. Stacks the deck, but still potent. And D'Angelo says in his relevant DISSOLVE bulletin that as the man, Vincent Lindon (who "who fairly oozes rugged masculinity," -- puts it well) could be a serious Cannes68 Best Actor candidate.


Cemetery of Splendour (Joe [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]): 58. More readily parsed and less visually ravishing than his best films. Mysterious on the surface level only. [Un Certain Regard]


Louder Than Bombs (Trier): 58. Loved the kaleidoscopic structure and disregard for tying up loose ends. Actual content less enthralling.

[Chris Knipp]

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Still from Cemetery of Splendour

CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/18/cemetery-of-splendour-review-apichatpong-weerasethakul) (Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Cemetery of Splendour review: a very calm sort of hysteria.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul has returned to Cannes with his first substantial feature length work since the 2010’s Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. This is another of his unique imagist cine-poems: an essay in psychogeography and a meditation on death, the presence of the spirit world in nature and the unquiet ghosts of guilt and pain in the Thai nation, as symbolized by the military - a recurrent trope in his work

MARGUERITE AND JULIEN (Valérie Donzelli) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/18/marguerite-and-julien-review-tale-of-forbidden-love-cannes-2015)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN). One out of five stars. Marguerite and Julien review – tale of forbidden love is one giant turkey
This buttock-clenchingly embarrassing movie from director Valérie Donzelli is a pre-Revolutionary period drama from the quality end of the sugary French market — theatrically tricked out with one or two annoying and clumsy Brechtian touches of stylised self-aware modernity. It is based on the true story of forbidden love between two aristocratic siblings, Marguerite and Julien de Ravalet, executed in 1603 for adultery and incest, and the movie endows them with a grisly Abelard-and-Heloise-style pomposity and shrill self-importance, absolutely without eroticism or romance. They are played by Anaïs Demoustier and Jérémie Elkhaim (who co-wrote the screenplay with Donzelli); Raoul Fernandez plays Lefebvre, the dull fellow to whom poor, pouting Marguerite’s family try marrying her off and — incredibly — Geraldine Chaplin plays his mum, with a peevish scowl and odd, almost Pierette-style makeup.

D'Angelo tweet:
Marguerite & Julien (Donzelli): 44. Employs random gimmicks—anachronisms, frozen tableaux, &c.—to disguise its nonexistent point of view.

[Chris Knipp]

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The Cannes selfie ban rule-breakers

Objecting to all the distraction, and the dilution of celebrity, the President of the Festival issued a ban on "selfies." So we got the category of the selfie ban rule-breaker photos. Here's one of the more graceful and pretty ones.

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Eva Longoria and Aishwarya Rai join the list of Cannes criminals.
Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images [Guardian]

And the latest Cannes craziness is a woman apparently banned from a screening -- for not wearing high heels! Tues. 19th of May.

[Chris Knipp]

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HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (Kent Jones) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/19/hitchcocktruffaut-review-cannes-looks-back-to-a-golden-past-of-cinephilia) (Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN. Four out of five stars. This terrific retrospective on the week-long series of interviews between François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock is a brilliant commentary on the discourse of cinema then, and now
Kent Jones’s enjoyable documentary – presented in the festival’s Cannes Classics section – is a tribute to a pioneering act of cinephilia, cinema criticism and living ancestor worship. François Truffaut’s remarkable interview series with Alfred Hitchcock, conducted over a week at his offices at Universal Studios in 1962, was a journalistic enterprise which changed the way cinema was thought of as an art form. [NYFF Director & Film Comment writer] Kent Jones’s film about this event elicits brilliant contributions from modern directors, reflecting on this interview. It includes James Gray, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Wes Anderson, David Fincher – and from France (perhaps representing the “Truffaut” team) there is Arnaud Desplechin and also Olivier Assayas – in whose fluency and eloquence, incidentally, there is something of the ingenuous and idealistic spirit of Truffaut himself.MUSTANG (Deniz Gamze Ergüven) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/19/mustang-review-the-virgin-suicides-in-istanbul-is-a-turkish-delight) (Jordan Hoffman/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Mustang review: The Virgin Suicides in Anatolia is a sweet, sad Turkish delight. VARIETY review (Jay Weissberg) (http://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/mustang-review-cannes-1201500486/):
Though set in Turkey, shot in Turkish, and telling a Turkish story about the demonization of female sexuality, Deniz Gamze Erguven’s beautifully mounted debut, Mustang, has an unmistakable West European sensibility. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on audience perspective, but while many Turks will find the final salvation distinctly inorganic, few can argue with the director’s talent or that of her exceptionally fine, largely unknown cast of young women. Set in a remote Black Sea village where five sisters are forced to suppress their burgeoning sensuality, Mustang will gallop through fruitful festival fields, finding fertile pastures on Euro arthouse screens. [A French production co-written by AUGUSTINE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3505-AUGUSTINE-(Alice-Wincour-2012)&p=30286#post30286)(R-V 2013) writer-director Alice Winocour.]

