Cannes 2004

[Johann]

Cannes is underway again this year, with Tarantino heading a jury that includes Kathleen Turner and Emmanuel Beart (8 Women).

The opening film was Bad Education by Pedro Almodovar (out of competition) and the festival has new films from Kusterica, Kar-Wei and Presidential nominee John Kerry's daughter (?).

Should be interesting to see what unfolds- there is already controversy. There is a trade union that is using the festival to express it's anger.

Also, Michael Moore is unveiling Fahrenheit 9/11- his attack on Bush- which is in competion for the coveted Palm D'Or.

[pmw]

Yeah, this is a really charged festival. Perfect timing for Moore's

Nathan Lee, who writes for the NY Sun/ NY Times decided at some point to test his endurance and to file daily columns from Cannes!! Im not sure anyone has done that before. He will see 4-5 films a day and then write about them. I will try and post them here if I can get a hold of them.

P

[pmw]

5/13/04 - From Nathan Lee's column in the NY Sun - 'Letters From Cannes'

Velvet Ropes & Mosh Pits

Clouds gathered in the sky above Cannes, but the festival began brightly — and, humanely, at the unusually late hour of 10:30 a.m. — with the first screening of “Bad Education.” Already a controversial hit in Spain, Pedro Almodóvar’s latest was tepidly applauded by the assembled press,but it’s a bolder, more coherent work than his overrated “Talk to Her.’
Taking the pearl for its central symbol, “Bad Education” builds up a luxurious coating of stories, secrets, and ambiguities around a tough kernel of desire.“There’s nothing less erotic than an actor looking for work,”says filmmaker Enrique Goded (Fele Martínez), who nevertheless promptly puts Angel (Gael García Bernal) face down on the casting couch.
Claiming to be Enrique’s childhood friend — and his first lover — Angel has pitched an autobiographical short story about his relationship to a pedophile priest (Daniel Giménez-Cacho, terrific as Father Manolo). Enrique, a clear Almodóvar stand-in, begins production on the film (within a film), enabling a suave “flashback” structure for what might be described as a pastel noir.
“Bad Education” is as strange, and lucidly erotic, as a Hockney pool painting, and it is a sign of good things to come at the 57th Cannes Film Festival. However …
Abbas Kiarostami’s “10 on Ten,” conceived as a bonus for the DVD release of “Ten,” is a documentary about a film I didn’t much care for (unlike numerous French critics, who declared the latest “reinvention of cinema” at Cannes 2002). Since I was certain I’d hear it’s the supreme masterpiece of the festival, in any case,I opted instead to check out the jury press conference.
There I was immediately engulfed in a velvet-rope frenzy, part Tower of Babel, part Cahiers du Mosh Pit. Clutching a microphone in one hand and
thrashing her press pass about in the other, a distressed MTV reporter decided to get Ugly American on an unflappable security guard.
“Do you speak English?” she barked at a man who clearly did. Less angry than distressed, she was trying to join her cameraman who,toting the more impressive technology, was already inside. Meanwhile, a Dutch reporter without camera or microphone kept elbowing my ribs.
So I gave up and headed to the balcony for a smoke. By that time, the clouds had started spitting.
Chemically stabilized, I headed back to the velvet rope and found the guardians of the inscrutable Cannes press-pass hierarchy momentarily obliging. I took a seat beneath an enormous battery of television cameras just as moderator Annette Insdorf (beaming, bilingual) walked on stage trailing jurists.
Flanked by Kathleen Turner and a French actress half her size (Emmanuel Béart),jury president Quentin Tarantino had his “serious” face on — until he was asked what Cannes means to him. The fanboy’s switch thrown, the dudespeak came rushing out: “Cannes is heaven, aiight, it’s just heaven, aiight, if you love cinema, it’s just heaven, aiight.”
Jerry Schatzberg got a pronounced hiss from the back when he summed up his experience at the festival as “wine, food, and women,” while Hong Kong action maestro Tsui Hark mumbled something semi-coherent about Cannes being “hell.”Taking my cue, I dashed over to a packed Salle Bazin for the Kiarostami.
Scanning the overflow crowd, I inadvertently discovered the best seat in the house: planted on the floor at the back of the room. In addition to the great sightlines down the aisle, you can actually stretch your legs out.
This proved a more exciting discovery than the film, which would indeed make for a great DVD bonus. Putting himself in the driver’s seat occupied by the characters in “Taste of Cherry” and “Ten,” Mr. Kiarostami begins by discoursing on the ability of the tiny digital video camera to capture “truth” and — are you ready? — reinvent cinema.

[Johann]

If you wanna read a really heated debate, go to the imdb and read the message board on Moore's new film. The posts are from back in Aug. 2003 and there is a volley of insults between some guy who calls himself a history buff and a guy who says he's full of shit. Entertaining stuff!!
I only just read it today and "America" takes a pounding.....

[Johann]

I forgot to add Godard is also showing his newest film (a three part documentary) called Notre Musique tomorrow. It's out of competition, and i'm sure Tarantino is in Nirvana with Godard in attendance.....

[pmw]

So here are the last few days of The Sun's Cannes coverage. I was out of town for a few days and couldn't post. Here goes:

Nathan Lee - From 'Troy' to Hollywood, NY Sun, 5/14/2004
CANNES, France — En route to the local Monoprix to stock up on bottled water and fresh fruit, I run into a Canadian magazine editor looking perturbed. “The crowds,” he said through a mouthful of baguette, “are unbelievable.The Americans are back.”

I don’t know that the Americans ever went away, but today’s program is definitely Yank-centric.There’s a “meet the filmmakers” session for “Shrek 2” (thanks, but I can look at computers in the press center), followed by competing press screenings of “Troy” and the idiotic “Dawn of the Dead”remake.Decision, decisions!

Later in the evening, an American documentary about wine (“Mondovino”) will debut in the expansive Salle Debussy. Originally slated for an out-ofcompetition slot, its bump up to the main ring was announced this morning. No one seems to know, or care, what this might mean.
Speaking of the press center, I’ve been spending a lot of time here, waiting for a computer terminal to open up ever since my laptop decided to start crashing every 10 minutes. I feel only marginally better having run into the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman, who’s spent most of his day trying to fix a screwy Wi-Fi connection.

Neither of us have spent much time trying to wrap our heads around “The Consequences of Love,” a dreadful Italian film in competition that screened in the unholy early morning slot. Toni Servillo stars as a shy, elegant, mysterious “businessman” (read: mafioso) who, when not camped out in the café of his swank Swiss Hotel, is transacting shady deals involving suitcases stuffed with American dollars.

