FOCUS:

OUT OF COMPETITION

Michael Winterbottom’s Mighty Heart

American cinema received a boost by a film by a British director in an Out-of-Competition slot that arguably belonged in the Competition: Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart. A docu-drama about the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street journalist Danny Pearl in Pakistan, it draws its strength from his pregnant wife Mariane’s account of her month-long search for her husband and the vigil she kept until his death was confirmed in a frightful video of the killing. Played convincingly by a pregnant Angelina Jolie, who assumes an appropriate accent to interpret the role (Mariane Pearl, an Afro-Cuban with a Dutch passport, was raised in Paris), A Mighty Heart effectively used Cannes as a springboard for later Oscar consideration. During the press conference a journalist stood up in the crowd to apologize personally to Mariane Pearl — she present on the podium with Jolie and Winterbottom — for having once asked her an undignified question: whether she had viewed the video-recorded murder of her husband.

Michael Moore’s Sicko

Michael Moore’s Sicko — an open-ended, convincingly detailed, tightly edited, and often hilarious attack on American health insurance companies — received a boost from George Bush’s White House when objections were raised about a Cuban visit in search of better health care. But Moore contends that Cuba isn’t the only country offering better medical service than the United States — others are Canada, France and Great Britain. Sicko argues that the American system of private health insurance is nothing short of a disaster and that a state-run system is much preferred. His arguments are illustrated with statistics, anecdotes, and some frightening stories about Americans with faulty insurance (millions have no insurance at all), who were either denied medical care or forced to sacrifice their entire savings to pay for it.

Denys Arcand’s Age of Ignorance

Programmed at the closing night gala, Denys Arcand’s striking L’age des ténèbres (The Age of Ignorance, aka Days of Darkness) (Canada/France) comes across as a coda to the Canadian director’s previous Cannes hits: Le déclin de l’empire américain (The Decline of the American Empire) (1986) and Les invasions barbares (Invasion of the Barbarians) (2003). Taken as a whole, Arcand’s rather extraordinary trilogy is packed with caustic insight, satirical comment, and good ribald fun about the pitfalls of modern-day American society. Indeed, looking back, The Decline of the American Empire, programmed in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes, has proven prophetic and remains a harsh critique of the American »Way of Life.« Sixteen years later, Arcand returned to Cannes in the Competition with Invasion of the Barbarians, later awarded an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Hinting that the social and cultural seams in North America had truly split asunder, he predicts an eventual civilization crash. In The Age of Ignorance, Denys Arcand picks up where he left off, the setting this time the fictional Civil Rights Department buried somewhere in Quebec bureaucracy. Billed as a comedy, Arcand’s anti-hero is a tame civil servant who clandestinely smokes on the job, can’t communicate with his wife and teenaged daughters, and has a sick mother in the hospital. Like a frustrated Walter Mitty, his only outlet is daydreams — where at least he is surrounded by a bevy of beautiful babes.

60th ANNIVERSARY HOMAGES

Volker Schloendorff’s Ulzhan

Programmed in the special »60th Anniversary Homages« section to pay honor to previously awarded Palme d’Or directors, Volker Schloendorff’s Ulzhan (Germany/France/Kazakhstan), coscripted by Claude Carrière, chronicles the stumbling path taken by a French dropout (Philippe Torreton) as he tramps his way across the breadth of Kazakhstan for no reason at all. Rescued at regular intervals by a sympathetic Kazakh miss on horseback, Ulzhan (Ayanat Ksenbai), his journey to nowhere in this picturesque travelogue takes on some spiritual depth when he encounters Shakumi, an itinerant wordsmith. Played with flair by David Bennett — best known on the screen as Oskar Matzerath in Schloendorff’s Tin Drum, 1979 Palme d’Or winner — Shakumi makes a living in a fading occupation alien to modern-day civilization. He sells words.

Ermanno Olmi’s Hundred Nails

Similarly, in Ermanno Olmi’s Centochiodi (A Hundred Nails) (Italy), the story of another dropout, the film is best interpreted through its religious overtones. After a young university professor (Israeli actor Raz Degan) nails a hundred books to the floor of a research library, he feigns suicide, abandons his BMW convertible, and seeks a new identity in a village on the Po River. There he finds refuge in the ruins of a peasant’s house and is welcomed by the villagers as a modern-day messiah. All goes well in his spiritual journey until he makes the fatal mistake of using his credit card — and is hauled back by the police into the mundane secular world to answer for the books he had ravaged. Stunningly photographed by Fabio Olmi (Ermanno’s son), particularly scenes depicting the peaceful flow of the Po River, A Hundred Nails may well be Ermanno Olmi’s last humanist feature film. The director, at 75, has announced his retirement from filmmaking.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s The War