BRAND NEW TESTAMENT (Jaco van Dormael) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/19/the-brand-new-testament-review-cannes-film-festival-2015) (Jordan Hoffman/GUARDIAN). Four out of five stars. Critics seem to admire this broad religious satire in which God is a slacker in Belgium and his daughter Ea, rather than his son JC, sets up a kind of revolt playing with ideas of determinism vs. free will. Peter Debruge/Variety is a bit less glowing:
In the beginning, things went a bit differently than the Good Book would have us believe — or at least, that’s the playful conceit behind Jaco Van Dormael’s “The Brand New Testament,” an irreverent (but otherwise harmless) ontological satire that puts a cartoonish spin on the Christian origin story. . . .When his daughter rebels and decides to simultaneously enlighten everyone on earth, all hell breaks loose, and the narrative starts to lose its thread, unspooling zany consequences that ought to convert skeptical distributors worldwide.

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Del Toro in Sicario

SICARIO (Denis Villeneuve) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/19/sicario-review-emily-blunt-thriller) (Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Sicario review: "Emily Blunt cracks the cartel in a white-knuckle thriller...Denis Villeneuve borrows Michael Mann’s crown to take control of a straight-ahead genre movie as Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro battle Mexican druglords." (Scott Foundas/VARIETY) "'Prisoners' director Denis Villeneuve returns with a blisteringly suspenseful, ever surprising cartel thriller." Likewise Todd McCarthy for Hollywood Reporter: "The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario." [D'Angelo seems to think he likes this more than other Cannes critics, or sees it as more "radically subversive" than they do. They see it as a genre triumph, he sees it as subverting genre expectations.] Stars: Emily Blount, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin.

D'Angelo tweets:

Sicario (Villeneuve): 83. People are calling this conventional; it’s actually quite radical. I wrote some words. http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1034-day-6-reversals-of-fortune/#disqus_thread…

Inside Out (Docter): 66. Some of the shtick gets a tad cute for my taste, but if we must have messages in cartoons, more like this please.

Mountains May Depart [Jia Zhang-ke]: 47. Film Comment calls it “You had me at 'Jia Zhang-ke.'" [?]

The theme : "In Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhang-ke’s competition film, a woman’s choice of one suitor over another is meant to be the catalyst that changes the course of life for three people over the next twenty-five years."--Roger Ebert.com (http://www.rogerebert.com/cannes/cannes-2015-sicario-mountains-may-depart) (Barbara Scharres.)T here seems to be a consensus that Jia is far "out of the range of his best talents" in this one.

[Chris Knipp]

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D'Angelo tweets:

Youth (Sorrentino): 63. Superb for as long as it keeps its touch light: then it starts straining for effect, and the spell is broken.

Trap (Mendoza): 52. Here’s an environment. Do you like my environment? Immerse yourself in the environment I offer you. That is all.