It’s director Paolo Sorrentino who seems most interested in American dollars, though. “Consequences” is a wry (but clichéd) character study shot like a commercial action film; it feels like a Hollywood calling card masquerading as an art film. At first the movie seems inspired by an Italian modernist tradition — Fellini/Visconti sinuousness, meticulous Antonioni tableaux — but by the end it’s all just a bag of tricks.

An excess of attention-focusing zooms gives away the real lineage of the film: “Consequences” is “Son of Scorsese” filmmaking at it’s most swaggering and pretentious.
Elsewhere in the competition, “Nobody Knows”is exactly the reverse; delicate, intimate, as beautifully detailed as it is restrained. Just shy of two-anda-half hours, the new film by Kore-Eda Hirokazu (“Afterlife,” “Distance”) spins its wheels into the last hour, despite a laudable lack of sentimentality.

Based on real events known as the “Affair of the Four Abandoned Children of Nishi-Sugamo,” “Nobody Knows” stars an actress named You, who apparently is a “television personality”; her helium voice reminded me of Jennifer Tilly. As the movie begins, she moves into a small Tokyo apartment with her son Akira (Yuya Yagira), then unpacks two more kids from suitcases while the landlord isn’t looking.A fourth kid joins up with them later, completing the immensely charming and skillful kid ensemble.

Their camaraderie is undercut when Mom explains the new house rules: no loud noise, and no going outside. Ever. Several days later,after returning home drunk, she abandons them, leaving Akira in charge.The children retreat into a world of play: “Home Alone” meets “Les Enfants Terribles” (minus the vulgarity of the former and the psychosexual weirdness of the latter). Training a clear, simple, but slightly indulgent eye on this maudlin scenario, Mr. Kore-Eda avoids most of the possible pratfalls.

As so often with the directors’ cuts that screen at Cannes, an American distributor will surely demand edits, but “Nobody Knows” would undoubtedly benefit from a slight, sensitive trimming. Yet it’s a wise, warm movie in any form, a “crowd-pleaser” in the best sense of the word.
Out of the Darkness, NY Sun, 5/17/2004
When you’re a critic covering Cannes, it’s the nonstop screenings that exhaust you — three or four a day, beginning at 8:30 in the morning. But it’s only when lost in a movie that I find myself feeling even remotely human — and judging from the various shades of bruise ringing my colleagues’ eyes, I’m not alone.

Jet lag has long since blurred into fatigue, overstimulation, deadline panic, and malnutrition (cigarettes are a food group in France); attention spans pop quicker than flashbulbs; the sunlight feels malevolent compared to the calming darkness of the theater. Rimbaud is the patron saint of the Cannes critics: We are all trying to become seers through a complete derangement of the senses.

A shortlist,then,of the various visionary experiences to be had in the first week of Cannes: the modulations of landscape in “Los Muertos,” a hermetic Argentinean film of unassailable formal integrity; the way narrative is constructed through portraiture in the first reel of “La Niña Santa”; splinters of Jonathan Caouette’s zero-budget experimental memoir “Tarnation”; Asia Argento’s
bold lead performance in her underappreciated “The Heart is Deceitful … Above All Things”; Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bad Education”; and, in their entirety, two difficult masterpieces from Abbas Kiarostami and Jean-Luc Godard.

At the insistence of the ever-intractable Mr. Godard,“Notre Musique” screened in the small Salle Buñuel theater. It was in this same room, three years ago, that enthusiasts barred from entering “Eloge de l’Amour” nearly incited a riot. Duly warned, I skipped the morning competition screening of “Comme un Image” (the best Woody Allen film since “Husbands and Wives,” I’ve been told) and got in line an hour early.

Three New York Godardists were already queued up; the rest of Gotham’s cinetelligentsia arrived shortly thereafter.“Why don’t you want to sit closer?” one of the Godardistas asked her friend. “You never know what will happen,” he enigmatically replied. “I don’t know what the image will be — or what it will do to me.” This is classic Cannes-speak — weird anxieties filtered through the haze of the last movie, the early hour, the lack of sleep. But it’s also a delightfully Godardian formulation.

What will the image do to me? If it comes in the sublime vision of paradise that resolves “Notre Musique” — the cannibal jungle of Mr. Godard’s “Weekend” redeemed as a glorious green Eden — it will electrify my entire being like nothing else at the festival. Mr. Godard has always stirred the mind, and in his middle-to-late period he began to reach for the spirit, but now he lights on the heart with disarming sincerity. Who would have guessed that of all the films at the festival, it would be Mr. Godard’s that sent me exiting the darkness in tears?

The movie is “about” countless things — Sarajevo and Palestine, revolution and resignation, colonialism, representation, language, and theory — but as always with Mr. Godard, it’s the force and originality of form that leaves the deepest mark. Interestingly, the central metaphor of “Notre Musique” is the shot/countershot relationship in classic filmmaking (a building block of narrative cinema that Mr. Godard has studiously avoided throughout his entire career).
In the onslaught of images and sounds at Cannes, you quickly learn to call the bluff of fakers and dilettantes. The clean,hard edges of “Notre Musique”instantly cut through the clamor. Mr. Godard has achieved an autumnal style as dense, scintillating, visionary, and problematic as the late Ezra Pound.

I have to say I wasn’t expecting much from Abbas Kiarostami’s “Five” after sitting through the glorified DVD extra “10 on Ten.” But, intrigued by the quasistructuralist catalog description and fed up with Emir Kusturica’s rambunctious but repetitive “Life Is a Miracle,” I decided to take a look — and I discovered, to my great pleasure,another of the sure masterpieces of the festival. “Five”only appears to be composed of five long, uninterrupted DVD takes. In actuality, each series is subtly manipulated.

When artistic director Thierry Frémaux promised no more “long, boring auteur films” at the festival, he failed to realize that it’s precisely the contemplative mode that clicks best at Cannes.The mind needs a rich space to sink into; tired eyes are drawn to the most controlled and concentrated mise-en-scène.

The Firestorm Begins, NY Sun, 5/18/2004

You could feel the tension mounting all week, and today it finally exploded in a blaze of activity at the Palais des Festivals. The world premiere of Michael Moore’s incendiary “Fahrenheit 9/11” has come and gone, but the political firestorm has surely just begun.