A seven-part series due to air in the United States this coming September, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s compilation documentary The War strikes a human chord by relating the historical facts to interviews with front-line enlisted men — soldiers, navy men, marines. Each comes from a quintessential American town: Sacramento, California; Mobile, Alabama; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota. Of the seven films in the fourteen-and-a-half-hour running series, I viewed the documentary depicting the last fighting days of the war in Europe and the Pacific. To the filmmakers’ credit, they do not pull any punches about the horrendous mistakes made by American leadership in the battles for Hürtgen Forest in Germany and Peleliu Island in the Pacific. In both cases, the needless sacrifice of American life reached into the thousands for so-called »victories« that were in fact useless military engagements, for they hardly accomplished what their leaders had proposed as both strategically necessary and relatively easy to achieve. One wonders whether some military historians will now feel prodded to change their estimates of certain war victories upon hearing what the key eyewitnesses — soldiers, sailors, marines — have to say about the leadership failures of their commanders.

Andrei Nekrasov’s Litvinenko Case

The impromptu Special Screening of Andrei Nekrasov’s documentary Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case (UK) underscores how important Cannes has become as a world platform for breaking news events. Just before the festival closed, this hard-hitting documentary on the murder last November of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko — author of the book »Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within« — was fitted into an already overcrowded festival program. Based partially on interviews with former KGB agents, the film chronicles the former spy’s death in a London hospital from polonium-210 radiation poisoning. At the time when Litvinenko was struck down by lethal radiation poisoning, he had been investigating the death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Li Yang’s Blind Mountain

Too bad Li Yang’s Mang Shan (Blind Mountain) (China) had not found its way to the Competition. The story of a young university student kidnapped by human traffickers, who is then sold as a »wife« to villagers in the mountains, the film reportedly had to survive several cuts before release. Still, despite censorship problems, Blind Mountain features a powerful performance by Lu Hunag as the sex slave who never gives up the struggle to assert and seek her freedom. Li Yang is the same Chinese director who was awarded a Silver Bear at the Berlinale for his Mang Jing (Blind Shaft) (2003), the grisly story of coal miners plotting »accidental« deaths, then posing as the relatives of the dead men to collect their meager compensations.

Barbet Schroeder’s Terror’s Advocate

Barbet Schroeder’s L’avocat de la terreur (The Terror’s Advocate) (France) deserves a long life on the festival circuit. The story of Jacques Vergès, the lawyer whose stellar success record as a defence attorney began with the Algerian War and carried all the way up to the Klaus Barbie trial that unearthed French collaboration under the German Occupation, The Terror’s Advocate draws its power from some fascinating interviews with Jacques Vergès and people who know him intimately. Whether you like the man or not, you cannot help but be impressed by his legal methods of defending people who openly espouse the principles of terror.

Eran Kolirin’s Band’s Visit

Awarded a FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize, Eran Kolirin’s Bikur hatizmoret (The Band’s Visit) (Israel) is an amusing deadpan comedy that gets better as the tale unwinds in its absurd setting. To start with, an Egyptian Police Band from Alexandria has been invited to play at the opening of a new Israeli cultural center! But upon arriving at the airport, no one is there to welcome the band. Without bothering to call the Egyptian Embassy for help, the band leader decides to put the musicians on a bus to seek accommodations on their own. Next, they end up isolated in a remote town, with no hotel in sight and no transport out of the place until morning. A friendly kiosk owner offers a solution: why not stay with local families? The idea works, simply because these quaint members of the police band have a knack for cultural communication at its simplest level.

Robert Thalheim’s Along Came Tourists

Robert Thalheim’s Am Ende kommen Touristen (And Along Came Tourists) (Germany) also works its magic at the simplest level of communication. A young man who has chosen civil duties over military service arrives in Poland to work at Auschwitz, where he meets a stubborn old survivor. The crusty gentleman, who takes pride in repairing suitcases for the Auschwitz Museum, couldn’t care less about the young man’s offer to be of assistance. Gradually, however, with the help of Polish neighbors, the German lad learns to fit into the daily routines at the camp. Shot at Auschwitz and its environs, with finely sketched performances by Alexander Fehling as the young German and Ryszard Ronczewski as the old Pole, And Along Came Tourists received a standing ovation at its Cannes premiere.

Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon

Of course, Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Le voyage du ballon rouge (The Flight of the Red Balloon) (France/Taiwan) is an unabashed salute to Albert Lamourisse’s classic Le ballon rouge (The Red Balloon), the 34-minute Grand Prix winner at the 1956 Cannes film festival — apparently the reason why it was chosen to open the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s 60th anniversary festival. Hou Hsiao Hsien’s first French film, The Flight of the Red Balloon stars Juliette Binoche as a creative puppeteer who writes and voice-acts her own shows at a children’s puppet theater. She’s also the mother of a seven-year-old lad (Simon Iteanu), who’s in regular conversation with a big red balloon hovering over the streets of Paris, and a harried mother, whose flagrantly neglectful husband phones from time to time from Canada to say he plans to stay longer in Montreal. Add to this ensemble a Taiwanese film student (Song Fang), who speaks fluent French and cares for the boy during the day while touring Paris with a video camera in hand, plus a troublesome downstairs tenant (Hippolyte Giradot), who refuses to pay the rent, and you have a delightful mix of characters to entertain over the two-hour stretch. Finally, there’s a throwback to Hou’s own Master of Marionettes (Taiwan, 1993) when Binoche pays a visit to an elderly Chinese puppeteer master to recharge her own creative batteries.

Cristian Nemescu’s California Dreamin’

Awarded the Un Certain Regard Prize by a separate international jury, Cristian Nemescu’s black comedy California Dreamin&rsquo (Nesfarsit) / California Dreamin’ (Endless) (Romania) theoretically should not have qualified for award consideration at all, for the 27-year-old Romanian director had died in a car accident shortly after completing the shooting on his first feature film - thus the word »endless« added onto the title. But at the award ceremony the section’s jury president, French filmmaker Pascale Ferran, confessed that the theme alone of California Dreamin’ made it a standout. Based on a true incident that had occurred in June of 1999 during the Kosovo War, a NATO train transporting radar equipment and guarded by American soldiers was stopped at a Romanian village by the railroad station master, who also happened to be the local gangster in cahoots with a corrupt village mayor. Since the Americans were transporting the equipment without official papers (having received only verbal permission from the Romanian government), and since corruption is endemic to Romanian rural life, the incident quickly escalates into a fireball of cultural and political misunderstanding. As for the title, it refers to lyrics in a Mamas and Papas hit rendered by the village damsel on the make with an American soldier.

Roy Andersson’s You, the Living

The companion piece to his previous statement on the vagaries of human life in Sanger fran andra vannigen (Songs from the Second Floor), awarded the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes film festival, Swedish director Roy Andersson’s Du levande (You, the Living) (Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Norway) picks up where he left off to comment on the meaningless of life itself. Set against a shabby urban backdrop of cubicle flats, airless offices, dismal bars, and gloomy restaurants, You the Living doesn’t stray much beyond Andersson’s usual static pessimistic commentary on the miserable state of human existence. This time, however, he peoples his film with a punk guitarist, an Arab barber, a Dixie jazz band, a lady who warbles off-key, an old man with his dog, and a couple other quaint characters to pepper the proceedings with some amusing gags.

Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely

Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (UK/France/Ireland/USA), peopled with look-alikes, takes its cue from a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) living in Paris who is down on his luck. When he meets a Marilyn Monroe look-alike (Samatha Morton), she invites him to a Scottish castle to meet her lover, a Charlie Chaplin impersonator (Davis Lavant) and other impersonators, who in turn encourage him to put on a show. Along the way Harmony Korine splices in another bizarre tale set in the jungles of Panama. Here, German director Werner Herzog plays a spaced-out priest in the act of encouraging nuns to test their faith by jumping out of airplanes without parachutes. To some extent, these episodes draw on the American director’s own autobiographical experiences. A light film packed with fun and eccentricities, Mister Lonely takes its title from a Bobby Vinton song.

Kadri Kousaar’s Magnus

The first Estonian feature film ever invited to the official program at Cannes, Kadri Kousaar’s Magnus (Estonia/UK) introduces a woman director whose debut feature has yet to clear Estonian censors and thus may be available in this version only on the festival circuit. The story of a youth who believes his days are numbered due to a fatal lung disease, he’s also convinced that he has power over life and death — so he favors an amoral existence. But as Magnus grows older, he finds that such life-affirming ploys as sex and drugs aren’t the answer after all. Then, when his hedonistic, self-indulgent father enters the picture, he finds himself sinking deeper into addiction. Taken as a black comedy, Magnus scores as an amusing father-son caper on outlandish sexual mores, although the laughs initially generated by the old roué on his pornographic binge wear thin over the long run.

Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s Actresses

A familiar face in Italian and French cinema with over 60 screen performances to her credit, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi delved deep into her stage-and-screen profession to direct her second feature: Actrices, aka Le rêve de la nuit d’avant (Actresses, aka Dream of the Night Before) (France). Actresses explores the neurotic world of a stage actress (Bruni-Tedeschi herself) as she approaches 40 and still hasn’t resolved the conflict between her professional life and personal desire for happiness. Informed that her time is running out to have a child, she begins her inner quest for a husband while rehearsing the role of Natalya Petrovna in Turgenev’s play A Month in the Country. Her uncertainty not only affects the stage production, but leads her to converse with her deceased father for possible guidance. Actresses - previously titled The Dream of the Night Before — was awarded a Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard competition.