GUARDIAN:

YOUTH (Paolo Sorrentino) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/20/youth-review-cannes-film-festival-2015-michael-caine) (Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Three out of five stars. YOUTH review - age cannot wither Michael Caine, but Sorrentino could try harder.
Michael Caine is excellent as a retired composer opposite Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda in this strangely sweet-natured opera of pathos

[Johann]

Monster thread Chris. I like Mike D'Angelo's tweets.

[Chris Knipp]

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Thank you, Johann. My pleasure to follow Cannes and be informed on the hot new movies. Yes, D'Angelo is valuable. I also admire the naturalness and assurance of his review-writing and especially his Cannes and Toronto bulletins. Take a look at his Postcards from Cannes on The Dissolve that can be found here. (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/)

I'm also enjoying AV Club's daily bulletins (http://www.avclub.com/article/fractured-fairy-tale-highlights-our-first-day-cann-219408) by young Russian-born, US-educated Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from Chicago, his first time at Cannes, and he gives lots of fresh observations, like "the red carpet is really dirty by now," or "there are copies of Variety and Hollywood Reporter scattered all over the street," and he's riding a bike back and forth to the festival from Juan-Les-Pins, a half hour each way, because a normal person can't afford to stay in Cannes during the festival. AV Club. (http://www.avclub.com/article/fractured-fairy-tale-highlights-our-first-day-cann-219408)

P.s. Today Vishnevetsky announces he's returned his rental bike -- and already missing it -- becaue he didn't like having to ride it back at night. So now he's taking the train.
10:12 p.m. I take the train back. It’s packed with filmmakers from Short Film Corner, a kind of open-admission purgatory for aspiring directors. A fiftysomething woman with an industry badge tightly clutches her handbag while telling two visiting filmmakers to always be on the lookout for pickpockets and thieves, "especially in first class." They are all immigrants, she says. Her tone is very authoritative. “And the gypsy people...,” she begins, just as the doors open at Juan-Les-Pins. -- Vishnevetsky, AV Club, (http://www.avclub.com/article/cannes-impresses-war-drugs-thriller-and-hitchcock--219693) May 20 10 a.m. I love this stuff. We need a break from the nonstop movie talk, and a bit of crazy local color.

[Chris Knipp]

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MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (Jia Zhang-ke) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/20/mountains-may-depart-review-jia-zhang-ke-scales-new-heights-with-futurist-drama)(Peter Braddshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Mountains May Depart review: Jia Zhang-ke scales new heights with futurist drama.
That final coda does not entirely work: inevitably, some of the dreamed-up technological innovations and stylings look self-conscious and the sheer weirdness means that the emotional power of ordinary life is no longer available. And yet without this unexpected leap into the future, the movie would not have the savour that it has. And what a wonderful performance from Zhao Tao.
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Zhao Tao in Mountains May Depart

Scott Foundas/VARIETY (http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/mountains-may-depart-cannes-film-review-1201501026/):
The cinema’s consummate chronicler of a China evolving so rapidly that its own citizens can scarcely keep apace, Jia Zhangke strikes a particularly melancholic chord in “Mountains May Depart,” a polymorphous snapshot of 21st-century capitalism and its discontents that also finds the filmmaker, like several of his characters, venturing for the first time outside of his home turf and mother tongue. Following a single family as it is tossed about by time, tide and the onward march of progress over the span of a quarter-century, Jia’s latest feature addresses a host of pet themes through a less quirky, stylized lens than 2013’s gruesomely violent “A Touch of Sin” or 2006’s “Still Life” (with its condemned buildings blasting off like rocket ships). But if “Mountains” feels a touch schematic at times, and awkward in its third-act English-language scenes, the cumulative impact is still enormously touching, highlighted by Jia’s rapturous image-making and a luminous central performance by the director’s regular muse (and wife), Zhao Tao. International exposure should run high, while the film will encounter less opposition than “Sin” from the local Chinese censors.

D'Angelo's 41 rating shows he markedly differs from the majority on this one.