“They’re going to be shocked and awed,” said Mr. Moore, when asked how American audiences will respond to his new film. He may be right. “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a furious attack on the Bush administration for its failings before, during, and after September 11, and a denunciation of the war on Iraq.Accepted to the competition at Cannes while still in post-production, the film contains reportage as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines.

Along with horrifying images of dead Iraqi children and maimed and mutilated American soldiers — images unseen on network television or in major newspapers — the film contains the first publicly seen video footage of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Most of this is tame compared to recently published photographs (we see soldiers pulling hoods over detainees and mugging for the camera ), but in a more disturbing sequence a group of soldiers taunts an Iraqi man laid out on a cot in the middle of the street. As Mr. Moore said, quite accurately, at his press conference, “You’re going to see things you haven’t seen before.”

Yet the first sign of Mr. Moore’s unexpected rhetorical persuasiveness in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” is something we don’t see. After detailing connections between the Bush family and the Saudi ruling class (including the Bin Laden family), the movie arrives at the morning of September 11. You brace yourself for the image (I know what this image will do to me), but the screen goes black. A terrible collage of noise from ground zero wells up on the soundtrack.

From the man who shamelessly exploited the security camera footage of the Columbine High School massacre, this tact signals a newfound maturity. As in “Bowling For Columbine,” some of Mr. Moore’s conclusions are shallow and glib — his skewering of the Patriot Act is surprisingly toothless — but his self-aggrandizement has completely vanished. “A little bit of me goes a long way,” he admitted at his press conference.

At the wounded heart of the film is a woman named Lila Lipscomb, proud matriarch of a military family in Flint, Mich., whose son is serving in Iraq. When we first meet her, she extols the virtues of a military career for the poverty-stricken residents of Flint. Her pride in America is pure, idealistic, and heartfelt; families like hers are “the backbone” of the country.Then her son is killed in Iraq.

Her disillusionment and anger are entirely personal (and emotionally devastating — there wasn’t a dry eye in the house), but their implications are pointedly political. “Fahrenheit 9/11” seeks to disseminate images and stories ignored by the mass media, to give the American public an unflinching look at the human cost of our toppling of Saddam Hussein. “Once they’re given the information,” said Mr. Moore, the American public “can act accordingly and from a good place.”

Of course, the “information” in “Fahrenheit 9/11” comes in the form of an unapologetically left-wing polemic — conservatives will denounce it as fervently as liberals will embrace it. Both sides will surely make fools of themselves as the movie enters an explosive political climate. (Mr. Moore assured the press that the movie, backed by Miramax but dropped by parent company Disney, will be released before November.) But by insisting that such debate is necessary for a true reckoning of our times, Mr. Moore — for all his obvious shortcomings as a political thinker and an artist — has made a patriotic film.


Torrid Foreign Affairs, NY Sun 5/19/2004
If watching films at a festival is like embarking on a series of affairs, Cannes turns you into a genuine slut. The relationship may begin promisingly, but at the first sign of incompatibility, all you can think about is the inevitable breakup. There’s always something sexier, funnier, or smarter to check out in an hour or so — or so you hope.

Today I flirt with an Australian film called “Somersault” for a mere 10 minutes before walking out (too precious); I’ve got to make myself presentable for an opportunity to get close to someone I’ve been stalking for years (the Godard press conference is this afternoon). Other lovers I’ve jilted in the competition include “The Consequences of Love” (too smug), “Old Boy” (too immature), “Life is a Miracle” (too self-indulgent), and “Woman is the Future of Man” (too…Korean?).

Three films in the Un Certain Regard category lose my affections by the end of the first reel: “10 on Ten” (too pedantic), “A Toute de Suite” (pretty but dull), and “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” (predictable and sanctimonious).

Sometimes, however, your partner can surprise you. I come very close to breaking up with an emotionally detached Chinese film called “Passages,” which reminded me of hotter times with Jia Zhangke. But the longer I committed to Yang Chao’s debut (familiar but promising), the more rewarding the relationship became.

Et l’amour? In the head-spinning atmosphere of Cannes, it’s always a bit fou. Last night I fell head over heels for “Tropical Malady,” further evidence that my crush on Apichatpong Weerasethakul has blossomed into full-blown devotion — but it’ll take a second, third, or fourth date to fully make sense of my emotions.

The promiscuity at Cannes extends to social interactions. Everyone scans the crowd for familiar faces, making flash decisions whether or not to attempt face time. Past history with the potential minute-mate is only one factor. Body language is scrutinized for signs; a nod of the head might be an invitation to compare notes on the last screening, while crossed arms may indicate that X programmer is talking shop with Y critic and doesn’t have time for chit-chat.

Even when you do run into a friendly face, conversations pick up and drop within seconds; the primary mode of love is the quickie.

Yesterday, while comparing notes on the new Godard film with A.O. Scott, we were interrupted by a publicist of some sort who breathlessly informed the Times critic that the press conference for “La Nina Santa” was about to begin — “It will be great!” Two minutes later, the publicist rushed back and repeated this exact same information word for word. Maybe he’s got that “Memento” thing.

More cruising goes on in the Palais des Festivals than in the West Village on Gay Pride Day, except here it’s your rank in the hierarchy that’s usually getting the once-over. I’ve watched as complete strangers walked by, scrutinized my press pass, and walked on. Blue, pink, pink with yellow pastille, red, yellow, and white (the coveted carte blanch): We’re all color-coded for importance.

As a Cannes virgin, I feel a bit like the Lindsay Lohan character from “Mean Girls.” At this table, a pack of museum programmers I vaguely know who aren’t remotely interested in acknowledging my existence; across the cafeteria, the bright young acquisition team of a New York distribution company; down the hall, an intermittently friendly critic at an alternative weekly. It’s just like being in high school, except the food is better and you don’t have to sneak into the bathroom for a cigarette.

Waiting for '2046', by Nathan Lee, NY Sun 5/20/2004
With “The Ladykillers” dominating attention, and a handful of mediocre sounding movies unspooling in the various sidebars, Wednesday was quiet for much of the American press corps. The most intrepid critic I’ve spoken to saw only two movies — and didn’t bother to mention their titles. “Is this thing still going on?” my dinner companion muttered.

A second look at Jean-Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique” (good as gold for the New York Film Festival, I hear) proved the day’s only memorable event, though I was momentarily enchanted by a scene on the Croisette: two puppies chasing each other around the beachfront screening of “Hair,” with glittering yachts dancing in the background, amid a battery of spotlights that made the harbor into a forest of light. I suddenly remembered that I’m in the south of France.