SEMAINE INTERNATIONAL DE LA CRITIQUE

Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen’s Jellyfish

Awarded the Caméra d’Or prize for Best Debut Feature, Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen’s Meduzot (Jellyfish) (Israel/France) introduces a pair of accomplished writing talents collaborating for the first time on a film production. The setting is Tel Aviv, where the jellyfish is a part of beach life — used in this instance, however, as a metaphorical ploy to sketch the lives of people who can’t control their own destinies. One is a young waitress working for a catering firm, who lives in an apartment with a leaking roof and befriends a sad little girl, who in turn reminds her of her own past. Another is a bride, who breaks her leg at the party on her wedding day and has to cancel the honeymoon trip to the Caribbean. A third is a Filipino woman serving at the wedding reception, whose mind is on phoning her young son back home. The interlocking fates of these and other individuals offer insights into the human condition in today’s Israel.

DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT

Anton Corbijn’s Control

Programmed to open the Directors Fortnight, Anton Corbijn’s Control (UK/Australia/Japan) sketches the life and times of the legendary Ian Curtis, the lead singer and song writer of Joy Division, an Australian post-punk rock band that took the Manchester music scene by storm in the 1970s. Based on a book of memories penned by his wife, Deborah Curtis’s »Touching from the Distance,« and lensed in black-and-white by Dutch photographer-filmmaker Anton Corbijn, the biopic effectively captures the mood and spirit of the heady 1970s, beginning with Ian Curtis’s as a teenager in 1973 and ending with his suicide in 1980 at the age of 23. Newcomer Sam Riley plays Ian Curtis as a complex personality, wavering between a shy, gentle lad and a selfish, ambitious rocker. As for the familiar Joy Division songs, these are performed by actors-musicians without resorting to original recordings. As for the title, it’s taken from the Joy Division’s »She’s Lost Control,« with reference to out-of-control circumstances leading to Ian Curtis’s suicide.

Jan Bonny’s Counterparts

Jan Bonny’s written-and-directed debut feature Gegenüber (Counterparts) (Germany) commands attention due to its cast of acting talent on screen. Matthias Brandt, the son of German Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt, plays the tormented policeman-father, who on the outside maintains the facade of a happy family to friends and neighbors, while at home he’s locked in a bitter tug-of-war with his wife.The tantrums of the schizophrenic wife, played by Austrian actress Victoria Trauttmansdorff, are explosive and mind-bobbling. Meanwhile, two grown children, a brother-sister pair, are left numb on the sidelines wondering what will come next and how to handle the self-pity of their mother at the more crucial moments. Counterparts doesn’t resolve the dilemma of a couple locked in a love-and-hate relationship, other than showing the deadend it will eventually lead to.

CANNES CLASSICS

Andrzej Wajda’s Canal

The center piece of Andrzej Wajda’s famous War Trilogy — Pokolenie (Generation) (1955), Kanal (Canal) (1957), Popiol i diament (Ashes and Diamonds) (1958) — Canal crowned the 30-year-old Polish director with instant fame when the film was awarded the runnerup Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Cannes festival. For its special screening in the Cannes Classics section, as part of the »Homage to Andrzej Wajda,« the film was digitally restored. With the director present, Cannes also paid honor to his Czlowiek z zelaza (Man of Iron), awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1981 Cannes festival. The story of the Polish Solidarity movement, Man of Iron was the sequel to his temporarily banned Czlowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble) (1977). As for the abiding power of the War Trilogy, Generation broke new ground by probing a tragic love among young Poles during the war years. It was followed by Canal, in which the tragic hero is depicted as a romantic figure against the backdrop of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Finally, the stylistic high point of the trilogy was reached in the persona of Zbigniew Cybulski, again a tragic hero entangled in the coils of a new political system after the war has ended.

Digitally Restored Highlights

Another highlight in the Cannes Classics section was »Laurence Olivier Films William Shakespeare,« featuring digitally restored prints of Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). Also, the »Centenary of John Wayne« was celebrated with John Farrow’s Hondo (1953) and Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo (1959). And three »Documentaries on Filmmaking« deserve further festival exposure: Mimi Freedman and Leslie Greif’s Brando (USA/France/Spain/UK, 2007), Anne-Marie Faux and Jean-Pierre Devillers’s Maurice Pialat, L’amour existe (France, 2007), and Todd McCarthy’s Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient (USA, 2007).

Ron Holloway