[Chris Knipp]

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Lamb Cannes photocall

Updates from the Guardian, Variety, etc. In a 2nd Guardian group podcast (http://www.theguardian.com/film/audio/2015/may/21/guardian-film-show-cannes-2015-desiree-akhavan-audio)Peter Bradshaw said he thinks this is a very good Cannes year.

LAMB (Yared Zeleke) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/21/lamb-review-a-gorgeous-study-of-rural-ethiopian-life) (Jordan Hoffman/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Lamb review: sheer brilliance knits together first Ethiopian film at Cannes. Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood Reporter:
A young Ethiopian boy and his rust-colored ewe are the protagonists of Lamb, the beautifully crafted if rather familiar first feature from Yared Zeleke. . . This is certainly a positive sign, though despite some handsome observations about how Ethiopian society is slowly changing even in the remotest parts of the country, the general thrust of Zeleke’s narrative might be a little too familiar to earn the film any kind of wide distribution. . .

LOVE (Gaspar Noë)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/21/love-review-gaspar-noes-3d-porno-is-fifty-shades-of-vanilla) Three out of five stars. Love review: Gaspar Noé's hardcore 3D sex movie is fifty shades of vanilla.
Here is the Cannes film festival’s 51st shade of … well, not grey, because director Gaspar Noé does have a penchant for that classic red-filter lighting appropriate for full-on filth, as well as a soupy sound-design and indistinct dialogue which sounds quieter than the deafeningly loud cheesy ambient music: soft rock and even, at one moment, Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

DON'T TELL ME THE BOY WAS MAD ("Histoire de fou"/Robert Guédiguian) (Andrew Pulver/GUARDIAN)– Three out of five stars. Armenia's tragedy becomes meaty drama. David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/dont-tell-me-boy-was-797251)
The ripple effects of the Armenian genocide on subsequent generations are felt in Robert Guediguian's drama set during the wave of militant attacks in Europe in the 1980s.

DHEEPAN (Jacques Audiard) (http://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/dheepan-film-review-cannes-1201502383/) (Andrew Pulver/GUARDIAN) Four out of fife stars "Dheepan review - Tamil Tiger loose in the urban jungle makes powerful thriller" (Scott Foundas/VARIETY) Jacques Audiard charts the lives of three Sri Lankan refugees in Paris in a well-acted and gripping but finally overwrought immigrant drama.
A typically unpredictable career move by the prolific and varied Audiard following the unabashedly melodramatic romance “Rust and Bone” and the searing crime drama “A Prophet,” this almost entirely Tamil-language immigrant drama unfolds in solidly involving, carefully observed fashion for much of its running time, until it takes a sharp and heavy-handed turn into genre territory from which it never quite recovers. Commercially, this will be a far more specialized item than Audiard’s other recent work, especially in the U.S., where the film was acquired by IFC in advance of its Cannes bow.

MEDITERRANEA (Jonas Carpignano) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/21/mediterranea-review-jonas-carpignano-cannes-critics-week-sidebar) (Jordan Hoffman/GUARDIAN) Three out of five stars. Horribly topical drama about African migrants in Italy

AMNESIA (Barbet Schroeder) (http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/amnesia-film-review-cannes-1201500271/) (Scott Fouindas/VARIETY). Willful memory loss and electronic dance music collide in Barbet Schroeder's cinematic valentine to his German expat mother.
The thorny subject of German historical memory binds the characters in Barbet Schroeder’s “Amnesia,” a thoughtful, sensitive character study that reps a minor-key comeback for the veteran Swiss filmmaker

Mike D'Angelo tweets:

(Scheduling and access issues have kept his viewing quotient way down today (Thurs. 21 May). He promises to catch up on the Audiard, which as I'd feared seems to be a bit of a relative disappointment compared to his stunning previous films.)

Love (Noé): 45. Might have worked had he been able to get Cassel, Bellucci and (say) Demoustier to do it. Even then, they’d have to improv.

The Assassin [Hou Hsiao-hsien] : 54. As usual w/Hou, I'd rather have spent 15 mins leafing thru a picture book of stills from this (stunningly gorgeous) film.