The news today isn’t a movie but the absence of one. Cannes 2004 may be remembered as the year of “2046,” but for the moment no one has the slightest idea when Wong Kar Wai’s long-delayed project will screen. A leaflet distributed to all the press boxes this morning explained that the print had yet to be subtitled and wouldn’t be ready for the morning screening as scheduled.

But this is par for the course for Mr. Wong, whose “In the Mood for Love” also reached Cannes at the 11th hour. And if “2046” is half as good as that film, it will walk into the sunset with the Palme d’or: The competition is generally agreed to be weak this year.

The best movie I saw today was part of the rarely visited “Cannes Classics” sidebar, where I saw Philippe Garrel’s loony 1967 Nico vehicle “La Cicatrice Intérieure.” But I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for the Sundance smash “The Motorcycle Diaries,” though I generally admired its even keel and absorbing Super 16 mm cinematography.

Gael Garcia Bernal stars in this middlebrow hagiography of the young Che Guevara in his medical-school days. Kissing his middle-class Argentinean family goodbye, the revolutionary-tobe embarks on a road trip throughout South America with sidekick Alberto (Roderigo de la Serna).They encounter much lovely scenery and many earnest members of the proletariat en route to dawning political consciousness. “Motorcycle Diaries” is eminently watchable but instantly forgettable, and certainly not the film that will garner Mr. Gael an acting award. (That would be “Bad Education.”)

With a shelf life of exactly six months, “Fahrenheit 9/11” will hardly be turning up in the “Cannes Classics” program 30 years from now. Likewise, “Nobody Knows” and “La Nina Santa” certainly have their admirers, but no film racks up a significant number of “masterpiece” ratings in the back pages of the dailies. With Mr. Moore’s film back in the cutting room and the upcoming film by Olivier Assayas generating little heat, the festival could use a little drama at this point. Or even a decent movie.

[Johann]

Great stuff, Nathan. I'll buy you a bottle of Remy martin sometime...


I really liked hearing about the "Godardists"- I'm one of them.

Shrek 2 blows monkeys, by the way.

[pmw]

More from Nathan Lee's NY Sun column -
5/21/2004

CANNES, France — It’s not much of a surprise, but it’s thrilling news nevertheless: Wong Kar-wai’s “2046” is the best film of the 57th Cannes Film Festival — I think. Beginning with the bizarre opening sequence — skeletal computer animations of a futuristic city — the hugely anticipated follow-up to “In the Mood for Love” is the most baffling of the Hong Kong master’s films, an obsessive labyrinth of voluptuous images, opaque motivations, and complex rhythmic structures.

On first viewing — and it will require many, many more to sort out this one — “2046” plays like extravagant coda to “In the Mood for Love,” mixed up with some very peculiar sci-fi. Reprising his role as a lovelorn Shanghai journalist, Tony Leung woos a number of the most glamorous icons in Asian cinema, including Gong Li, Faye Wong, and, in a special appearance, Maggie Cheung, his obscure object of desire in the previous film.

Or so the credits claim: “2046” is literally a hall of mirrors, and it’s tricky to sort out the various characters, their syncopated emotions, and the exceedingly baroque narrative they inhabit like ghosts. Indeed, the movie works most immediately as a ghost story haunted by the romanticism of its predecessor, a dirge for the rapturously sublimated love affair between the Leung and Cheung characters.

Everything in “2046” is diffuse, fractured, and fleeting — five years in the making, it has the feeling of a magnificently private sketchbook. How much of this is by design and how much a failure to make the material cohere is a mystery to unravel in the future. Screened at the 11th hour here at this mostly disappointing festival, and met with general approval but widespread confusion, this most hermetic film will require space and time to properly unpack. It may just be too odd to nab the Palme d’Or after all — but it may be the most daring, uncompromising vision of the year.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
Michael Moore is unveiling Fahrenheit 9/11- his attack on Bush- which is in competion for the coveted Palm D'Or.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 wins the Palme D'Or! Congratulations Michael Moore!! All we need now is only single fucking American distributor smart enough to spend a few bucks pushing it.

[JustaFied]

Congratulations indeed to Michael Moore! Hopefully the film will now at least make it to the "art house" circuit here in the States. I don't see it being a big box office hit, it's a documentary after all, but the rest of us should still be able to see it. Take everything Mr. Moore does with a grain of salt, but at least he raises the issues and gets people thinking about them...

Conspiracy alert: Tarantino was head of the Cannes jury, his films are released by Miramax, and Miramax is the one trying to get a distributor for Fahrenheit 9/11. Hmmm...

[oscar jubis]

I predict that FAHRENHEIT, given a halfway decent release, would overcome Columbine's 21 million to become the highest grossing doc of all time (not including concert films like Woodstock and The Kings of Comedy)

[JustaFied]

I should have been more specific in my statement. This documentary will not have the draw of "Shrek 2". Regardless of how much press it gets, there will be a large part of the population that won't see it, either for ideological / political reasons, or because it's a "boring" documentary.

That said, I agree it could very well surpass box office receipts for "Bowling", particularly if it's released this summer ahead of the fall election. Anyone with half a brain or with a mind that's not completely closed will probably have some interest in seeing this documentary.

[cinemabon]

I thought it was touching that Tarentino, choking with emotion, gave the award to Michael Moore (evidently the first doc to win since Jacques Cousteau in 1957? ... excuse my misspelling). I can't wait to see it. I don't think there are too many Bush fans on this site. Hopefully Moore will get distribution and help change a few minds.

