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Cannes Report 2003

I'm back from the Cannes Film Festival and thought you'd enjoy my thoughts on this year's winners and the Festival in general. Just because it was a poor year at Cannes doesn't mean disaster for film lovers during the next year, as many interesting films will be completed during the coming months.

CANNES WINNERS INCLUDES SURPRISES

The consensus was that the 56th Cannes Film Festival presented one of the weakest selections of movies in many years. Every year people complain about the lack of quality during the opening weekend when things seem to be more about generating press with high profile celebrities accompanying their cinematic works ando nly a few exceptional films screen. But as the Festival on the French Riviera moves to its concluding weekend, exciting discoveries join expected favorites to compete for the prestigious prizes to be announced on Sunday night.

Every French newspaper features extensive daily coverage and reviews, not to mention speculation about what will win awards. Roger Ebert told a television crew that Vincent Gallo's BROWN BUNNY was The worst movie in Cannes history and its inclusion is considered a scandale with loud boos from those who hadn't stormed out. Yet several French critics hailed it as a masterpiece. (As my French friend Pierre is fond of saying, It was so boring - I loved it.) The daily magazines published at the Cannes Festival keep track of the reviews on large charts. Only a handful achieved widespread critical support while favored filmmakers Alexander Sokurov, Hector Babenco, Peter Greenaway, Michael Haneke and Andre Techine even disappointed their fans.

All of France and much of Europe turn to their televisions to see the famous people who will attend and help present the awards. The winners weren't unexpected though there is certain to be heated debate over the Palme d'Or going to Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT. This was a love it or hate it selection. Van Sant, making his first visit to Cannes, is known for his fiercely independent early films MALA NOCHE, DRUG STORE COWBOY and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO followed by his successful jump into the big budget world with TO DIE FOR, GOOD WILL HUNTING and FINDING FORRESTER. Last year he used some of the money made from those recent hits and his GOOD WILL HUNTING stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to return to his roots, creating a small minimalist work GERRY. This newest film has no stars, with most of the cast being non-professional actors believably playing teenagers. It starts out as a typical day at high school. We are introduced to each character and get a glimpse into the important and mundane things they face as the day begins. The style is straightforward with no fancy editing or special effects. We are eavesdropping. At first I found this anti teenage movie teenage movie off-putting. Where were the toilet jokes, sexual innuendoes and cafeteria food fights? But soon the rhythm grabbed my attention. Van Sant showed some scenes from different points of view and it obviously was building to something. And then, when we think we are getting to know all of the characters, unexpectedly, two new ones walk into the school in military camouflage clothing carrying guns loaded with ammunition. We are taken back to some of the other students and then these invaders are officially introduced. We watch and listen as they carefully plan the attack on their classmates. Even as Van Sant has prepared us for the violence to come, it is shocking and like Columbine, unexplainable. He maintains a documentary feel (in homage to Frederick Wiseman's high school films) and asked his audience to think about why this is happening. ELEPHANT (a title inspired by Alan Clarke's 1989 British TV movie about senseless violence in Ireland) divided the critics and audiences in Cannes and certainly will in the U.S. Gus Van Sant, who does post-production on most of his films at Berkeley's Saul Zaentz Film Center, also was awarded the Best Director award.

The film most often mentioned for the top prize, UZAK (DISTANT) came in second winning the Grand Jury Prize. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has created a subtle and carefully paced story of a photographer who is worried by a feeling that his life is not following his ideals. When he agrees to share his apartment with a young cousin from a village who has come to the city looking for a job, both men are lonely and detached, unable to become friends. Slow and sad, this film, also written, edited, and photographed by Ceylan, and reminds one of the meditative works of Tarkovsky and early Antonioni. The film's two actors, Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak shared the Best Actor prize. Ozdemir is not an actor by profession but an architect. Sadly Toprak died in a car crash days after hearing the movie would appear in Cannes.