[No rating] Those who loved POLICE, ADJECTIVE should get excited about Porumboiu's THE TREASURE. Those who did not, however, should not.

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/CANNES.jpg

Guardian &c:

CHRONIC (Michel Franco) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/22/chronic-review-tim-roth-cannes-film-festival)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. Chronic review: terminal pain, but Tim Roth is a pleasure.
Michel Franco’s drama, starring Tim Roth as a nurse who invests too much in his clients’ end-of-life care, supplies a carefully measured dose of enigmatic class

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/nicloux.jpg
Huppert and Depardieu in Valley of Love

VALLEY OF LOVE (Guillaume Nicloux) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/22/valley-of-love-review-some-peaks-more-troughs-as-gerard-depardieu-and-isabelle-huppert-hike-death-valley)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN). Two out of five stars. peaks and troughs as Depardieu and Huppert feel the heat
Guillaume Nicloux’s half-English language, semi-Lynchian movie has a divorced couple reunited after their son’s death, and features Depardieu’s best turn in years [He and Catherine Shoard both like this film, despite the 2/5 rating.]

THE ASSASSIN (Hou Hsiau-hsien) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/20/the-assassin-review-enigmatically-refined-martial-arts-tale-baffles-beautifully)(Peter Bradshaw/GUARDIAN) Four out of five stars. The Assassin review - enigmatically refined martial arts tale baffles beautifully.
The first film in eight years by Taiwanese master Hou Hsaio-hsien is a wonderfully shot story of a killer facing a critical choice – but its meaning remains elusive.
For its sheer beauty, its mesmeric compositional sense and pure balletic poise, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s distinctive and slow-moving wuxia tale The Assassin demands attention. Although at the risk of philistinism, I now confess that for me its sometimes opaque and difficult plot means that my engagement with it can never be as absolute as it’s been for others here at Cannes, who have not hesitated to acclaim The Assassin as a masterpiece and a Palme contender. I’m not sure that I can go that far. The final spark of passion I was looking for was more a delicate firefly which floated entrancingly but elusively ahead. D'Angelo gave this a 54. AV Club's Vishnevetsky says it's the most beautiful film at Cannes and Variety's Justin Chang gives it a rave.

THE LITTLE PRINCE (Mark Osborne) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/22/the-little-prince-review-cannes-2015-film-saint-exupery-animation) (Andrew Pulver/GUARDIAN). Three out of five stars. Adaptation of Saint-Exupéry just about gets off the ground. ['Disnyfied' animation, shown separately in two sound tracks, French and English.]

Peter Bradshaw tweet:
Tim Roth has basically shot past Vincent Lindon and Toby Jones in the Best Actor race at #Cannes2015

Toby Jones stars in Matteo Garrone's TALE OF TALES. But that movie is 9 on the Screen In'tl and 11 on the Le Film Francais French critics polls (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1036-day-7-the-bittersweet-and-the-bitter/) D'Angelo gave a few days ago in his Day 7: The bittersweet and the bitter column. Vincent Lindon's film THE MEASURE OF A MAN (Brizé) is #7 and #2 respectively on those lists.

AV Club's Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (remember him? the newbie) has a column describing the Cannes Festival's feudal system. (http://www.avclub.com/article/hou-hsiao-hsiens-assassin-most-beautiful-film-cann-219723) His descriptions are great.
Cannes is a culture of patronage, consecration, and iron rules, and the Palais itself resembles a late ’70s abstraction of a medieval city. It has towers, bridges, and a central marketplace, the Marché, located in the basement

1:50 p.m. I have a pink press badge, which is widely considered “cool.” Pink badges are let in before the blue badges, who are let in before the yellows, who are rarely let in at all. There are also white badges, but they are rare, reserved for the big-big fish; I’ve met only two since getting here. They can move fluidly through the festival.