[pmw]

From the NY Sun 5/24, Nathan Lee:

And the award for most flustered prizewinner of the 57th Cannes Film Festival goes to — Jonas Geirnaert! Accepting the short film Palme d’Or for “Flatlife,” the young Belgian filmmaker faced the camera with an adorably bewildered expression, his cheeks the color of strawberries.
After thanks to the jury, he praised this year’s event for being a “real” film festival — confessing, however, that he hadn’t seen many (or was it any?) films in competition. Mr. Geirnaert then turned another spotlight on the brightest star in Cannes: He thanked Michael Moore, then pleaded for Americans “not to vote for Bush.”
By bestowing the Palme d’Or on “Fahrenheit 9/11,” did the jury concur? Was it a victory for politics over art? At the jury press conference — the first in the festival’s history — Tilda Swinton defended the film as a “radical text” that sends out “spiderweb connections” “in powerful new ways” to the real world. Whatever political or aesthetic sentiments informed their choice, the jury was in accord with popular feeling: The thunderous ovation at the gala premiere is already the stuff of legend.
“What have you done?” said a visibly stunned Mr. Moore, summing up the response to most of the awards given this year. The directing award went to one of the most ignored films in competition, Tony Gatlif’s “Exiles.” The Grand Prix was awarded to the generally disliked (if not detested) “Old Boy,” a vapid, hyper-violent Korean film rumored to be a favorite of jury president Quentin Tarantino — who, to his credit, managed to announce every award without once saying “aiight.” (He saved that for the press conference.)
Maggie Cheung’s surprise best actress win delighted the minority of critics (myself included) behind Olivier Assayas’s “Clean,” a deceptively conventional story told with great intelligence and heart. Yuya Yagira, the 14-year-old star of “Nobody Knows,” wasn’t in Cannes to accept his deserved best actor prize. He had to go home for finals.
Cannes 2004 was a different kind of test for Thierry Fremaux, who took over as artistic director in the wake of last year’s widely derided program. His populist festival met with the approval of Variety’s inordinately influential Todd McCarthy, whose enunciations of “elitist” and “anti-American” programming led the voices of protest in 2003. If the 56th Cannes was a “roiling black sun of negativity,” he wrote, this year was like “a new star taking shape.”
The keyword there is “star.” From Mr. Moore (backed at various times by Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions, Disney, and Miramax) to Quentin Tarantino (who screened a four-hour version of “Kill Bill” on the last day) to the mass of pixels called “Shrek 2” (whose marketers flooded the Croisette with foam Shrek ears imprinted with the words “worst swag ever”), this was the most Hollywoodfriendly Cannes in history.
But the majority of critical support rallied around superb new work by reliable art-house masters. Ousmane Sembene’s vibrant “Moolade” was widely proclaimed one of the best films at the festival, while Jean-Luc Godard surprised many non-cultists with his heartfelt and accessible “Notre Musique.” Pedro Almodovar’s masterful “Bad Education” opened the festival on the strongest possible note, and Wong Kar-wai’s thrillingly intuitive, obviously unfinished “2046” closed it with a puzzling ravishment.
There was far less consensus about the best of the new breed, though Lucrecia Martel’s “La Nina Santa,” Agnès Jaoui’s “Look at Me,” and Lisandro Alonso’s “Los Meurtos” seemed to make the biggest impressions.
A tie for the Jury Prize reflected the festival’s general eclecticism. Irma P. Hall was honored for her scene-stealing comedic turn in the Coen Brother’s risible “The Ladykillers,” as was Apichatpong Weerasethakul for his overtly experimental and much-maligned “Tropical Malady.”
“Tropical Malady” was the only film in competition that clearly deserves the big superlatives “visionary,”“innovative,” “audacious.” But as the most “difficult” film in competition, it had as good a chance of winning the Palm d’Or as it did nabbing a best supporting actor award for its telepathic jungle monkey. (They both deserved it.)
Mr. Weerasethakul (or “Joe,” as he likes to be called) plunges into the landscape on the border of Thailand and Burma to tell an unusual love story split into two even sections. The movie begins as a poetic vignette about two young men who initiate a chaste romance. Just as their relationship reaches a peculiar consummation (the licking of a fist, since you asked), the movie spins down into a black screen and reemerges as a nearly wordless fable about a lonely tiger spirit stalking his lover in the jungle.

Casting everything before it in a strange new light, this astonishing second half registered as something new, a live report from the frontier of contemporary cinematic consciousness. The philistine reaction to such a bold act of imagination was the ugliest scene to be witnessed in Cannes, where bad behavior is de rigueur.

Indeed, the rush to judgment and phrasemaking oneupsmanship at Cannes is one of the most tiresome (if often amusing) aspects of the two weeks. (I heard one person say of “Tropical Malady”: “But of course, he doesn’t know how to make a movie at all!”) “People hate it when they can’t wrap their heads around a movie right away” said one of the film’s supporters. Well, not me. “Tropical Malady” (re)defines the “state of the art”: That’s what I came to see at Cannes.

I did overhear, at the very end of the festival, one bit of hyperbole no one seemed to argue with. As the lights went up on the restoration of Samuel Fuller’s “The Big Red One,” and one of the greatest war films ever made was shown in its nearly complete form, one critic proclaimed, “That was the best film I’ve ever seen at Cannes.”

Should it appear on the program this year, Fuller’s film may very well end up the best film you’ll see at the New York Film Festival. But if the 57th Cannes Film Festival is anything to go by — and Cannes is always something to go by — Fuller’s restored masterpiece will crown what looks to be a vintage year for film.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by pmw
Nathan Lee -
Torrid Foreign Affairs, NY Sun 5/19/2004
Et l’amour? In the head-spinning atmosphere of Cannes, it’s always a bit fou. Last night I fell head over heels for “Tropical Malady,” further evidence that my crush on Apichatpong Weerasethakul has blossomed into full-blown devotion — but it’ll take a second, third, or fourth date to fully make sense of my emotions.

Full-blown devotion for Weerasethakul, the 33 year old director from Thailand, sounds deserved to me, based on the two films of his I've seen: Mysterious Object at Noon and Blissfully Yours. I've never had the opportunity to watch them in theatres, hope that changes with Tropical Malady. Because of Weerasethakul's unique vision and fresh approach of mixing aspects of the ethnographic documentary and narrative fiction, his films keep getting labeled "experimental", which is not a word prospective distributors want to hear. Most likely I'll have to watch Malady on import dvd.

[pmw]

Blissfully Yours is an amazing film. It is remarkably subtle which I think contributes to what you characterize as a mix of documentary and fiction. I have only seen this one on the big screen.

Anxiously awaiting Tropical Malady.

Brief message, but I'm in a internet cafe in Toronto. First time to the home of the great festival, which I will hopefully attend this year.

P

[oscar jubis]

I'm glad to hear from you, P. Not many new posts in the past few days. I have been thinking about attending Toronto '04 myself, 9 years since my last visit. (My wife would rather visit relatives in Spain though. Maybe I go to Toronto for a few days by myself. Have you been to Georgian Bay in North Ontario? It's well worth the 2 hr. drive from Toronto. Any tips as to how to get tix to highly awaited films or a cheap room near downtown would be appreciated. Enjoy your trip, P.

[Johann]

Toronto's a biggie- you can hang with Ebert!

I wish I could give you some tips for hotels and tix, oscar, but I haven't been in T.O for 9 years as well.