One of the Festival's best-liked films was Denys Arcand's sequel to THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. His intelligent script for THE BARBARIAN INVASION was funny, relevant and sad, hitting emotional buttons with audiences relating to the gathering of old friends as one of them is on his death bed. I hesitate to compare it to THE BIG CHILL because this is so much better but those characters might just as easily have come back together under similar circumstances. There are surprise twists as the estranged son comes home to arrange everything he can buy to make his father's final days comfortable. He uses money, charm and power to get the near impossible to happen while fighting to keep an emotional distance. Audiences alternately laughed and cried. The ensemble cast is superb. Marie Josee Croze was awarded Best Actress as a young drug addict enlisted to help ease the dying man's pain with her heroin connections. She was good but hardly the best female performance at Cannes.

Samira Makhmalbaf was 18 years old when she brought her first film, THE APPLE, to Cannes in 1998 and returned to win the Grand Jury Prize in 2000 with BLACKBOARDS. Her new film, PANJ E ASR (AT FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON) was co-written with her father, veteran director Mohsen Makmalbaf (KANDAHAR, THE SILENCE). Reaction was mixed to this emotional story of three Afghan women testing their freedom after the fall of the Taliban. Though official policy gives them more freedom, the reality is that they are generally expected to be without a vote and uneducated. Some women secretly meet for classes and discussions but when they leave they must once again cover their faces. Some critics felt it was too obvious in its telling of a sad reality but it was hard not to be moved by this winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize for its vision of the world which offers a poetical look at life and the future.

The Camera D'Or is awarded for the best film by a first time director. RECONSTRUCTION by Christoffer Boe of Denmark won with a Special Mention to Serge Barmak's powerful OSAMA, about a young girl who disguises herself as a boy in hopes of survival during the Taliban reign.

The jury was headed by French writer/director Patrice Chereau, also included actors Meg Ryan, Aishwarya Rai (India), Jean Rochefort (France), Karin Viard (France), plus directors Jiang Wen (China), Steven Soderberg (US) and writer Erri de Luca (Italy). They had tough choices. An expected winner left with no awards was Lars Von Trier for his controversial DOGVILLE and his star Nicole Kidman whose was acknowledged even by the film's detractors as being stunning in this 3 hour tale of a small town turning against a young woman. A late favorite was Clint Eastwood's solid detective thriller, MYSTIC RIVER. A dark tale based on the best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane, it featured strong performances from Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden and Tim Robbins in the story of a group of childhood friends who are brought back together as the result of the murder of Penn's daughter. Their lives had taken each in a different direction as they grew up but they have seen each other around the Boston neighborhood. Robbins' character, sexually abused as a child after being abducted in front of his two buddies is a suspect. Bacon is a police detective whose wife has unexpectedly left him, taking their baby with her. A previous Cannes Jury President, Eastwood returned to for the fourth time as a director. He is at his best in addition to having written a superb musical score. Many felt he should have been included in the prizes.

Two documentaries that might have won if they had not screened out of competition included Errol Morris' stunning film about ex U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, THE FOG OF WAR and the powerful S 21, THE KHMER ROUGE DEATH MACHINE. Rithy Panh brought together escapees from the genocide to face their former torturers.

Todd McCarthy, Variety's lead critic, challenged the Cannes selection committee to rethink the Festival, charging that too many favors, political and business inspired, weakened the overall quality of films. Granted, some anticipated works by famed directors including Bertolucci, Tarantino, Bergman were not finished in time but the sidebar series of the Director's Fortnight and Critic's Week provided some fine alternatives that might have proven official competition successes.

Even the Marche was lack luster. Part of the fun is searching for the most outrageous titles, usually for exploitation films. We can expect at least a dozen but this year even that area of creativity was lacking with only Troma catching my attention with their TALES FROM THE CRAPPER and FARTS OF DARKNESS that haven't even been made yet. Last year was a great Cannes Film Festival with many successes so we can only hope that the state of things gets better for 2004.

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Best,

Gary