This color-priority thing creates a caste system, because every badge color represents a different relationship to time. Blues and yellows spend a large part of the day waiting in their respective lines. Pinks are all but guaranteed access, even if they arrive only five minutes before a screening starts. Within a few days, you realize that it’s difficult to socialize with people who don’t share your badge color.

D'Angelo:

Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike): 64. Takes its time getting revved up, then hits GOZU levels of batshit insanity. Enjoy it in M. Madness, TIFFers.

The Treasure (Porumboiu): 48. Like ADJECTIVE, a slow, largely monotonous build to a final-scene "punchline." Not a mode I much enjoy.

Chronic [Michel Franco]: 46. Or AMOUR 2: PLATONIC BOOGALOO. There’s a germ of a strong idea here, but it’s mired in pointless backstory, dumb provocation.

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/CANNES.jpg

Sat. 23 May Cannes 2015 end of competition. Awards begin. Big ones tomorrow.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/mcsm.jpg (http://www.shakespeareflix.net/2015/04/new-stills-of-michael-fassbender-and.html)
Marion Cotillard in Macbeth

The Marion Cotillard/Michael Fassbender "Macbeth" by Australian director Justin Kurzel has to be today's big final Competition film. Here is the lead paragraph of Guy Lodge's rave Variety (http://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/macbeth-review-michael-fassbender-marion-cotillard-1201500514/) review:
As the shortest, sharpest and most stormily violent of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, “Macbeth” may be the most readily cinematic: The swirling mists of the Highlands, tough to fabricate in a theater, practically rise off the printed page. So it’s odd that, while “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet” get dusted off at least once a generation by filmmakers, the Scottish Play hasn’t enjoyed significant bigscreen treatment since Roman Polanski’s admirable if tortured 1971 version. The wait for another may be even longer after Justin Kurzel’s scarcely improvable new adaptation: Fearsomely visceral and impeccably performed, it’s a brisk, bracing update, even as it remains exquisitely in period. Though the Bard’s words are handled with care by an ideal ensemble, fronted by Michael Fassbender and a boldly cast Marion Cotillard, it’s the Australian helmer’s fervid sensory storytelling that makes this a Shakespeare pic for the ages — albeit one surely too savage for the classroom The Un Certain Regard prizes were awarded. These films have not been much reported on.
Un Certain Regard Prize : Grimur Hakonarson HRUTAR/SHEEP
Jury Prize : Dalibor Matanic LEAD SUN
Directing Prize : Kiyoshi Kurosawa JOURNEY TO THE SHORE
Un Certain Talent Prize : Corneliu Porumboiu THE TREASURE
Un Certain Regard Special Prize : Ida Panahandeh and Masaan de Neeraj Ghaywan NAHID
Hungarian Laszlo Neme's Competition first feature (unusual) SON OF SAUL won a FIPRESCI Prize. So did Santiago Mitre''s Paulina. And a lot of other films I'e never heard of. Now everybody is making roundup remarks and predicting the big prize winners, which everyone also agrees can never be predicted at Cannes.

D'Angelo's last day of tweets at Cannes 2015. (He didn't see all these today.)

Mustang (Ergüven): 70. At first I was all Why are these 5sisters behaving like a single organism? Then I was all Ohhh. Ending wrecked me.

Rams (Hákonarson): 66. Easily the best movie about feuding Icelandic sheep farmers I have ever seen ever. Funniest sight gag of the fest.

The Wakhan Front (Cogitore): 55. Intriguing, but never quite becomes anything more than that. Didn't need answers, exactly, but something.

Valley of Love (Nicloux): 53. Has anyone observed that this is basically the same film as THE WAKHAN FRONT, despite no surface similarities?

Dheepan (Audiard): 50. What everyone else said about the ending that seems like it wandered in from a bad Bruce Willis movie. Damaging.

Macbeth (Kurzel): 49. Maybe my love for Polanski's version (which I recently rewatched) is getting in the way? Seemed meatheaded to me.