Man, I wanna see fahrenheit Bad...

[pmw]

Oscar,
Cheap tickets should be easy enough to come by. Let's talk more in the coming weeks.

My posting has slowed as my work load has spiked...And movie releases have also slowed a bit no? Sometimes Im not sure if that's actually true or if I'm too busy to notice.

Talk to you soon,
P

[Johann]

Yep, movie listings are pretty pathetic these days. (Summer= worst time for movies). I'm gonna try to catch Guy Maddin's latest tonight: The Saddest Music in the World with the delectible Isabella Rossellini

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
Man, I wanna see fahrenheit Bad...

Lion Gate Films and IFC Films announced today that Fahrenheit 9/11 will be released in North America on June 25th.

[Chris Knipp]

.Excellent choice to run Nathan Lee columns, pmw. We're all vicarous Cannes sluts now.

[Johann]

This film is being released in the widest market ever for a documentary. I'll try to post the number of screens.

I'll be interested to hear everybody's opinions on Moore's latest.

[cinemabon]

Harvey Weinstein interviewed on AMC Sunday Morning by Peter Gruber stated that "F...9/11" received the "greatest standing ovation of any film" he had ever seen at Cannes. "This was not just the French reacting in anti-American feeling... the crowd was mostly American... I mean they wouldn't even let the guy out the door... they surrounded him the moment he left the stage." Later, Harvey described his first pitch meeting with Michael Moore to Peter Gruber. "He came to us and started telling us about how they flew them (the Saudi Royal Family) out of the country just after 9/11... and we said, oh come on, Michael... and then he showed us the documentation, the interviews, the officials he had on tape... it was just incredible..." Gruber: "I feel this film is going to have one of the greatest impacts on an election in the history of this country." Weinstein: "I agree."

Miramax, which may be splitting with Disney over this (Weinstein said there were shouting matches over the phone with Eisner), plans on distributing the film (prints and advertising) in late July or early August.

Let the games begin...

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by pmw
From the NY Sun 5/24, Nathan Lee:

Maggie Cheung’s surprise best actress win delighted the minority of critics (myself included) behind Olivier Assayas’s “Clean,” a deceptively conventional story told with great intelligence and heart. .

Palm Pictures has acquired the rights to Olivier Assayas' latest, Clean, starring Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte. Nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes this year, the film is also among the finalists for the top film award in France, Prix Louis-Delluc. The film opened in France on September with enthusiastic reviews.

We'll have to wait for this one though, as the film is scheduled for the fall of next year.

[Chris Knipp]

I've posted my review of Clean now. http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=364


Maggie Cheung’s surprise best actress win delighted the minority of critics (myself included) behind Olivier Assayas’s “Clean”... How come Cheung won best actress for Clean if only a minority of critics loved the movie? This doesn't gibe with the fact that the French critics loved it when it opened two months ago. Anyway I certainly preferred Clean to the cold, baffling demonlover but ultimately it's not my favorite of the new films I saw in Paris. I think maybe the Variety critic is right to say "a margial commercial profile appears likely." I agreed with arsaib4 before, though, Maggie Cheung is supercool, and this would be something I'd go to see if I were you.

I'm looking forward even more to seeing de Pallieres' Adieu, Amelio's The Keys to the House, and Akin's Head On again. The latter two have US distributors and release dates planned; Adieu is a long shot.

[arsaib4]

No, actually most critics loved the film, Kent Jones named it among his top 5 at Cannes. Variety critic didn't like it and that's probably why he made that comment, and he just might be right, but it'll probably be because most French films don't do well here.

Maggie Cheung, along with being "super cool" is also one of the best actors in the world right now. Her award has just added to my curiosity.

[Chris Knipp]

I think she's more an icon and a sex goddess than a great actress, but can we tell the diffenence? Not always.

As for French movies not doing well here, this is a new thing, that of promoting the soft sugary stuff like Il Postino (of course not French) and Amelie, trying for a popular soft core audience, instead of the old intellectual audience of the Fifteis that went to see Cocteau. Clean is not Amelie. It's gritty. But I think Bruno Dumont is way way better than Assayas and somewhat in the same vein of Assayas Techine is better.

[arsaib4]

I think she was more of an icon back in the late 80's early 90's when she did commercial work/modeling along with appearing in the kind of films she did (Irma Vep certainly uses her persona to it's advantage). But ever since the likes of Wong Kar-wai and Stanley Kwan got a hold of her, she has delivered some amazing performances which has led to the kind of respect she gets now.

You know I like Dumont, but at this point I think Assayas is in a different league, Dumont has the potential to get there. Techine likes to play with his characters' inner turmoil in clastrophobic settings and he's a master at that. Assayas' canvas is larger I think, and he explores their world from the outside in.

[HorseradishTree]

Ah, Maggie Cheung. While I was a fan of Irma Vep, I also have to say that I thoroughly enjoy all of her smaller, quirkier martial arts pictures, like The Heroic Trio and a few with Jackie Chan.

What can I say? I'm a sucker...

[Chris Knipp]

arsaib4, have you seen Clean? Which Assayas films are you talking about?

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by HorseradishTree
Ah, Maggie Cheung. While I was a fan of Irma Vep, I also have to say that I thoroughly enjoy all of her smaller, quirkier martial arts pictures, like The Heroic Trio and a few with Jackie Chan.



Oh, believe me, I meant no disrespect to such films, we all have a tendency to focus on more auteur driven features but I've seen a few of those and they contain pleasures I don't feel guilty about at all.

You made a great post a little while back on such films. Tarantino would've been proud.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
arsaib4, have you seen Clean?

No, what made you think that I have?


Which Assayas films are you talking about?


Assayas’ entire oeuvre is filled with situations where he examines the outer world and it’s effect in relation to his characters.

In demonlover, it's the cold violence of business and the politics of corporate giants who have made his characters demons , unable to feel anything for themselves or for anyone else. They roam around, from here to there, looking for their next victim. The world around them has made them to behave the way they do. Assayas in the process blows up the film himself to get at the radical disconnection that comes with the image saturated world his characters live in. The film neither humanizes nor demonizes the whole culture but it poignantly points out the world, the way it is.

In Les Destinées Sentimentales, it's the changing of time at hand. The film which spans four decades, including a war, recession, changing of ideals etc., finds it's ground in Berling and through him we experience those changes. Whether its in his decision to move back to Limoges , or finally accepting the more inherent methods of making porcelain.

