The Movies at Cannes 2005 May 20, 2005
Posted by TheCasualCritic in movie talk
The Cannes Festival is drawing to an end faster than we'd want. Well not that I want to extend my stay on the French Riviera, since I'm actually not there, but even from afar it is an event that's worth watching. Here's a quick preview of some of the movies that I'm looking forward to watching after their Cannes run.
The opening movie of the Official Selection was Lemming by Dominik Moll (Harry,un ami qui vous veut du bien) who creates a story that is somewhat similar in concept to his previous success: starting from an ordinary event in someone's life, like unclogging a blocked sink and making it the start of a journey through troubled waters. The movie seems to be even darker than "Harry..." as the four main characters explore their relationships and undergo significant hardships and challenges. Also from France, Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne (previously winning the Palme D'Or in 1999 with Rosetta) present L'enfant (The Child). The story of a teenage couple living off of thefts committed by them and their gang of kids who have to deal with the birth of their child.
David Cronenberg's (eXistenZ, Spider, Dead Ringers, Crash (1996 Cannes Jury Prize)) movie A History of Violence is one of the highly anticipated premieres of this year (it will open theatrically on September 30th). The story of a simple midwest family swirled into a chain of (violent) events that changes their lives, is the background for an indepth look at the culture of violence and how it exists within every person. Loosely based on the graphic novel with the same title, the movie stars Viggo Mortensen as the unwilling hero of the story, Maria Bello as his wife, Ed Harris and William Hurt.
Lars von Trier's Manderlay is expected with equally high anticipation. Following his story in Dogville and filmed in the exact same style, the movie follows the heroin Grace (this time played by Bryce Dallas Howard) as she leaves Dogville with her father and his gang. Her next stop will end up being Manderlay, where Grace wants to set right a society that still thrived on slavery and racial oppression. We already know the movie is not going to have an optimistic message, so we just need to sit back and watch the story unfold in the theatrical setting that von Trier designed this time.
After winning the award Un Certain Regard in 2003 with the 6 hour epic La meglio gioventu, Marco Tullio Giordana returns to the main competition with Quando sei nato non puoi piu nasconderti (When you are born, you cannot hide anymore). The story follows a 12 year old boy that falls overboard from a cruise in the Mediterranean and he lives an experience that will change him forever as he gets to travel among immigrants and traffickers.
From Japan we have Bashing by Kobayashi Masahiro, a movie dealing with the harshness of Japanese society who effectively ostracizes three hostages after their release from Irak. Not welcome at home, they can only contemplate suicide or going back to do volunteer work in Irak. From Irak itself we have Kilometre Zero by Hiner Saleem, a movie shot in Irak, telling the story of a young kurdish husband and father that is forced to join Saddam's army and has to find his way through the war and through the ethnical struggles that go on in the region.
Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star in Michael Haneke's thriller Cache (Hidden) about a TV host receiving increasingly alarming anonymous packages from someone that is obviously taken too much interest in him and his life. Atom Egoyan tries to find Where the Turth Lies following a journalist that investigates the death of a young girl from 15 years before, as she was in the company of two showbiz celebrities.
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