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/CANNES.jpg

Cannes 2015: the big Competition prizes, etc. Some predictable choices but overall a pretty weird finale. See GUARDIAN'S
Film blog
Cannes 2015: baffling set of prizes take the edge off a great competition line-up (http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/may/24/cannes-2015-dheepan-audiard-palme-d-or-baffling-prizes)

In other words, it was a good festival but the prizes sucked. I highly recommend this concluding GUARDIAN entry on the prizes and the festival by Peter Bradshaw. His movie writing is admirably pithy and passionate and I admire it more and more and am awed by his energy and enthusiasm at Cannes. The UK'S GUARDIAN team at major festivals has generally been great lately. It makes the NY TIMES coverage look truly pathetic. If Americans love cinema, and dominate the global film market, why can't they bother to send a few more critics, apart from the struggling online ones who have to ride a bike in from the next town -- and who are becoming more and more important for those of us English speakers who want to follow up-to-the-minute coverage of Cannes and not just read a couple of half-hearted know-it-all summaries?

Feaure Films

GOLDEN PALM
DHEEPAN (Jacques AUDIARD)
GRAND PRIZE
SON OF SAUL (László NEMES)
BEST DIRECTOR
HOU Hsiao-Hsien for THE ASSASSIN
BEST SCREENPLAY
CHRONIC (Michel FRANCO)
BEST ACTRESS Ex-aequo
Emmanuelle BERCOT in MON ROI (MAÏWENN)
Rooney MARA in CAROL (Todd HAYNES)
BEST ACTOR
Vincent LINDON in LA LOI DU MARCHÉ (THE MEASURE OF A MAN) Directed by Stéphane BRIZÉ
Jury Prize
THE LOBSTER (Yorgos lANTHIMOS)

Short Films

Palme d'Or - Short Film
WAVES '98 (Ely DAGHER)

Comments. I haven't seen any of them but. . . DHEEPAN sounds an odd choice, with its "problematic" ending, much as I like Audiard. It seems clear that CAROL ought to have won bigger than this. I paid attention to Peter Bradshaw's reservations about everything but the look of THE ASSASSIN. It's questionable that Emmanuelle Bercot won for her performance in a movie that many found tiresome. The GUARDIAN blog calls this prize award "fantastically obtuse, exasperating and dumb." So, not a great year, though SON OF SAUL, THE LOBSTER and Vincent Lindon were worthy choices. There are other Cannes 2015 films I want to see, and there are of course the other sections outside Competition where some gems may be lurking, such as the three-feature ARABIAN NIGHTS, which many could not fit into the tight festival schedule.



[B]Mike D'Angelo's "will wins" and "should wins. (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1042-day-10-crystal-ball-and-au-revoir/)"
PALME D'OR: SON OF SAUL. Should win: SICARIO.
GRAND PRIZE: THE ASSASSIN. Should win: CAROL.
BEST DIRECTOR: Jia Zhang-ke. Should win: László Nemes
BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett. Should win: Cate Blanchett
BEST ACTOR: DHEEPAH"s star. Should win: Vincent Lindon
BEST SCREENPLAY: MY MOTHER (Moretti). Should win: THE LOBSTER
JURY PRIZE: He couldn't guess, but would like SICARIO, CAROL, or THE LOBSTER to win. So D'Angelo misjudged on Jia Zhang-ke; he wasn't as loved by the jury as by some others. He was right about SON OF SAUL, wrong about Nanni Moretti's MY MOTHER and he shouldn't have been: it was 3rd in the Screen International poll and first in Le Film Francais' poll. It's been asserted that the Italians, who had three films in Competition by major figures, Garrone, Moretti, and Sorrentino, none of which got any mention, got screwed this year. There are just so many things that don't make sense, or that you can't predict -- which makes this more interesting than recent Academy Awards in yet another way, besides the wider, more international range of films. But other years, you could feel a lot better about the Palme d'Or and Grand Prix winners than this year. And not so much because of the Competition, so you have to blame the Jury.