In Fin Août, Début Septembre, which at first might seem like just another Parisian-coffeeshop-talkathon, similar traits are present as Amalric doesn't know where he stands from one moment to the next and it's due to relationships he has with the people around him. Whether it's his relationship with the friend/mentor Clouzet, his girlfriend Ledoyen, or his ex. Balibar. Amalric constantly reacts to the events around him; Clouzet's sickness, Ledoyens' attitude etc,. In a most telling sequence which takes place in Amalric's office, after Clouzet has passed on, two of his colleagues talk up the latest work from Clouzet while Amalric rejects the notion of him being great even though while he was alive, he idealized him. Amalric is unsure and is unable to move on until the final sequence- a signature Assayas moment, perfectly timed and paced-when Amalric's sees Clouzet's young lover with someone else.

And of course the great L’Eau Froide, the film I consider his best along with demonlover and one of the best of the 90's (I’m still trying to make a list)- in which Assayas and in extention his own characters create a world around themselves that even they aren't totally able to comprehend. The film is his ode to the 70's era rock music, it's cultural and emotional ambiguities and the inability of the surrounding world around his two protagonists to grasp them and vice versa while his youth continues to flow.

Manohla Dargis recently stated that , "Few filmmakers get loneliness onscreen as persuasively as Assayas does--and with such feeling. The "with such feeling" part is what I think distinguishes him from others. There isn't a hint of self-pity due to over-analyzing but rather his character are like blank slates, waiting to be written on, some turn out for the better, others don't. From Ledoyen's blank stare while touching Fouquet’s face to Nielson slumped over on the backseat of the limo, his characters want to be understood by what’s around them and then Assayas through his images explores that notion thus exploring the world from the outside in. He has created portraits of aching loneliness while still adhering to realism . The mobility of his characters only adds to their solitude (an idea his good friend and fellow French filmmaker Claire denis has taken even further); Cheung in Irma Vep (and in Clean i guess), all three of characters (Berling, Beart, and Huppert) away from their homes in Fin Août, Début Septembre, same for Amalric and Nielson mostly seen traveling and of course Ledoyen in L'eau Froide, flowing behind the blank piece of paper held by Fouquet in the final sequence (it's one of the most indelible final shots I’ve ever seen on film).

One effort of Assayas I’ve yet to see is his documentary on Hou, one great filmmaker on another, although Assayas is too modest and accessible an individual and a filmmaker in comparison to a Hou or Kiarostami to be written about in such manner, however, I believe that will change in time.

[Chris Knipp]

I thought you had seen Clean because I thought you'd been to Toronto this year, and you were talking about it a lot, so I thought that meant you'd seen it.

Thanks for all the comments on Assayas. I still don't get what all the buzz is about, but I haven't seen two of the ones you mention, including the one you say is his masterpiece (and Les Destinées Sentimentales--and it'd be kind of hard to lose with Emmanuelle Beart and Isabelle Huppert). Fin Août, Début Septembre did seem sort of as you say, "just another Parisian-coffeeshop-talkathon." though I love those (e.g. Eric Rohmer), it's just that this one fell flat. In what I've seen lately (and I just didn't get Irma Vep) Assayas' rich mise-en-scène seems to overwhelm his depictions of inner transformation. I see this clearly in Clean. In demonlover, the latter parts were incoherent; even he admitted you could read what meaning into them you liked; well, I like a director who has a plan, or a vision that he sticks to. Maybe a generational thing, which goes with my not liking the music, though my generation is supposed to. A French online movie writer deplores the newspaper critics' elitism and snobism in France that leads to their putting films like (de Pallières') Adieu and Clean in a special category, he says, which alienates the public.* http://www.dvdrama.net/rw_news-9287-.php. However, I'm not against avantgarde stuff. I happened to find Adieu very impressive. But Clean seemed to me hasty (someone wrote that Cheung seemed underrehearsed) and unsuccessful, despite the elaborate mise-en-scènes and the lovely Maggie and charismatic Nick. There's a lot going on, it moves, but I don't see the inner transformation, even though it's spelled out that it's happening. I would have to look at it again to see, and also need to see Assayas' other films that you mention. But I think I've enjoyed Clean as much as I can. It's colorful, but emotionally it doesn't deliver. Cheung in inexpressive. ONe of the unenthusiastic Allocine viewer commentators asked a couple of questions: how did a film that did so poorly with the critics at the Cannes festival get such raves from them three months later when it opened in theaters in Paris? And how did a performance as lackluster as Cheung's get her the best actress prize at the festival? I find both questions unanswerable.

One thing that is great about Assayas is his close connecton with Asian cinema, which comes through in demonlover, and no doubt in his study of Hou Hsiao Hsien.

_________
*He doesn't know how lucky he is to have such sophisticated critics in the Paris dailies. Wouldn't we be lucky to have movie writing of the quality of Le Monde's in one of our papers! But of course this kid is sick of hearing about the Nouvelle Vague, which Le Monde was still celebrating this week with a detailed multiple-article discussion of Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Doulos. Another French writer online (Judith Lindberg) talking about Les Destinées sentimentales claims Assayas reconciles the "auteur" film with the "grand public" film, bridges the gap between the popular and the elites. http://www.fluctuat.net/cinema/chroniques/destinees.htm I think he does try to do this.

[arsaib4]

You are sadly mistaken if you believe that Clean was dismissed by critics at Cannes, as your allocine "critic" wrote. I'm repeating myself but from Le Monde to Filmcomment, from Cahiers to Die Presse, there was nothing but praise for the film. Dargis stated "Cheung's performance can blow the lid off cinema just as hard," I think I'd give that a preference over wayward comments you've posted. It's one thing to not like the film, but it's another to ignore the facts. I wish we were lucky to have someone like Assayas here.

[hengcs]

Hi,

For those who are interested in Olivier Assayas
------------------------------------------------
He has decided to attend the Golden Horse Award on 4th December in Taiwan. He will be accompanied by his famous collaborator, the photographer Eric Gauthier.

His latest film "Clean" will lower the curtain of this year's Golden Horse Film Festival.


And since some of you have mentioned about Maggie Cheung
-------------------------------------------------------------------
5 wins in Golden Horse Award (Taiwan).
-- 1989 Best Actress for "Full Moon in New York"
-- 1990 Best Supporting Actress for "Red Dust"
-- 1991 Best Actress for "Center Stage"
-- 1996 Best Actress for "Comrades, Almost a Love Story"
-- 2000 Best Actress for "In the Mood for Love"

6 wins in Hongkong Film Award (HongKong).
-- 1989 Best Actress for "A Fishy Story"
-- 1991 Best Actress for "Farewell China"
-- 1993 Best Actress for "Center Stage"
-- 1997 Best Actress for "Comrades: Almost A Love Story"
-- 1998 Best Actress for "The Soong Sisters"
-- 2001 Best Actress for "In the Mood for Love"

1 win in Golden Bauhinia Award (China).
-- 1997 , Best Actress for "Comrades: Almost A Love Story"


Others
--------
-- 1992 Berlin Film Festival, Best Actress for "Center Stage"
-- 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Best Actress for "Clean"

-- 1991 Turin Film Festival, Special Jury Award, Best Actress for "Farewell China"
-- 1992 Chicago International Film Festival, Best Actress for "The Actress"

[HorseradishTree]

Originally posted by arsaib4


Oh, believe me, I meant no disrespect to such films, we all have a tendency to focus on more auteur driven features but I've seen a few of those and they contain pleasures I don't feel guilty about at all.

You made a great post a little while back on such films. Tarantino would've been proud.

If you're referring to the Lone Wolf and Cub post, I was going to expand on that. But, being the short-attention-spanned 16-year-old that I am, I got lazy and never did it. Maybe one of these days...

[pmw]

Cant wait to see Clean. Unfortunately, it didn't make an appearance at the NYFF. Indeed, Arsaib, Assayas is an amazing force. So slick and insightful. I still get goosebmps during the final scenes of Irma Vep and Demonlover is certainly my favorite film from the last few years. This is a modern artist.

[Chris Knipp]

From my dear colleague arsaib4:


You are sadly mistaken if you believe that Clean was dismissed by critics at Cannes, as your allocine "critic" wrote. I'm repeating myself but from Le Monde to Filmcomment, from Cahiers to Die Presse, there was nothing but praise for the film. Dargis stated "Cheung's performance can blow the lid off cinema just as hard," I think I'd give that a preference over wayward comments you've posted. It's one thing to not like the film, but it's another to ignore the facts. I wish we were lucky to have someone like Assayas here
I and the allocine' commenter both acknowledge that the praise in print after the September Paris opening was almost universal. You have not shown that it was so at Cannes, when there were indeed negative responses and reviews. How am I ignoring "thefacts"? Here are some examples to show it's not true there was "nothing but praise" at Cannes, the time I am talking about:
Hollywood reporter's Ray Bennett from Cannes, May 21, 2004:
Assayas' film is complex and absorbing, but he keeps everything at arm's length. And with Cheung giving an interesting but chilly performance, only committed audiences will warm to it.
IndieWire Peter Brunett, from Cannes (no date):
Sad to say, the talented French filmmaker Olivier Assayas has disappointed us once again…a rambling, unfocused tale with patches of very bad acting from actors who are otherwise very good….Though it starts well enough, the entire middle third of the film is completely slack..
Variety, David Rooney, from Cannes, May 20, 2004:
While Olivier Assayas' "Clean" has the alluring visual texture of his best work and is far more accessible than 2002's "Demonlover," this story of a rock widow struggling to kick drugs and win back the affection of her son is pallid and unconvincing. Despite being written for her, the director's "Irma Vep" muse Maggie Cheung seems oddly miscast....
LoveFilm.com, Tom Charity, from Cannes:
For me, Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 was head and shoulders above the rest of the competition…Conversely, I was bitterly disappointed by Olivier Assayas' Clean, which seemed to me badly written and essentially banal…
The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw, right after Cannes:
But the jury dropped a brick by giving the best actress award to Maggie Cheung for her role as the recovering junkie in Olivier Assayas's Clean. Set in Canada, France and Britain, this was a truly awful film. The script by Assayas sounded leaden in English - presumably Assayas had written it all in French, had the relevant sections translated, and was unable to sense how bad it sounded. Cheung looked and sounded deeply uncomfortable and unconvincing throughout, unsure of the material and her relationship with the sketchily drawn incidental characters..Some of the major Italian critics were unfavorable at Cannes:
Il corriere della Sera, Milan:
Directed by Oliver [sic] Assayas like a deluxe version of a Matarazzo melodrama, all seen before and mannered…
La Repubblica:
Emily-Maggie Cheung could join the group of female performers being considered by the jury, but the film offers no emotion and isn't moving either.
Il Foglio:
Restless camera, brilliant photography, first yawn of boredom after a quarter of an hour.
All this in May from or about Cannes. Then Paris in September and the raves came.

[Johann]

I'm learning a lot here- thanks for all of the great posts re: Cannes.

Clean is on my long to-buy DVD list.

[Chris Knipp]

Clean is a visually beautiful, exotic, interesting film. I'm not trying to demolish it. I tend to be severe in my criticism. As a teacher I was known statistically to grade low. I would not say Clean is "truly awful" as Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian did. The most astute and judicious assessment is the Variety writer Rooney's, in my opinion. All I was doing in the above entry is defend myself against the charge that I was ignoring "the facts" in saying that a number of the critiques of Clean that came out of Cannes were negative.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by pmw
Cant wait to see Clean. Unfortunately, it didn't make an appearance at the NYFF. Indeed, Arsaib, Assayas is an amazing force. So slick and insightful. I still get goosebmps during the final scenes of Irma Vep and Demonlover is certainly my favorite film from the last few years. This is a modern artist.

I'm disappointed that I missed his appearance here last week. Many of the French filmmakers are in town presenting one of their previous films and then discussing them. Claire denis was also here.

www.filmlinc.com/wrt/programs/11-2004/onset04.htm

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
All I was doing in the above entry is defend myself against the charge that I was ignoring "the facts" in saying that a number of the critiques of Clean that came out of Cannes were negative.

I can also post about 50 reviews in 10 different languages from Cannes but that'd be a little....silly....although thanks for taking you time finding reviews that are agreeable to you. I'll review the film after seeing it, can't wait!

[Chris Knipp]

Your insinuation that in this recent anthology of samples I left out a vast number of May Clean reviews that were favorable is unfair, and untrue. Sure, I selected for negative ones, because I had to prove I was not "sadly mistaken" and distorting "the facts." Now that I've done that you're calling me "silly." I challenge you to prove that a majority of the May reviews of Clean resulting from the Cannes screenings -- not ones written in September -- were raves.

[arsaib4]

I prefer not to waste any more time on this than what I already have.

[Chris Knipp]

Ditto.