UN CERTAIN REGARD

PRIZE OF UN CERTAIN REGARD
HRÚTAR (Béliers / Rams) by Grímur Hákonarson
JURY PRIZE
ZVIZDAN (Soleil de plomb / The High Sun) by Dalibor Matanić
BEST DIRECTOR PRIZE
JOURNEY TO THE SHORE (Kiyoshi Kurosawa}
UN CERTAIN TALENT PRIZE
TREASURE (Corneliu Porumboiu)
PROMISING FUTURE PRIZE
MASAAN (Neeraj Ghaywan)
Ex aequo
NAHID (Ida Panahandeh)

CRITICS WEEK

GRAND PRIZE
Paulina (Santiago Mitre) centers on a 28-year-old woman who gives up a brilliant career as a lawyer to dedicate herself to teaching in a depressed region in Argentina. In a rough environment, she sticks to her mission and to her political engagement, accepting to sacrifice her boyfriend and the trust of her father, a powerful local judge.
REVELATION PRIZE
La Tierra Y la Sombra (César Augusto Acevedo) follows an old farmer who has returned home to tend to his gravely ill son and tries to fit back in and save his family.
SONY CUNEALTA PRIZE
Varicella (Fulvio Risuleo) (The Sony CineAlta prize

There are other prizes -- can't list them all here. In particular the outstanding Turkish rookie director Deniz Gamze Erguven's MUSTANG got a prize, Clement Cogitore’s Afghanistan war drama THE WAKHAN FRONT, starring Jeremie Renier, took home the Gan Foundation Support for Distribution, and Arnaud Desplechin's MY GOLDEN DAYS won prizes. It's obvious MY GOLDEN DAYS was one of the festivals' best films and ought to have been in Competition instead of weaker films such as Valerie Donzelli's MARGUERITE ET JULIEN and Guillaume Nicloux's VALLEY OF LOVE. These, the ought-to-have-won, ought-to-have-been-in-Competition titles, are going to turn up at other fests and get distributors.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/cate.jpg
Cate Blanchett's star turn in Haynes' Carol. Both should have won big. But only the secondary actor got an award -- not Cate, not Todd.

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/CANNES.jpg

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/vl.jpg
.............VINCENT LINDON

One thing to feel okay, and more than okay, about is Vincent Lindon's Best Actor prize. For for several reasons. He is a very solid actor, one of the best in France of the last three decades, always convincing and true. He has done a lot of good work, yet never won any major prize. He has been five times nominated for a César and never won one. He has done three films with this director, Stéphane Brizé, MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON (2009), A FEW HOURS OF SPRING (2012) (not releaased in the US), and this one, THE MEASURE OF A MAN/La loi du marché, and people say this is on a whole different level from the previous two. See Mike D'Angelo's good discussion of this film in THE DISSOLVE (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/1031-day-5-white-supremacists-and-dull-ghosts/). As he notes Lindon is "probably best known to U.S. cinephiles from his roles in La Moustache and in Claire Denis’ Friday Night", and it's also absolutely true and to be noted as he says that the actor "fairly oozes rugged masculinity." In this role D'Angelo calls this a passive version of the Dardennes' TWO DAYS, THREE NIGHTS. He plays here a laid-off factory worker long out of work who suddenly gets a job as a security guard in a huge department store. From then on, his performance is nearly silent -- but "deeply expressive." Brizé "stacks the deck more than is necessary" in his earlier plot set-up. But "there’s still something potent about seeing this passionate scrapper all but shut down after finally achieving his hard-fought goal"; he has to hold onto this job, he needs it desperately, and yet it's terrible now for A Man to find himself forced into the position of being THE MAN. Remember (see above), D'Angelo said Lindon was the one who should win Best Actor but probably won't; well, surprise, he did. Lindon himself says this role was a special opportunity to take his acting to a new level and find things in himself he didn't even know he had. This is what we look for, why we care about movies, people. And this time, the Coen brothers Jury did good. Bravo, Vincent Lindon.

Lindon has been married for 17 years to Sandrine Kiberlain, who is often more of a comic actor; they played opposite each other in the two-hander, MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON.