Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth has the rare power to force recollections of the past as well as anticipations of the future, all the while keeping its viewer completely grounded in the present, grounded in its stunning and symphonic display of human emotion. Indeed, Sorrentino pulls the rug out from under his audience on several occasions throughout the duration of the film’s runtime, dragging them down into the depths of dejection only to raise them back up, just as quickly, into the heights of pure laughter and joy. Watching this film is like being trapped in a game of pinball, only Sorrentino is the game player and his audience is the ball that he’s whacking in every which direction without the slightest bit of hesitation. It’s clear, however, that he’s doing this out of love; if anything, Youth is undoubtedly the director’s most tender and heartfelt film yet. And also his most accessible to date.

Part of this accessibility can be attributed to Sorrentino’s decision, as primarily an Italian-language director, to direct the film in English (a feat which he attempted once prior with his overlooked 2011 output, This Must Be the Place). This immediately increases the number of people that will be interested in seeing it worldwide. Nonetheless, the chief reason why mainstream audiences will be drawn to this film is because of the big-name stars attached to the cast, including Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda in an unforgettable cameo performance.

Much like a few of the other films in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Youth is relatively light on plot and focuses more on conversations between characters, uprooted emotions and recounted memories than a concrete narrative. With that being said, the general storyline follows our protagonist, retired composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine), during his stay at a spa resort in the Alps with his daughter, Lena (Rachel Weisz), as well as his longtime best friend, illustrious film director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel).

While the cast does a wonderful job realizing their characters, the true star of the film is cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, who has worked on several of Sorrentino’s previous projects including the Academy Award winning, The Great Beauty. As he did with his previous work, Bigazzi seems to channel an aesthetic similar to that of Emmanuel Lubezki’s collaborations with the legendary director, Terrence Malick. Both Bigazzi and Lubezki place great emphasis on the visual composition of each scene, capturing an immense degree of detail through the movement of their ever-gliding cameras.

One particularly memorable example of Bigazzi’s skill can be found early in the film. During a dream sequence, Ballinger walks down a platform surrounded by a rising body of water as it slowly begins to engulf him. There are very few cinematographers that can place us smack-dab in the center of the world they’re shooting like Bigazzi and Lubezki, which is why I continue to enjoy their masterful work.

If there’s one area in which Youth falters a bit, it’s making the 118-minute runtime feel long. Youth would’ve benefited from removing a few unnecessary scenes from its later acts. Instead, the audience may find themselves completely enthralled by its beauty one minute, and then checking their wristwatches the next. Nevertheless, some excessive minutes doesn’t take away from the fact Youth is an enjoyable film with a varied soundtrack, gorgeous locations, spectacular visuals and a deeply philosophical screenplay.

Originally published on June 3rd, 2015 as part of our Cannes Film Festival coverage.

Gaspar Noé’s Love is anything but pornography. Pornography makes no attempt to delve into the psychology of the humans portrayed within; it contains actors as models, rather than actors as characters with any sort of depth. While Murphy (Karl Glusman), Elektra (Aomi Muyock) and Omi (Klara Kristin), the three chief characters, may not be the most complex individuals you’ll come across in the cinema this year, they still have hopes and dreams and aspirations, and undoubtedly transcend the notion of “the pornographic model” by a long shot.

Love has such a loosely constructed narrative that it’s difficult to summarize, but it essentially examines the mind and memories of its American protagonist Murphy, now married and with a child, as he reminisces on the greatest love affair of his life with French ex-girlfriend Elektra. What sparks this nostalgic exploration is a phone call from Elektra’s mother, letting Murphy know that she hasn’t heard from her daughter in months and wonders if he has any knowledge of her whereabouts.

The opening scene is a lengthy static shot of Murphy and Elektra engaged in an explicit, unsimulated sexual act. This directorial decision, which paves the way for the remainder of the film’s imagery, should inspire excitement from audiences, but does the excitement hold up for the rest of Love’s 135-minute runtime? Not quite, because at least half of the film turns out to be repetitive scenes of other sexually graphic acts, from different angles and in different positions, but dull and homogeneous in almost every other way.

It’s clear that Noé’s goal here is to expose his audience to such an immense degree of sexual imagery that it would begin to feel like a natural and comfortable thing to view in a non-pornographic film. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect; desensitizing the viewer to the sex being portrayed, with excitement quickly fading into exhaustion midway through the second act. At least all of the sex scenes made the dialogue-heavy sequences—like the intense verbal matches between Murphy and Elektra, which effectively portray the bi-polar, love-hate nature of fiercely passionate relationships—that much more fascinating.

Unfortunately, these rare, existential moments in Love aren’t portrayed in enough detail, or given enough screen time, to really pack much of a punch. They come and go, forgotten among the sex scenes. The emotional peak of the film comes in the third act during a beautiful moment of vulnerability for Murphy. He sits weeping in a bathtub while holding his child, who is also weeping. This moment casts the protagonist in a state of pure nakedness more than any elongated scene of copulation. The female characters, on the other hand, are one-dimensional from start to finish and seem to exist merely as sexual objects for Murphy.

All of that said, Love, much like Noé’s previous two films, Enter the Void and Irreversible, is an impressive technical achievement. His cinematographer, Benoit Debie, experiments with longer takes, carefully framed static shots and a camera that hovers above its main characters for most of the film. The fragmented editing style works wonderfully with the non-linear narrative and transports the viewer from past to present smoothly and with meticulous pacing. However, technical greatness doesn’t constitute a great film, and the majority of Love feels like digging into what looks like a delicious cake, only to find more and more icing on the inside. It may be Noé’s tamest and most grounded film yet, but that is not necessarily what audiences want from him as a director. He’d likely find greater success returning to the psychedelic, hyper-violent shock cinema style that he’s known for. It is there that his niche audience will find satisfaction.

A version of this review was originally published as part of our coverage of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Debut filmmaker László Nemes’ Son of Saul is, by a fair margin, the best film that I saw at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It follows our protagonist, Saul (portrayed with great nuance and facial acting skill by first time actor Géza Röhrig), over the course of two chaotic days in Auschwitz as the camp nears its liberation. Saul is what is known as a Sonderkommando, a prisoner marked with a red X on their back to signify that they’re responsible for helping dispose of the bodies of fellow Jews whose lives have been taken in the gas chambers. Saul’s motivation in the film is introduced when he spots the body of a young boy who he takes to be his son, and he spends the rest of the film in search of a rabbi who can assist him in providing the boy with a proper burial.

As one can imagine from only having read a summary of the film’s narrative, Son of Saul is a deeply dark and devastating experience. In total, it’s composed of what can’t be more than one or two dozen long takes. Nemes and his skilled cinematographer, Mátyás Erdély, already had me in tears within the first few lengthy shots. I cannot think of a film that better utilizes shallow focus; there is so much noise and movement and chaos within the first ten minutes of the film that one may not understand exactly what is going on, until a pile of still bodies sneaks into the corner of a frame, almost wholly out of focus, and suddenly the realization hits. That was when I first lost it.

It’s easy to tell that Nemes worked as an assistant to master filmmaker Bela Tarr, since Son of Saul’s atmosphere is reminiscent of the intense riot scene in Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies. Both filmmakers craft complex and extended one-shot scenes with as much, if not more, going on in the background as the foreground. Nonetheless, the way Erdély’s 35mm camera follows Saul throughout the camp, never breaking concentration on either his face or the back of his head, is more reminiscent of the legendary Alain Marcoen’s famous tracking shots (Rosetta, La Promesse, etc.) than Tarr’s cinematographers. Erdély is even smoother and more precise than Marcoen with the movement of his camera though, further allowing the audience to forget they are watching a film and experience full immersion. I can’t remember the last film I watched that was able to transport me into a frightening past the way Son of Saul is able to.

Another one of my favorite directorial decisions made by Nemes was his choice to avoid tapping into Saul’s mind or providing an inner dialogue. Rather, the camera hovers around his head constantly, always remaining external, his audience perpetually existing as flies on the walls of Auschwitz. Some viewers may have difficulty with this decision, as it makes it more difficult to understand the reasoning behind Saul’s actions, especially if the boy is not actually his son. Fortunately, the ending sheds some light on the significance of the role of children in the film, although admittedly, it was a denouement that caused a couple of my viewing companions to scratch their heads.

To me, however, it isn’t so much a confusing ending as it is a complex one (much like the entirety of the film), and a conclusion that I feel is attempting to make a commentary on how each generation is affected by the actions of the last. In order to assess the finale beyond that though, I will most certainly need to see the film another time or two. Until then, I can safely deem László Nemes as a novel name to look out for in the world of cinema, and I’m anxiously anticipating his next effort.

The 2015 Cannes Film Festival jury shocked everyone when they awarded Jacques Audiard the Palme d’Or for his social realist drama turned hyper-violent thriller, Dheepan. This decision was met with very mixed reactions on social media. People seemed to be confused about why a film that didn’t receive much buzz when it premiered during the festival was taking the top prize. Others were just surprisingly pleased. I fall into the latter category, as Dheepan is an extraordinary achievement on a number of levels: its concentration on the frightening reality of escaping one war zone for another, as well as its simultaneous micro-level commentary on French poverty and macro-level commentary on civil war in Sri Lanka (or simply civil war, in general).

Dheepan tells the story of its titular character and his attempt to rebuild his life after his wife and children were killed in Sri Lanka. He, a woman he meets at random, and an abandoned nine-year-old girl they found come together as a faux family in an attempt to escape the Sri Lankan civil war for a better life in France. Unfortunately, the area of France that they move into is dominated by gangs who use the territory for distribution of narcotics and other illegal activities. Dheepan is forced to sit back and watch as the environment he has brought his makeshift family unit into becomes more and more dangerous, and eventually he reaches his breaking point.

Although there are hints of Audiard’s fascination with international politics in his 2008 film, Un Prophete, Dheepan doesn’t feel like anything the director has done before. The biggest reason for this his choice to portray Sri Lankans in a French environment, rather than the French themselves as Audiard has primarily done in the past.

If one is going to discuss Dheepan, it’s difficult to do so without commenting on its explosive ending. The film retains great suspense throughout, as it implies the family’s eventually going to get mixed up in some sort of intense or violent encounter, but it’s hard to predict the final fifteen minutes. Those who have seen Un Prophete know that Audiard is capable of executing abrupt and graphic acts of violence in truly shocking ways, but he takes this idea to its extreme in Dheepan. No other film that I saw at Cannes this year affected me in such a visceral way.

That being said, it’s difficult to make up one’s mind on an ethical level about the penultimate sequence. In war there is often no clear “good” side, and knowing who to cheer for can be difficult. But somehow, Audiard convinces us to love the main character even when he is delusional or violent or straddling the line between protagonist and anti-hero. It’s a complex ending and one that will take repeat viewings to fully understand. But it’s not a perfect film. Dheepan nearly forgets about one of its characters in the third act and the ending feels a bit out-of-place despite being refreshing and uplifting. However, the minor flaws are completely overshadowed by everything that it does right. Dheepan fully deserves the enormous accolade it received and is sure to continue receiving as the rest of the world is exposed to it.

It’s been a tumultuous year at Cannes, and today’s surprising awards ceremony certainly made for a fitting ending to this year’s festivities. Festival head Thierry Fremaux got lots of criticism thrown at him for his picks this year, which went heavy on French films, but this year’s festival jury—headed by Joel and Ethan Coen—had lots of love for the French selections. Best Actor went to Vincent Lindon for The Measure Of a Man, and Emmanuelle Bercot got a shared Best Actress prize for her turn in Maiwenn’s Mon Roi.

But the biggest surprise came when Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan was announced as the winner of the Palme D’Or. Audiard is a fine director (many of us here are fans of A Prophet, which got him the Grand Prix back in 2009), but critics were mostly sour on Dheepan, criticizing it for a startling turn in the final act that didn’t work for most people. And people were shocked that the two critically adored films in this year’s competition, Todd Haynes’ Carol and Hou Hsaio-hsien’s The Assassin, didn’t wind up taking home the big prizes; Hsaio-hsien won Best Director (considering how much of the film was praised for its gorgeous visuals, this sounds pretty deserving), and Carol got a Best Actress prize for Rooney Mara. But with Carol receiving a nice, Oscar-friendly release date in December from Harvey Weinstein, and The Assassin already bought up for US distribution, this certainly won’t be the last we’ll hear of these two films.

The only predictable outcome this year was Son of Saul winning the Grand Prix, which people assumed would be taking home a prize after it screened to a strong reception. It’s an impressive win, considering this is director Laszlo Nemes’ first feature, and it should have a nice tour around the festival circuit for the rest of the year. Another slight shocker was Michel Franco winning Best Screenplay for Chronic, but that might only come as a shock to anyone who’s seen his previous films; he’s a filmmaker known more for his directorial skills, and it sounds like critics were baffled by his win.

Read on below for the full list of winners, and expect to see a good chunk of these films get some sort of release throughout 2015 and 2016. While we only got the chance to see a few films this year, including Jury Prize winner The Lobster, we’re eager to check all these winners out once they play closer to home. Until then, all we can do is wait until we do it all over again next May.

2015 Cannes Winners

Camera D’Or (Best First Feature): La Tierra Y La Sombra

Best Screenplay: Chronic

Best Actress: Rooney Mara, Carol; Emmanuelle Bercot, Mon Roi

Jury Prize: The Lobster

Best Actor: Vincent London, The Measure Of A Man

Best Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Assassin

Grand Jury Prize: Son Of Saul

Palme D’Or: Dheepan

Just last week the lineup for the 2015 Cannes Film Festival was announced, and slowly more information about the films playing is starting to surface. While many of the films don’t even have official synopsis yet, a select few have released images and trailers. It’s hard to believe that 2015 Cannes is less than a month away already (this year the festival runs from May 13th – May 24th), but we’ll be keeping this festival media guide updated as the festival approaches and more information about Cannes titles come in.

Amnesia

Amy

A documentary on the late singer/songwriter, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2011.

Carol

Set in 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

Irrational Man

On a small town college campus, a philosophy professor in existential crisis gives his life new purpose when he enters into a relationship with his student.

Inside Out

After a girl moves to a new home, her emotions are plunged into chaos as they compete for control of her mind.

The Little Prince

A pilot crashes in the desert and meets a little boy from a distant planet.

Mad Max: Fury Road

In a post-apocalyptic world, in which people fight to the death, Max teams up with a mysterious woman, Furiousa, to try and survive.

Mia Madre

Our Little Sister

A story that revolves around three sisters who live in their grandmother’s home and the arrival of their 13-year-old half sister.

Sicario

The Tale of Tales

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure announced this morning the films that will play at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. This comes just days after announcing the opening film Emmanuelle Bercot‘s La Tete Haute. Premiering at the festival this year will be Paolo Sorrentino‘s The Early Years, Todd Haynes‘ 1950’s romantic drama Carol (starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara), Woody Allen‘s Irrational Man, and Yorgos Lanthimos‘ highly anticipated follow-up to Dogtooth called The Lobster. Also playing will be Pixar’s animated film Inside Out, Gus Van Sant‘s Sea of Trees (starring Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts) and a special screening of Natalie Portman‘s A Tale of Love and Darkness.

While the bulk of competition and out-of-competition titles were announced, a few more films are expected be added to the lineup over the next few weeks. The Cannes Film Festival this year runs from May 13th – May 24th.

Opening Film

Standing Tall (La Tete Haute), Emmanuelle Bercot

Competition

Carol, Todd Haynes
Macbeth, Justin Kurzel
Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
La Loi du March, Stephane Brize
Marguerite and Julien, Valerie Donzelli
The Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone
The Assassin, Hou Hsiao Hsien
Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke
Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Koreeda
The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos
Mon roie, Maiwenn
Mia Madre, Nanni Moretti
Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes
Youth, Paulo Sorrentino
Louder Than Bombs, Joachim Trier
Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant
Sicario, Denis Villeneuve

Out of Competition

Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Irrational Man, Woody Allen
The Little Prince, Mark Osborne

Special Screenings

A Tale of Love and Darkness, Natalie Portman
Asphalte, Samuel Benchetrit
Panama, Pavle Vuckovic
Amnesia, Barbet Schroeder
Hayored Lema’Ala, Elad Keidan
Oka, Souleymane Cisse

Midnight Screenings

Amy, Asif Kapadia
Office, Hong Won-Chan

Un Certain Regard

Madonna, Shin Suwon
Maryland, Anna Winocour
The Fourth Direction, Gurvinder Singh
Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan
Hruter (Rams), Grimur Hakonarson
Kishibe No Tabi (Journey to the Shore), Kiyoshi
Je Suis Un Soldat (I Am a Soldier), Laurent Larivere
Zvizdan (The High Sun), Dalibor Matanic
The Other Side, Roberto Minervini
One Floor Below, Radu Muntean
Shameless, Oh Seung-Uk
The Chosen Ones, David Pablos
Nahid, Ida Panahandeh
The Treasure, Corneliu Porumboiu

The last day of a festival is always bitter, rarely sweet. No matter how exhausted your bones are, or how badly your spine begs for a chiropractor, if the festival was a success you could do it all again for another two weeks. It’s with this dread, and a double shot of espresso to keep the focus, that I entered my last screening; Olivier Assayas’ Clouds Of Sils Maria. The final film shown in competition with a superstar cast of Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloe Moretz; three women representing three different generations in a story about coming to terms with the past, age, and the consequences of time. Sounds kind of lovely, doesn’t it? Not sure what happened then, because Assayas found a way to drop the ball on this one and produced a lazy, uninspired, and forlorn piece of work.

Maria Enders (Binoche) is a famous stage and film actress who is offered a role for a play she has a deep and personal connection to. The play is about a young seductress called Sigrid who manipulates the older Hanna into a lesbian relationship only to leave her brokenhearted and forgotten by the end. 20 years ago, Maria played Sigrid and immersed herself into the role so much that it mirrored her own personality. Now, after the death of the playwright who wrote the piece, Maria reluctantly accepts the much weaker role of Hanna, but has trouble coming to terms with the way the character is written as it fills her with past memories and present insecurities about her own relevance. With the help of her assistant Valentine (Stewart), she begins to rehearse the role and has slight trepidation and pretentious misgivings with the idea of working with Jo-Anne (Moretz), the 19-year-old Hollywood superstar who has a Lindsay Lohan temperament.

There is so much there to grab on to, it’s a shame Assays butterfingers practically every element of the story. The main conflict, Maria’s relationship with the role, is written with such melodrama that it forces a rather minor performance by one of cinema’s all time greats, Binoche. Her work in English has always been slightly inferior to her French roles, but it just never seems like she gets under the skin of her character and leaves a trail of overacted scenes. Stewart has never been better, and yet she’s still stuck in a stifled shell; even when she’s at her most animated. While Moretz brings in the laughs and proves to be the aspirin for the headache induced by the scenes she’s not in. She, too, has never been better but unfortunately we get much more stifled Stewart than catty Moretz.

The biggest obstacles, however, lie in the execution of the story not the actors who do their very best with what they have. Assayas is squarely to blame for the poorly written dialogue which sounds like it was copy-pasted from some Bold and the Beautiful episode and for montage sequences which make absolutely no contextual sense, only serving to push us away and check our watches. The name of the play is tied into the phenomenon evoked by clouds and wind in the mountains of Sils Maria, where Maria rehearses her part. While the imagery is captivating, and the idea even more so, the meaning behind it is lost in a haze of poorly edited and awkwardly placed images desperate to attach themselves symbolically to characters who are too poorly written to be attached to anything. Not even with the help of 3D glasses would you find three dimensions anywhere in this film.

So, my Cannes festival ends on something of a sour note screening-wise (though, a soon-to-be-published article will show you the high it actually ended on) because Olivier Assayas, usually so on point, missed all his targets with Clouds Of Sils Maria. Fans of Stewart will declare her Best Supporting Actress material mostly because this is her greatest role yet, Moretz surprises in a funny parody of Hollywood celebrities, and Binoche makes you miss Julianne Moore’s batshit crazy and entertaining woman with similar issues in David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars. Watch this only if you’re a diehard fan of someone involved, or if you’re interested in seeing what a comic book movie directed by Assayas would look like (a highlight among the weariness.) Otherwise, this thematically redundant and soapy opera full of flat notes is not worth your time.

Originally published on May 24th, 2014 during the Cannes Film Festival.

On May 13-24, the world will gather at a small coastal town in France to see the best films from around the world. The 68th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will be hosted by Lambert Wilson, with Joel and Ethan Coen serving as presidents of the competition jury. The true face of the festival, however, is actress Ingrid Bergman, who is paid tribute by the festival’s newly released official poster.

The Cannes Film Festival has used the image of a famous movie star on the official poster dating back to 2010. Bergman now joins Juliette Binoche, Marilyn Monroe, Faye Dunaway, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (who appeared together in 2013), and last year’s tribute Marcelo Mastroianni.

Most known for her work with Alfred Hitchcock and Roberto Rossellini, as well as her starring role in Casablanca, Bergman is widely considered one of the greatest actresses of all time. The image used on the poster is based on a photograph by David Seymour.

Check out the poster and a short animation based on the poster below!

It’s disappointing to see White God’s marketing put so much emphasis on the climax, where canine protagonist Hagen (played by brothers Luke and Bodie Miller) rallies hundreds of other dogs into an uprising against humans. While I can’t blame the need to show off director Kornel Mundruczo’s incredible feat (I don’t think anyone has achieved what he’s done here), it’s obvious from the beginning that the epic conclusion is meant to be a surprise. White God starts off as a family drama of sorts, when 13-year-old Lili (Zsofia Psotta) gets sent to live with her father (Sandor Zsostar) after her mom leaves the country. Lili brings Hagen along to her father’s apartment, only to have him abandon her dog on the streets after he loses his patience with the mutt.

Mundruczo focuses on Hagen after he gets abandoned, crosscutting between his attempts to survive as a stray and Lili’s efforts to find her beloved pet. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Hagen’s scenes are far more engrossing to watch than the by-the-numbers father/daughter drama going on, but Mundruczo has a point (I guess). Both Hagen and Lili are going through rough times, facing oppression from superiors around them, and Mundruczo parallels their stories before eventually bringing them back together. As an allegory for society’s underprivileged fighting back, White God isn’t especially great; Lili and Hagen’s relationship is too specific, making any extensions to the real world easily fall apart. In fact, it’s the humans that wind up hurting things, as any scene without Hagen makes the pace slow to a crawl. But once Hagen begins his grand scale attack on Budapest, it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the elaborately prepared chaos on display (animal trainer Teresa Miller deserves just as much credit as Mundruczo for pulling everything off with hundreds of shelter dogs). White God’s attempts to merge arthouse sensibilities with B-movie fun tends to be hit or miss, but while Mundruczo may falter on the arthouse side, he certainly knows how to make an entertaining genre film.

Abrehmadinne Sissako’s Timbuktu entered as one of the exclusive (and meager) 18 films in the festival’s main competition slot with a muted response from the press. While most sites were buzzing about the possibility of a Paul Thomas Anderson, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg or Mike Leigh, hardly anyone mentioned Sissako. Surely this has something to do with the lack of attention the whole African continent gets when it comes to movies (and, I fear, other art as well) so even if Timbuktu was a bad film, which it isn’t, the fact that it will be getting attention from the world’s biggest media outlets is its own reward. Whether it will get any traction after Cannes, however, is a different matter because for that the movie’s interior qualities need to support the weightiness of its outer shell. Sadly, they don’t.

The film is a fragmented look at life under jihadist rule in Timbuktu, a city in Mali bordering the Saharan Desert. Some of the reoccurring characters include a herdsman and his small family living on the outskirts of the city walls, a mean-spirited fisherman, and a Jihadi soldier who provides much of the film’s comedy (surely a risky move by Sissako.) The thin narrative threads are woven around these people, whose lives intersect in one way or another, as the rule of law from the very strict Jihad perspective is enforced (music is placed on the same sinful level as cigarettes, and if you’re heard playing it you get a public lashing, the count of which is determined by Jihadi council) while religion commands absolutely everything. Without giving too much away, some of the conflicts that arise include the herdsman confronting the fisherman over an accident involving a cow, the Jihadi soldier teaching a young recruit how to act with conviction in front of the camera, and various instances of locals standing up to their oppressors, usually left to suffer the consequences.

Sissako’s previous film, Bamako, was also set in Mali but in a much more intimate setting of a backyard. This time around, what’s patently clear is the leap taken toward something more cinematic than his previous effort, with artful cinematography and an emotive score especially more prominent. Yet even with Bamako’s lack of conventional feature film ingredients, it’s a more compelling story than Timbuktu. The latter spreads its wings by using humor (a scene featuring an impassioned discussion about war is revealed to be a fanatical debate on football) and takes advantage of the barren setting to create some momentous visuals, yet still remains a film so heavily steeped in politics and religion that it only works as a piece of historical source material, and not the kind of artistic expression most of us look for in movies. Moments of creativity or traditional storytelling feel either out of place, or hit the nail on the head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

As important as it is in a political, moral, and historical sense, Timbuktu ultimately fails to be a stirring piece of art. The acting and the screenplay almost feel like alien concepts, as both seem too heavily reliant on the film’s message. If we were to judge films on their political importance, and the ethical dilemmas proposed by their hefty messages, Timbuktu would most likely be a big contender for the Palme D’Or. As an example of cinematic storytelling, it’s a reminder that Sissako’s talents rest with more intimate, and less self-absorbed, material. Regardless of this, Timbuktu has some inspired visuals, and more than a handful of moments when the vulnerability of human life is captured with deft precision, as it clings to the rough edges of a complex religious system, and slowly tears your heart out.

Our review for Timbuktu was originally published on May 14, 2014 during the Cannes Film Festival.

American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have accepted the invitation from President Pierre Lescure and General Delegate Thierry Frémaux to preside over the Jury of the 68th Festival de Cannes. This is the first time in the festival’s history that two people will be at the head of the jury. The Coen brothers are no strangers to Cannes, eight of their films have been nominated or won awards at the festival, the last one being 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis (which won the Grand Prize of the Jury). While serving as Presidents for the festival in May, the two filmmakers will take a break from filming their upcoming project Hail, Caesar which stars George Clooney, Christophe Lambert, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Josh Brolin and Channing Tatum, which isn’t scheduled to be released until 2016.

The Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, are worshiped filmmakers in the art-house community. They have been impressing audiences since 1996’s The Promise and are among the distinguished few who have two Palme D’Ors to their name (for 1999’s Rosetta and 2005’s The Child). This year, the question is: can they be the first to get three? If the press screening reaction I was a part of this morning is any indication, the answer is louder than Obama’s “yes we can!”. Two Days, One Night premiered this morning and while every previous screening I’ve seen this early ended with a few appreciative claps from the groggy journalists, this one practically received a standing ovation. After their previous effort, 2011’s The Kid With A Bike, didn’t move audiences as much they’re usually capable of doing this one feels like a return to form for the Dardennes. Marion Cotillard gives a sensational performance, and is now the frontrunner for Best Actress. The simplicity of the story is matched only by the weight of the everyday struggle, something the Dardennes are masters of, and in this particular case a growing will power becomes truly inspirational. Though I’ve never personally counted myself among the Dardenne worshippers, I cannot deny the inner satisfaction and victorious sensation Two Days, One Night fills you with.

Cinema verite style is never so deftly handled as it is in the hands of the Dardenne brothers. Quiet conversations and seemingly mundane moments are given precedence over action, movements are followed and observed by a caring camera in a role of close companion, and the conflict rooted into the story is taken from the ordinary. Every major Dardenne film has the connecting thread of emptiness (be it the loss of a child, absence of a parent, etc.) that is in desperate need of filling. In the case of Two Days, One Night, it’s the absence of a job as Sandra (Cotillard) finds herself fighting for hers under pretty unusual circumstances. After a bout with depression, Sandra returned to work to find out about a vote that got her fired. The employees of her company were asked to choose between receiving bonuses (up to 1,000 extra Euros) or keeping Sandra on, because cut backs had to be made otherwise. Juliette, one of Sandra’s supporters convinces their boss to allow for another secret ballot to be held on Monday morning, to get the employees voting again without the influence of a heartless foreman. Sandra’s mission, urged on by her supporting husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), is to reach out to people over the weekend and try to convince them to vote for her so she can keep her job.

It’s the perfect Dardenne premise, because the fear of losing a job is one of the major universal subjects of our current state of affairs, and it’s action-less enough for that verite style to do its magic and pull you into Sandra’s casual, disheveled lifestyle. Cotillard is perfectly sympathetic, wearing her tail between her legs tightly enough to win over any cranky audience, her crying fits doing exactly what they’re constructed to; gain support on and off-screen. This touches upon one of my major issues with the film. Notwithstanding its inspirational and authoritative character, the film plays cleverly with some of Sandra’s idiosyncrasies and some of her colleagues’ reactions to her plight (Timur comes to mind) to a point of obvious fabrication. When some of the scenes become too designed to be real, it effectively pops the organic bubble and makes you realize; “oh wait, this is a movie.”

There is something a little rotten in the idea of this film winning the Palme; it would be a celebration of the everyday struggle by people who are privileged enough to never experience it (or at least, never again.) With two previous Palmes to their name, I’d say give it to someone who’s never won. It’s not like the competition is lacking in possibilities. However, Marion Cotillard seamlessly integrates herself into the Dardenne narrative and makes us forget how much of a superstar she is. For that, she should win her first Cannes Best Actress award.

Originally published on May 20th, 2014 during the Cannes Film Festival

Leading up to its Cannes premiere, the buzz around Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s new film has been positively energetic. And it all led to prediction lists putting it at the very top as most likely Palme D’Or winner come next weekend. Of course, Ceylan is no stranger to the festival; his 2008 Three Monkeys won him the Best Director Award, and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, his previous film before this one, won the Grand Jury Prize (highest alternative to the Palme) in 2011. Today, Ceylan’s love affair with the prestige of Cannes continued with Winter Sleep and, judging by the boisterous standing ovation the director and his cast received after his three hour and fifteen minute epic finished, the talk of a Palme D’Or will grow ever louder. With good reason too, because the film is a cat’s whisker away from being a masterpiece.

A wealthy man made a decision to lead a simpler life after 25 years of theater acting, and retreated into the confines of his hotel, located on the cliffy outskirts of Anatolia. This is where we meet Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), who spends most of his time running his various properties and dealing with his tenants through his right-hand man Hidayet (Ayberk Pekcan), working up the motivation to write his book on the history of Turkish theater, and contributing think-pieces on various Turkish subjects to an unpopular newspaper. His young wife Nihal (Melissa Sozen) and his sister Necla (Demet Akbag) have their own quarters in the hotel, the former trying to do some charity work and the latter getting over her recent divorce. As winter begins to clasp the land in its snowy palm, these ordinary people get into some epic conversations amongst themselves, their tenants, and their friends. Nobody watches TV.

Rereading that paragraph, it feels somewhat nonsensical to describe the narrative for a film like this. Of course, every review should have a description of the plot so the paragraph serves its purpose here, but if you’ve seen any Ceylan movie you know very well that standard words do little justice to the kind of innate magnetic power his films are able to produce. Methods include conversations that last real time, carefully detailed artistic direction, and (in this case) a cinematography so pallid and desolate it will freeze your bones. There is still a point in naming all of the actors, in a hopeful effort that the names – though completely unknown to western tastes – will stick in the mind of readers. It’s Bilginer’s show, who plays his complicated and inexcusably human character with perfectly balanced grace and arrogance; you’re often left torn on whether to completely side with his views or hate his guts. Nevertheless, every other actor, especially the two women who play such major roles in Aydin’s life, makes a memorable impact. This review carefully tiptoes around a crucial subplot concerning one of Aydin’s tenants because it needs to be experienced with utter lack of previous knowledge, but the actors involved there are equally excellent.

Experience. That word gets thrown around so much nowadays in reviews that it all but lost its meaning. Gravity is not a movie, it’s an EXPERIENCE. Enemy is more like an experience than actual movie. And so on. The true meaning of experience considers that personal factor, makes you feel involved, and soaks you into the world of the film. The two examples given are recent obvious ones, but neither was a real experience for me because something or other didn’t allow me to let go completely, and trust the filmmaker completely. With its slow-burning pace, crucially subtle camera movement, and – the natural highlight – utterly captivating exchanges between every person, revealing the fragile cracks of a pathetically self-obsessed nature, Winter Sleep is a genuine experience. Even referring to the people in this film as ‘characters’ feels like an offense.

What Bela Tarr did with images, Nuri Bilge Ceylan accomplishes with dialogue; one hundred percent inclusive assimilation. You literally get lost inside this world that seems to balance on the periphery of humanity itself. But, believe it or not, that’s just the surface. If you put your trust in Ceylan and his troupe of brilliant actors, every action will reveal deeper meanings, every frame will contain significant details, and you will leave the theater completely nourished. A 10 would be a bit much for a score after a first viewing, and there is a voice over toward the end that almost pulls you away and makes you realize you’re in a movie theater, but I’ll be stunned if another Cannes film impresses me as much as this one has. Not to add more fuel to a prematurely lit fire, but at the very least I can hope that Jane Campion and her jury get as wonderfully lost inside this movie as I have.

Originally published on May 16, 2014 during the Cannes Film Festival

In more than one way Ari Folman’s The Congress reminds me a lot of last year’s Cannes film Holy Motors. The most obvious way is how both films can be said to be about the future of cinema. In The Congress Robin Wright essentially plays herself, a B-list actor who is complimenting on whether or not to allow herself to be sampled by the studio who can digitally re-create and place “her” in future films. Holy Motors was also a futuristic take on cinema where the camera never stops thus the actor is always acting. Both films are incredibly creative, fascinating, and push the envelope in terms of filmmaking; all things that by itself is worth a lot of praise. Another more personal reason why they both are alike to me is that I opened film festivals with these two wild mind-trip films. I am starting to question whether diving head first into these film festivals is really a good idea.

The first half of The Congress is displayed in live-action form and is relatively straight forward. A boss from a fictitious studio company named “Miramount”, played by spectacularly by Danny Huston, expresses to Robin Wright that she should allow the studio to sample her as it is the future of cinema. And we are not just talking about sampling her voice, but all her emotions and facial expressions. This way the studio can then re-create a version of Robin Wright that will live on forever, allowing them to place in her an infinite amount of films over the next two decades. This is the path that they claim cinema is going on and it is without a doubt an interesting concept.

Robin refused to sign the contract which states she has no choice of what kind of films will be made with her digitally assigned to. Freedom of choice is what the actress fights for, at least initially. Although her son’s recent poor health begins to outweigh her dignity and she caves in. Later on in the film, an even newer trend is discovered which allows a film to be completely unique to its viewer. Technology advances far enough to be able to trigger personal emotional experiences from the audience member’s brain, making the film watching experience feel more intimate. It is even suggested that audience will be able to literally taste actors and actress that get sampled into future (which is basically the entire plot of Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral).

The second half of the film takes a wicked turn. All of a sudden the live-action film turns into the kind of digital animated world that was talked about in the first half. Here Folman creates a trippy environment that is beautiful to look at and hard to look away from. Just imagine if Yellow Submarine was combined with Waking Life, you would likely get something close to The Congress.

The Congress seems to be an obvious satire on movie studios, but the film continues to explore other plotlines along the way that makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what message the film was trying to get across. The truth is, there are many ideas expressed in the film and that might be its biggest downfall. There are laugh-out-loud moments when the film is making fun of movie studios. There are some fascinating insights on the future of cinema. There is even some good old family drama and love interests in the film. The problem is some areas work much better than others. One thing is for sure, it is a wildly ambitious film – perhaps it was trying to achieve just a little too much though.

Originally published on May 17th, 2013

It’s a good time to be a lengthy drama at Cannes. Following last year’s Palme d’Or prize going to the nearly three-hour lesbian relationship drama Blue Is The Warmest Color, the 196-minute Turkish film Winter Sleep has taken Cannes’ top 2014 prize. The film, a favorite of Way Too Indie’s Man In Cannes (read Nikola’s review here), beat out highly anticipated films including Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher with Steve Carrell and Channing Tatum, as well as the Dardenne brothers‘ Two Days, One Night starring Marion Cotillard. Foxcatcher and other widely discussed debuts still collected awards at Cannes, although Two Days, One Night did not win any honors.

Full list of 2014 Cannes Film Festival Award Winners:

Palme d’Or
Winter Sleep, (directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Grand Prix
Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), (directed by Alice Rohrwacher)

Prix de la Mise en Scene (Award for Best Director)
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher

Prix du Scenario (Award for Best Screenplay)
Andrey Zvyagintsev, Oleg Negin, Leviathan

Camera d’Or (Award for Best First Feature):
Party Girl, (directed by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis)

Prix d’interpretation feminine (Award for Best Actress)
Julianne Moore, Maps to the Stars (directed by David Cronenberg)

Prix d’interpretation masculine (Award for Best Actor)
Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner (directed by Mike Leigh)

Prix du Jury (Jury Prize)
Mommy (directed by Xavier Dolan)
Adieu Au Langage (Goodbye To Language) (directed by Jean-Luc Godard)

Palme d’Or – Short Film
Leidi (directed by Simón Mesa Soto)

Short Film Special Distinction
Aïssa, (directed by Clément Trehin-Lalanne)
Ja Vi Elsker (Yes We Love), (directed by Hallvar Witzø)

Cannes is over. Three words that are going to be sinking in for a while, while I try to regroup and accept that yes; the glorious, maddening, disorganized, exhilarating, and one-of-a-kind Cannes film festival is over. The Prozac to my depression is that it was an absolute blast, and an experience I wouldn’t exchange for anything. While I spend the next few days catching up on all my sleep and vitamins, the medley of scenes, moments of cinematic enormity, fits of laughter, and gasps of horror will be scooped up along with the bits and pieces of my blown mind, and shaped into a cherished memory. But in the meantime, therapy is in order and part of the 12-step program of recovery after coming back from a place like Cannes is making a Top 10 List. So here we are.

If you’ve followed my coverage, this list might not be very surprising but it’s still a good way to summarize why this was such a fantastic festival, and include some thoughts on the recently announced winners.

Honorable Mention – Whiplash

One of two Director’s Fortnights I managed to see was this Sundance hit, about a teenager’s unrelenting passion to become one of the world’s greatest drummers. With magnificent turns by Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons (the latter especially, who should be considered for Best Supporting Actor once we fast-forward seven months from now), and a well maintained adrenaline rush by focused directing and excellent editing, the only reason Whiplash isn’t in the Top 10 is because of it’s noticeably poor depiction of women and predictable emotional beats. Read my review.

#10 – Maps To The Stars

Julianne Moore may have stolen the Best Actress award from Marion Cotillard, but it’s wonderfully ironic that she did it with this role. Obviously, she’s fantastic in it and my review gushed over her. She’s a big reason David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars makes it on this list. Hollywood gets scrutinized in brutal fashion by the master of the absurd, and it ranks as one of my most entertaining and alive moments in a Cannes screening. Worthy of noting; this is the only screening I was unable to get into initially and had to schedule in for later, so it’s good to see that the popularity paid off.

#9 – Amour Fou

Jessica Hausner was a discovery for me, but thanks to Way Too Indie’s CJ for making sure she gets a place in the anticipation list because it enticed me enough to check out this wonderfully austere 19^th century tragic-comic look at love in all its silly desperation. After her third appearance in the Un Certain Regarde, Amour Fou really showcases Hausner’s talent and is one of those films which felt misplaced in its sidebar, fitting in main competition. A unique approach to love, and perfectly framed, Amour Fou should be getting distribution if it hasn’t already so hopefully people on this side of the pond will get a chance to laugh with and at all its awkwardness. Read my capsule review here.

#8 – The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

Even though I was fortunate enough to see the much superior Him and Her versions of this heartrending love-story, Them is more than good enough to deserve a spot on this list. Without doubt the biggest “WTF are they thinking” award decision was giving the Camera D’Or to the directors of Party Girl and not Ned Benson, whose tireless years of work on this project pays off in spades with career-turning performances, assured direction, and a deeply felt story of love and loss. I’d still recommend the richer 3-hour version over this two-hour combined perspective, but if your time is that precious, you won’t go wrong with this version once it gets released. Read my capsule review here.

#7 – Mommy

Trepidation coursed through my veins during the awards ceremony because the buzz was so supportive for Xavier Dolan’s Mommy winning the Palme. Thankfully, and deservedly, Dolan shared the Jury Prize with Jean-Luc Godard and his video essay Goodbye To Language 3D. But it’s important to point out how deserving it is that Dolan walked away with something, because Mommy is a joyous experience full of sorrow, laughs, and vigorous humanity. Even the use of music, or Dolan’s knack to indulge with style, ended up being an asset rather than a flaw here. A truly impressive piece of work by a youngster whose talent is undeniable. Read the review here.

#6 – P’Tit Quinquin

The second Director’s Fortnight film I managed to see and it almost makes it into my Top 5. Bruno Dumont is a master filmmaker, there’s no denying that, and while he is known for putting you down (and kicking you a little while you’re down there) with P’Tit Quinquin he made the funniest film I’ve seen at Cannes. But it’s also one of the smartest, which is the major reason it’s appearing here. Bernard Provost gives an outstanding performance, and helps ease the 3 hour 20 minute running time. Another one CJ needs to be thanked for putting in our anticipation list, even though it’s made-for-TV make sure to seek out P’Tit Quinquin in all its cinemascope glory if you get the chance. Read my capsule review here.

#5 – Two Days, One Night

After the reaction the new Dardennes film got from its first screening, critics were declaring Palme. I wasn’t one of them however, because getting a record third Palme D’Or was always going to be a steep mountain to climb. Regardless, if they had won no one would have bat an eyelash because Two Days, One Night is Dardenne dominance at its most simplistic and vital. It lingers on long after the credits role thanks to the greatest closing lines of any film at the festival, and Marion Cotillard. Will she ever win a Cannes Best Actress? This is the third time her performance is praised to immeasurable heights, and she walks away empty-handed. I don’t like to take anything away from Julianne Moore, whom I adored in Maps, but this really did belong to Cotillard. Perhaps an Oscar will lick her wounds. Read the review here.

#4 – Mr. Turner

Mike Leigh is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. That’s just how it is, and Mr. Turner was one of my must-sees. The second film I saw at the festival and its wondrous cinematography, resonant performances, and an organic direction that plays right into my wheelhouse; Mr. Turner proves that Leigh can tackle the tricky genre of the biopic better than, well, anyone I’ve ever seen. Once you see Timothy Spall (who absolutely must be nominated for an Oscar or it’s all gone to shit) grunt, grumble, growl and gawk his way as J.M.W. Turner you’ll know how deserving that Best Actor win was. An absolute delight this film is, and one I can’t wait to relive again. Here’s my review.

#3 – Winter Sleep

And now we come to the three experiences and near-masterpieces. Winter Sleep is our brilliant, refined, introspective, and much deserved Palme D’Or winner. Nuri Bilge Ceylan is now one of the most celebrated filmmakers at Cannes; with two Grand Prix prizes, one Best Director, and now the Palme to his name. Predicted as possible winner before the festival even started, hated on by a few once it screened (including New York Times’ Manohla Dargis), Winter Sleep still managed to take most critics’ breath away and mine included (it also walked away with the FIPRESCI prize.) Thank God it appears to have done exactly that with Jane Campion, Willem Dafoe, Gael Garcia Bernal and the rest of the jury because Winter Sleep is exemplary cinema at its most dignified and sophisticated. A big hip hip hooray for this win. My review.

#2 – Leviathan

Battling it out with Winter Sleep in an almost tied position of second and third spot is Andrey Zvyagintsev’s artistic magnum opus Leviathan. Religion and politics get a scathing scrutiny in a Man vs. State tale, told through allegorical fashion of the biblical Job story. When it was announced that Leviathan won Best Screenplay, my heart skipped a beat, then slightly sank because I knew it meant chances of a Palme were slim to none. Neverthless, it goes back a winner and it’s been acquired by Sony Pictures Classic so a release date State-side is imminent. Everything just works in this film; from magnanimous Philip Glass, absorbing scenery, ridiculous eye for detail, and balletic camera movement; Leviathan is a work of art with a capital A. My capsule review is here.

#1 – Jauja

What in seven hells is Jauja? Where did it come from? How was it conceived? Where will it end up? These are the kinds of questions still circling in my mind as I try to wrap my self around this transcendental and illuminating experience. Screening in Un Certain Regarde, and playing around with a format that makes you wish you had every shot hanging on your wall, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja walked away with the FIPRESCI prize so it’s nice to see others critics clicking with it. By far the most challenging film I’ll likely see all year, similar to how mind-boggling Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux must have felt when it screened in competition a few years ago, part of why I have it over giants like Leviathan and Winter Sleep is because its mystical powers fascinate me beyond words. Viggo Mortensen’s screen presence and his guitar-playing skills are in full effect here, but it’s all Alonso with the irreplaceable shot composition and philosophical depths showing why cinema is unlike any other art-form out there. Read my review here.

Closing Thoughts

My biggest regret was missing Jean-Luc Godard’s Jury Prize winning Goodbye To Language, but thanks to its warm reception chances of seeing it released are much bigger than before the festival started. Another big miss was Alice Rorwacher’s The Wonders, which ended up winning the Grand Prix, but from everything I read and heard, it’s not one I’ll be rushing to see. Unlike White God, It Follows, The Tribe, and Turist; all of which received either some kind of award or incredible word of mouth, and all of which I managed to unfortunately miss.

But that’s how the cookie crumbles with festivals; see some, miss some – it’s just impossible to see everything (but there’s a superpower I’d love to have.) The biggest disappointment was probably Assayas’ Clouds Of Sils Maria (review here) and not Ryan Gosling’s dog’s breakfast Lost River (reviewed here) because the former is an accomplished director and the latter is an actor playing the role of a director, poorly. Though if I could, I would replace Party Girl (capsule here) and The Blue Room (capsule here) with one of my regrets.

But even if I had to endure three Lost Rivers, there’d be absolutely nothing to complain about. The people, the films, the place, the atmosphere, and the joy of covering the world’s greatest festival; all combine for one unforgettable ride. I hope this will be the first of many Cannes film festivals for me, because there’s just simply nothing like it. Thanks to the films on this list, in some ways Cannes will never really be over for me. And now, the next step; sleeping for 48 hours straight.

The corruption pulsating under Leviathan’s surface is so dense, you’d need an especially sharp scalpel to puncture it. Andrey Zvyagintsev manages to do just that with one of the festival’s greatest films. Though it screened in the twilight days of the festival calendar, no amount of fatigue could prevent the reach of Leviathan’s subtle grip to shake you at the core. This is mostly attributed to the masterfully handled direction of scenes, a cinematography that’s never showy yet essentially influential in key scenes, penetrating performances by every single actor, and a thematic depth reached by an allegorical fable that’s worthy of being placed among the very best of Russia’s intimidating artistic pantheon.

Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) is fighting to keep his property away from state’s hands, and commissions his old army buddy Dimitri (Vladimir Vdovitchenkov) from Moscow to be his lawyer. Dimitri says he has a big file of dirt on the town’s mayor Vadim (Roman Madianov) and all he needs to do is tug him gently by the balls to get him to back away. Parallel to this, Kolya’s personal life is in a delicate state itself; with his young son Roma (Sergei Pokhodaev) not adjusting very well to Lilya (Elena Liadova), Kolya’s young wife. Kolya’s livelihood begins to slowly choke in this modern allegorical retelling of the Leviathan passage in the Book of Job.

Comparisons will be made to Winter Sleep, most fervently by those who are intent on proving Winter Sleep’s lack of engagement, but I’d argue both films succeed in engaging through different means. Whereas Winter Sleep pulls the audience (or most of it one hopes) through conversation, and lets the scenery breathe in the contemplative pauses, in Leviathan it’s the meticulous mise-en-scene that speaks the loudest.  The dried up and ruinous exteriors overlooked by the mountains like guards watching over precious relics in an abandoned museum, and interiors breathing with a life you only become aware of once it’s too late to save your sinking heart. The camera’s movement glides gently, pulls in for a kiss or follows a character as she washes her hands in the lake, and through this delicate attention establishes a penetrating familiarity, completely taking you off guard. The Machiavellian narrative, aided by musical bookends of ostentation operatic sounds only Phillip Glass can conjure, and the sense of entrapment inflicted on everyone in the story, but most poignantly on Kolya whose drowning sorrows can’t find the bottom of all the vodka bottles in Russia, help to elevate the film in constant incline.

Andrei Zvyagintsev has thoroughly understood, and mastered, the subtle power of the moving image. With his magnificent debut The Return and the masterpiece of intimate decision-making in Elena – there’s no denying that Russian cinema has found itself again through this bold craftsman, whose scalpel has never been sharper than it is here. His knack of elevating the experience (there’s that word again) to a league of its own, standing just as high as Ceylan’s didactic tête-à-tête opus but in a different mantelpiece, has confirmed him one of today’s most refined filmmakers. Soaked in spirituality, vodka, and an undercurrent of violence, Leviathan is a film worthy of study, and one can only hope that its two principle actors (Serebryakov and Madianov) or, better still, its director, will walk away awarded for the intoxicating artistry displayed by, and through, Leviathan.

When discussing a new Xavier Dolan, it’s his age and not his movie that takes center stage. After all, he’s only 25-years-old [insert appropriate number of jealous exclamation points.] He started his film making career at the same time most of the us struggle with some dispensable university degree, and he came to this year’s Cannes with four features under his belt, including the fantastic debut I Killed My Mother and Un Certain Regarde winner Laurence Anyways. We already know his favored themes (tolerance of sexual orientation, fraught youth vs. exhausted adults, and a general lack of human connection) and his use (or overuse) of style and indulgent running times, have garnered some criticism over a frustrating self-awareness and a hyperactive creativity bordering on the pastiche. Well, this year with Mommy it would seem that Dolan is finally honing in his creativity, or at least, using an integral part of himself in a much more assured manner. However, there are still moments of frustration that Dolan naysers will not be able to get behind.

Diana “Die” Despre (Anne Dorval) is a single mother trying to keep it together with a meager job and no help from welfare. Her troubled son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is thrown back into her care after causing a tragedy which left some kids with third degree burns. Her protests not working, Die has no choice but to take Steve in and in their first interaction we realize her reservations instantly; his ADHD makes him into an insufferable, hyperactive and vulgar child with a capital C. Steve needs to be home-schooled, but Die finds it hard to cope with this and keep her job (at which, she runs into further humiliation) so it becomes something of a blessing when their neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clement) walks into their lives. A sensitive soul, struggling with a speech impediment and on sabbatical, Kyla sees through the rough exterior of Die’s and Steve’s dynamic and is thoroughly charmed. The film mostly focuses on the close bond the three make, but never lets us forget that this movie is about a mother constantly cleaning up a broken life.

Dolan’s knack with actors continues as his regulars Dorval and Clement shine through for him once again. Dorval especially, in the title role, is a whirlwind of trashy energy and faded highlights representing a faded lifestyle, but thanks to the way Dolan wrote her, and the way Dorval plays her, Die is instantaneously endearing and we root for her from the moment she has the car accident and mouths off her first curse words. Clement, unlike her tremendous turn in Laurence Anyways, is in the background of this one but a few key scenes pull us toward Kyla as a broken individual we’d love to save. How and why she’s broken is left unclear, however, and this leaves the character feeling a shade less dimensional than I’d liked. Pilon is a star as the Tasmanian Devil who can’t control his fits of anger, racial slurs, and barrage of violent insults. When the film reminds us of how much he looks like Macaulay Culkin, or when the love he has for his mother is so clear that it pains us, Pilon is at his best. Still though, with Clement’s underwritten character and Pilon’s untimely showiness, it’s Dorval who stands the tallest in a staggering award-worthy performance. It’s just too bad she has Marion Cotillard to compete with for Best Actress.

Other than how accomplished the film looks for a 25-year-old, the other thing most people will talk about here is the aspect ratio. It’s 1:1 for most of the film and the first five minutes were infuriatingly claustrophobic. But it doesn’t take long to realize how important this claustrophobia is to the story of these characters, and the beauty of the shots begin to shine, with characters hanging like melancholic portraits. In a significant moment, the aspect ratio breathes and it’s one of the greatest uses of form I’ve seen at Cannes – however, it’s stifled by Oasis’ Wonderwall playing on the soundtrack. And this is where we come back to some of Dolan’s slightly frustrating qualities. The writing and direction of certain scenes lay on the drama a little too thick, with a texture so fabricated by the soundtrack and shot composition a gag reflex almost sets in. And it’s a shame too, because the story of these people and how effectively the friendship and love is evoked really doesn’t need any additives which scream “you know, in case you weren’t sure how you’re supposed to feel, this is how”. Mommy holds the audience’s hand a bit too long, it still has that Dolan self-awareness with the use of pop music, unnecessary slow-motion and one incredibly overburdened montage, and some character decisions make no sense beyond creating empathy. But having said all that, there is no denying the compassion Dolan manages to capture here, and together with his three actors and some excellent writing, for the first time in his career it feels like he’s balanced out his most preferred theme with his showy style, creating a picture pulsating with the grittiness of life’s hardships.

I’ve yet to get a full grasp of Bruno Dumont’s style, so if you’re a hardened Dumont fan take the following thoughts with a grain of salt. They come from someone whose introduction to the notoriously dramatic director was a comedy. But, as P’Tit Quinquin was featured on our most anticipated Cannes list, a few capsuled thoughts are in order. The picture was designed for television, split into four episodes with titles that don’t exactly sound like a barrel of laughs (“The Human Beast”, “The Heart Of Evil”) but that’s the most fascinating thing with P’Tit Quinquin; its use of comedy. While bordering on slapstick a few times too many, the film is a genuine riot and satirical with a purpose of exposing and exploring the darker sides of human nature. Take “The Human Beast” title; it’s played around with because of how corpses are cut up and disposed of inside cow stomachs. So when a character first says the words, it’s funny like you’d never expect. Much of the humor is carried by Bernard Pruvost, who plays Captain van der Weyden as a fumbling mix of Peter Seller’s Pink Panther and what you’d imagine Cervantes’ Don Quixote would be if adapted by the Marx Brothers. His facial ticks alone deserve a Palme D’Or. The two kids Alane Delhayne and Lucy Caron, the heart of the film, are excellent as well.

While some scenes drag, and others aren’t as funny as they’d like to be, the French audience I watched this with ate everything up and roared with approval. The rustic slang and expressions will no doubt be lost in translation for those of us who don’t speak French, but the dark symbolism, the glorious cinematography (do everything you can to see this in its theatrical, scope, version no matter how sore you’ll be) and masterful direction makes P’Tit Quinquin well worth its epic three and a half hour running time.

Like the two previous Sundance hits, Whiplash goes through familiar emotional motions which prevent it from being the kind of sensation the Sundance buzz might make you think it is. But, there are two important ways it distances itself from Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Fruitvale Station. Firstly, it’s stylized enough to not have an air of forced importance in each shaky frame or gritty filter. Secondly, it’s very funny and comedy goes a long way. There was some commotion in Sundance when Buzzfeed’s Amanda Willmore stirred the gender pot and called the film out on its representation of women, and I can’t deny the truth in that. This is a boy’s film through and through, where mothers desert their children, girlfriends have no ambition, and girls have no place in famed musical courses. Leaving that major setback aside, for now, the film still uses a musical passion rarely given attention to and makes a highly enjoyable and invigorating film built around determination and pushed limits.

Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) wants to be remembered as one of the greatest drummers to have lived and the film wastes no time in throwing you right into the thick of it. He is practicing a special double-tap technique with drums when one of Shaffer Conservatory of Music’s most feared and respected instructors, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), walks in to listen, observe, and see if Neyman would fit in his band. It’s quickly established that Fletcher’s version of listening and observing is criticizing and deriding thanks to an exceedingly high standard. However, Neyman’s determination and skill impresses Fletcher enough to give the 19-year old a shot, in preparation for an upcoming competition. Andrew’s strained relationship with his father (Paul Reiser), his efforts to have a relationship with Nicole (Melissa Benoist), and the dismissive way we find out that his mother deserted the family, are contextualized around his passion for being a drummer. Whiplash is about the lines dividing passion and obsession, the willingness of the spirit to never give up, and a highly flawed teaching principle.

There’s much to admire in Whiplash, and if audience reaction is used as measurement of a film’s success you’d think Whiplash was the greatest film out of Cannes, not just the Director’s Fortnight where the year’s Sundance hit usually lands. You’d have to be made of stone to not be swept up by the film’s  crescendo, an ending designed to put audiences into a frenzy. It’s only when hindsight kicks in that you realize some of the film’s messages get lost in the pandemonium of emotion. Fletcher is the vulgar, drill-seargent, hard-ass you love to hate, whose character shades do little to cover up deeply flawed principles, and yet, once you think the film acknowledges them it turns around and drops them like a bad habit. Luckily, we have character actor J.K. Simmons (channeling cinema’s toughest drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket) in a role that was made for his sharp wit (all he’s gotta do is close a door to make you laugh) and knack of going from intense to kind with a seamless flick of the switch. This is the closest he’ll ever get to Best Support Actor award consideration. But if you consider him, then Teller should get mention as well. He’s at his best when he’s behind the drum set and playing as if possessed by the ghost of Buddy Rich. Compared to his turn in the great The Spectacular Now, this performance shows that he’s growing and if he continues like this he’s going to be major.

The most admirable thing to take away from Whiplash is the balance of comedy and drama, and supported by two strong performances and award worthy editing from Tom Cross, is the young director at the helm; Damien Chazelle. He should be flooded with offers right about now, so don’t be surprised to hear how he’s going to be directing some kind of Spider-Man VS Godzilla spin-off, because at 28 years of age, Chazelle is by far the biggest star of the film. With an original screenplay brimming with quotable lines and memorable scenes (the “out of tune” episode is one of many uproarious highlights) and assured direction of a young man’s dissent into a dangerously taxing obsession, while effectively portraying the effects of psychological harassment, Chazelle will be one of the year’s biggest talking points (not unsimilar to Benh Zeitlin, but in my opinion, more deserved). However, we come back to the film’s flaws which the age, experience, and gender of the director make all the more understandable. Whiplash is immensely enjoyable to watch and listen to (the music is fantastic, as it must be) but the predictable emotional pushes and pulls, and the rather immature and dismissive representation of women in the film highlight the director’s inexperience. Nonetheless, he’s absolutely one to watch and for fans of J.K. Simmons, you’ve got your favorite movie in Whiplash.

Ryan Gosling knew this was going to happen. His directorial debut screened in the Un Certain Regarde category of Cannes and, naturally, packed the house as if it was the most highly buzzed Palme D’Or contender of the year. Two hours later the film ended, and people took to Twitter in disbelief, shock, and sarcasm engaged to the max. Yet, the film already began building a loyal fan base who defend its great aesthetics, originality, and the fact that it’s never boring. But getting your teeth pulled out by rusty pliers is probably never boring either. After making whatever Lost River is, there’s no way Gosling didn’t expect exactly that kind of reaction. Is there a point in even laying out the plot here? A mother (Christina Hendricks) works in a seedy bar and has to take care of two boys, one of whom is nicknamed Bones (Iain De Caestecker) and is sort of our protagonist. After getting news that they’re about to get displaced, she takes another job in an ever seedier bar, operated by her banker Dave (Ben Mendelsohn) so that she can pay three months in advance. Meanwhile, Bones attempts to outwit a local gang leader called Bully (Matt Smith) to help with the rent, and gets moral support from a friend called Rat (Saorise Ronan). Yes. Bones, Bully, and Rat.

The actors do a decent enough job and go beyond the call of duty that their names suggest, but it’s Mendelsohn who outshines everyone and truly looks like he belongs in the fucked up world Gosling juke-boxed together. The film spins out of control quite quickly and goes into experimental mode; becoming a lab for Gosling to play around with a Greatest Hits collection of influences (David Lynch, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Gaspar Noe most notably, though the re-occurring image of burning buildings recalls one of my favorite cinematic shots, possibly ever, from Akira Kurosawa’s Ran) without needing to make much sense. The idea is to evoke a nightmarish atmosphere and make the whole thing into some form of parable for the housing crisis in middle America, or you know, he’s just fucking around. Whatever it is, he’s got me cursing for the first time in a Cannes review and that’s because most of the scenes, as great as they look (an image of a burning bicycle, the macabre bar where Hendricks begins to work, and the images of her in the plastic suit are undeniably striking and get etched into your mind, for better or for worse) don’t amount to anything substantial. This isn’t just style over substance, this is style raping substance.

The music deserves a mention, however, because (and this is a direct Refn influence) the electronic notes work in sinister fashion to help the overall grotesqueness occurring on-screen. If there was a Cannes award for Best Soundtrack, Lost River would be a shoe-in. As it stands, it’s nothing more than a first-time director’s messy homage to some of his favorites. The reason it’s getting so much attention, and will most likely go down as a cult favorite in certain circles, is because the director happens to be Ryan Gosling. Thanks to his name, though, he manages to assemble artists like Mendelsohn, Ronan, cinematographer Benoit Debie, and composer Johnny Jewel who elevate this psychedelic bad trip from complete disaster into a twisted kind of entertainment.

Michel Hazanavicius burst into Hollywood with The Artist, which won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. The trailer for his highly anticipated follow-up, The Search, has hit today, and you can conveniently watch it below.

From the looks of the trailer, Hazanavicius is certainly trying to break out of his wheelhouse of crowd-pleasing spoofs. The Search is a much grander epic, taking place during World War II, but also focusing on the emotionally wrought story of a European Union delegate (Bérénice Bejo) who takes in an orphaned young boy.

The Search is a remake of Fred Zinnemann‘s 1948 film of the same name. The original film starred Montgomery Clift in the Bejo role, so it should be interesting to see how the gender swap will effect the dynamics of the film. Hazanavicius also seems to have ramped up the film’s scale, adding almost an hour of runtime.

The Search will debut at the Cannes Film Festival this week and later this year in France. No U.S. date has been set, but given the awards pedigree of those involved, a holiday release can be assumed.

Watch The Search trailer

Bennett Miller’s follow up to Moneyball, the Brad Pitt-starring baseball-but-not-really-about-baseball movie, is Foxcatcher, the Channing Tatum-starring wrestling-but-not-really-about-wrestling movie. It’s undoubtedly one of the marquee films competing for the Palme D’Or; featuring an intriguing cast with Tatum in the lead, Mark Ruffalo in supporting, and Steve Carell overshadowing in his first villainous role, directed by one of America’s brightest emerging talents, and with an Oscar buzz that began before cameras rolled. Monday was officially Foxcatcher Day in the French Riviera. We here at Way Too Indie felt the itch with this one too, featuring it in our Top 10 most anticipated Cannes list. After missing the first screening at the ridiculous 8 a.m. time-slot, and reading the (mostly) rave first impressions, I knew there was no way Monday was ending without me catching this one. But, in large part, I am left with regret for not opting for one of my other picks.

The story follows Olympic gold medalist Mark Shultz (Tatum), a very determined young man whose solitary lifestyle revolves around training, eating microwaveable food, talking about wrestling, and… wrestling. It’s beyond passion; it’s his entire livelihood. Influenced, mentored and trained by his older brother Dave (Ruffalo) who is also an Olympic gold medalist, but whose life is much more balanced with a family and a sense for the business of the sport. One day, randomly, Mark gets a call from John Du Pont’s people and is invited for a visit and a chat with John Du Pont (Carell) himself. Du Pont, a billionaire with a family dynasty to preserve and upkeep, is a big wrestling fan and expresses his desire to become Mark’s coach and help him achieve his goal of becoming the best wrestler in the world and win gold at the next Olympics. He wants this for himself, for Mark, but most of all, for America. The characters and events in this film are based on a true story, and it’s a juicy one, but Miller – with everything at his disposal – found a way to make a forgettable film with it.

Let’s get the acting out of the way, because if anything will give this movie the strong legs it needs for Oscar season it’s that. Steve Carell will be hogging all the attention that’s only justifiable for Ruffalo and Tatum. The latter is especially impressive, as he uses his bulky fitness to create a truly sympathetic character, brimming with insecurity yet physically intimidating with every swing and stretch. Ruffalo doesn’t get much to do, but he’s one of the easiest actors to watch thanks to his natural talent to demand attention by never showboating, so he’s consistently great in the film. And Carell does bring the comedy here, the Eagle bit is for the highlight reel and his deliveries of “good” have rightly reminded people of Mr. Burns’ “excellent”. But, the make-up and the larger-than-life character do much to disguise what is ultimately a solid performance and not much else. The reason he will be a major Oscar contender is due to the novelty of having a comedian break bad, and not the actual performance itself; something many others with the same make-up could have pulled off.

The real troubles with Foxcatcher lie in the way the drama unfolds; every beat predicted (ah, he wants to step out of his brothers shadow; of course, he will start taking drugs now; oh right, he’s got mommy issues so now we know why he is the way he is) and when it’s not, like two crucial character shifts of attitude, it feels fumbled and graceless like handing a blade to a wrestler and telling him to fence. You don’t win gold medals like that. The cinematography and the editing are something of unexpected accomplishments here, but still don’t help this major fault in the storytelling.

With all the ingredients at his disposal Miller managed to make a film that’s barely compelling, helped mostly by the performances of Tatum and Ruffalo, and the mere presence of a sickly repugnant creature played with decent amount of slime by Carell. The symbolism of America as wrestling (Miller is becoming a pro in utilizing athletics in very thematically engaging ways at least) and the commentary on the debilitating effects of wealth on human spirit are enough to make good conversation pieces. But the execution is so lacking and the overall experience made so bland, that the subject of conversation will quickly change.

Welcome to Hollywood, where you steal spotlights at the age four, go into rehab before you hit puberty, hit menopause by the time you’re 23, and become a desensitized pill-popping, therapy-addicted, fame-crazed relic nearing death by the time you’ve reached your 40s. Oh, should we talk about the abuse? Should we touch upon that jaded little thing called incest? Prepare yourself for one ludicrous look through a cracked magnifying glass stained with cum and shit, one of which is a commodity but I won’t spoil and say which one. This is Cronenbergianism at its absurdest best and excessive worst, and it will most likely end up as the most quotable film competing for this year’s Palme D’Or.

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) is moving to Hollywood from the Tony Montana land of Florida because her Twitter friend Carrie Fisher (yes, Princess Leia) said she might need help with her new book. Her chauffeur (Robert Pattinson) is one of a myriad actor slash writers looking for that big break. Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is an aging actress dangerously close to societal extinction, with all her hopes resting on getting a part in a new Hollywood remake, the same part her mother played in the original 70s version. Her massage therapist is kook guru Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) whose son Benjie (Evan Bird) is a thirteen year old box office megastar recently released from rehab, much to the relief of his mother Christina’s (Olivia Williams) bank account. The rub is that Agatha is the disfigured schizophrenic member of the Weiss family, whose real reason for coming to L.A. is to make amends with her family, who want nothing to do with her because, in a psychotic fit of rage, she tried to murder them all by setting their house on fire.

The symbolism in this film ranges from the stars all the sordid way to the gutter, and thanks to an Angelo Badalamenti-esque score (from Howard Shore!) and some hallucinations, the whole affair plays out like Mulholland Drive‘s long-lost, abused, and dirty half-cousin. All performance are overshadowed by Moore, who is essentially playing it easy for her standards but those standards still make her a strong contender for Best Actress. She steals scene after scene until you realized she’s stealing the whole movie. Wasikowska is officially typecast as the “crazy one”, a role she’s essentially been playing since her breakout turn in HBO’s In Treatment. Pattinson is a complete non-entity, which is in itself a great metaphor for the millions of star reaching non-entities driving limos and busing tables in Hollywood. Everyone else is solid, Cusack and Williams playing it perfectly whacky, and perhaps it’s young Bird who stands out slightly. But one gets the feeling it’s because of the exaggerated role and not so much the performance, fine as it is.

As ever with Cronenberg though, the acting is there as moral support to the more crucial element of theme and screenplay. The corruption depicted in this degenerative society is probably as far from the actual truth as the mention of a real-life celebrity is in the film (they’re mentioned a lot.) The razor-sharp screenplay is its biggest weapon, but it tends to cut too deep at times with certain lines bordering on cliche. Fans of the post-Spder Cronenberg will, I believe, devour every surreal and entertaining moment of Maps To The Stars. For my tastes, the dark humor and the intelligent weaving of violence, fame, and star-mania is enough to make me appreciate it and call it the best film Cronenberg has made since Eastern Promises. The themes of incest, and some of the characters’ fates (not Julianne Moore’s though, that was fantastic) went over the top and made the nightmarish atmosphere too lucid for its own good. All in all though, great fun, and an invigorating addition to Cronenberg’s offbeat filmography.

The roller coaster Ned Benson has been experiencing with his first feature would make anyone’s head dizzy. Last year at TIFF, he premiered his film, The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby, as a check-this-out-and-let-me-know-what-you-think concept which people have since been calling a “work in progress”. It was still fresh out of the lab without a buyer in sight, and told a familiar story in a truly original way; a break-up of a relationship told from both the guy’s and the girl’s perspective. Him and Her. Then, after some months of deliberation, Benson re-cut his film and premiered it at this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regarde section as a two hour “Them” version.

The story centers around Jessica Chastain‘s Eleanor Rigby who, after we are introduced to her and her boyfriend Connor (James McAvoy) in a charming opening dine-and-dash date, attempts suicide and disappears from Connor’s life. She retreats back to her family to figure out how to move on, he feels lost and tries to put all his energy on saving his restaurant slash bar. The loss of a child is quickly established here, whereas it was something hidden in the original format. So many of the things I loved about the original version are still present; the performances from Chastain and McAvoy are fantastic, the rest of the stellar cast (including William Hurt, Cirian Hinds, Isabelle Hupert and Viola Davis) are still some of the best supporting ensemble I’ve seen in quite some time, the tone of the film helped by the sonorous soundtrack is still as delicate as it should be. Yet, I can’t help but feel a big chunk missing, as a lot of what happens in Them feels somewhat forced, rushed, or tacked on. In any case, the good news is that the roller coaster ride will end with all three versions being released in theaters. While Them is still a solid effort on its own legs, I would strongly urge you to watch the Him and Her versions instead.

There is something insatiable about Jessica Hausner’s Un Certain Regarde entry Amour Fou, it’s just hard to pinpoint what exactly. While the film sinks in with the weight of a feather, the feeling of satisfaction still dominates the sense of boredom, though the latter’s undeniable presence stops the loving dead at its tracks. Henrietta Vogel is a married woman in 18th century Berlin, living with and for her husband and their daughter. Being from the aristocratic branch of society, Henrietta’s main preoccupation is entertaining guests; various distinguished ladies and gentlemen, artists, and politicians. When one of these guests, Heinrich the poet, declares his love for Henrietta things take a turn for the interesting. Mainly because Heinrich’s version of happily ever after is slightly…crazy. There’s your jist, and it’s enough to keep the story from ever becoming too unattractive.

Hausner’s keen eye for austerity and a mise-en-scene frozen in time keeps the wandering eye from wandering away too much, even if some events on screen keep involuntarily nudging you to wander on away. This mostly happens with the use of song, which feels tedious regardless of the contextual incentive. Amour Fou did have its spot in Way Too Indie’s Top 10 most anticipated Cannes films, and there’s much left to admire here but it’s still got a piece of heart missing. Nevertheless, after two duds it’s refreshing to know that Un Certain Regarde isn’t completely doomed this year.

What starts off as mildly interesting ends up being nauseatingly dull in Mathieu Amalric‘s The Blue Room. Julien (Amalric) is a married man, with one daughter, who was something of a player back in the old days. When one of the women he somehow skipped over shows up in his life again, Esther (Stephanie Cleau), the two begin an 11-month affair. But when Esther’s rich husband Nicolas ends up dead, the two are immediately suspected of the possible crime, even though the husband’s health was poor and his death didn’t shock any of the doctors. Did they do it? What happened to Julien’s wife? What’s all the mystery about? These are the questions Amalric is desperately asking with lavish music, pseudo-psychadelic camera angles, visually appealing colors, and little symbolic trinkets in the forms of bees and red towels. Regrettably, the only question you’ll end up asking yourself is “Who cares?” The lack of character development leaves you feeling detached from just about everyone, which means that the film’s sole flag bearer is the suspense and the mystery. Once that gets derailed you’re left with a half-measured attempt at some kind of Lynchian perspective of the obsessed female, a notion with a pungently misogynist stink to it. Avoid.

When you’re dealing with a weak protagonist, and a storyline as flat as a crepe (minus all the deliciousness,) there ain’t nothing coming to save your picture. Un Certain Regarde opener Party Girl, directed by no less than three people suffers just that kind of fate. The story hinges on Angelique (Angelique Litzenburger), a 60-something ex-stripper who still frequents one of her favorite clubs, drinks herself silly, chats about the good old days with her girlfriends (all still actively dancing), and acts like she still belongs on the pole. When one of her old regulars Michel (Joseph Bour) jumps from flirting to proposing, Angelique is faced with a real chance to finally act responsibly, settle down, and lead a sober life. The film supposes that if Angelique doesn’t want to make this change for herself, or for Michel, then at least for her four children, one of whom (the youngest, on top of it) she’s been neglecting for years.

The trouble is Angelique does need to change for herself; otherwise she’d never be happy, which would just recycle all her old habits again. A conclusion that’s realized within the first 15 minutes of the film, yet somehow ends up dragging this feature into the indifferent playing field it’s finally left in. The performances, especially from Litzenburger, who has no previous acting credit other than the same role in a shorter version of the same movie, and Bour are commendable and keep this from becoming a complete bore, as so many deflated scenes threaten to do. The intimacy of the story (the film is loosely based on one of the directors’ mothers, and lots of characters in the film play varying versions of themselves) is felt through the verite style, however, it ultimately fails because it’s forcing you to become intimate with a very disagreeable person. Angelique is charming in her own kitschy, susceptible kind of way, her eyes fixed in a deer-in-the-headlights gaze at the outside world, but when looked at objectively and stripped to her fundamentals, she’s a weak person with very few redeeming qualities. It’s like being stuck in a broken elevator with someone who wears too much make-up, smells like bad perfume and whiskey, and never shuts up about herself.

The scenes with the children are heartfelt, the music (especially the closing song which makes an atrociously vexing ending way too memorable than it ought to be) is used effectively, but Party Girl is the kind of party where every balloon is deflated and is not worth your time and effort. If you want to watch a film about a older woman battling with loneliness, watch Gloria instead.

It’s been too long since we’ve had a Mike Leigh film, but four years is only long with Leigh because the gaps between his movies are felt more heavily than with most. Reviewers have to try and stay as impartial as possible when verbalizing the qualities of a film, but there’s no denying when a filmmaker just does it for you. Leigh is one such example for me. His insistence on working without a screenplay, using the actors’ personal experiences in the creation of the characters as much as possible, and his roots in theatre, all fuse together to form an organic style that has become something of a comforting blanket for me. His latest film, which had its world premiere at Cannes this morning, sees him returning to an examination of artistic sensibilities in the 19th century, a subject he hasn’t broached since 1999’s Topsy Turvy. While it never feels as close as his modern day takes of ordinary woes (Another Year most recently), Mr. Turner is yet another exemplary work of art from a modern day master craftsman.

Following the eccentric lifestyle of British painter J.W.M. Turner (Timothy Spall), the film covers some of the most captivating aspects in the last quarter of Turner’s life. Most notably, his relationship with his father, whom he affectionately still calls ‘Daddy’ (Paul Jesson) and his housemaid Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson) whom he treats like an annoying pet until his carnal urges get the better of him. As we swing back and forth with Turner’s way of life, we follow wherever his inner compass leads us; the Academy of fellow painters, most of whom revere his work; the cliffs and hillsides overlooking the greatest object of his eye’s desire, the tumultuous seas; and a quaint little place he keeps finding inspiration in called Margate. During his visits there, he goes by the name of Mallard and keeps lodging with a chipper Ms. Booth (Marion Bailey). Leigh, together with his actors, cinematographer Dick Pope and composer Gary Yershon, takes us on a journey into the very ether of an artist’s soul, who (much like most artists) is a deeply troubled human being.

Slow off the mark, and slightly drowsy towards the end of it, Mr. Turner makes up for its, at times, lagging pace with its bombastic score and an exquisite kind of cinematography you want to bathe in. Spall will undoubtedly be a contender for Best Actor at Cannes; his gruff exterior portrait of a mad genius smothering the brewing storms he depicts with such passion (his conflicting marine landscapes are so much an extension of himself, he uses his own saliva to smear the colors in) and every other actor is a brilliant extension of Turner’s personality, from Bailey’s nonplussed Ms. Booth to a comical, albeit much too short, turn by Leigh regular Leslie Manville playing philosopher slash astronomer slash mathematician Ms. Somerville. But perhaps for the first time ever in a Mike Leigh film, the genial acting and dialogue (which will make you wish we still spoke in Victorian slang) meet their match with Pope’s photography. Effectively evoking the misty suns and pinkish hues of Turner’s paintings, a lot of the scenic stuff reminded me of the kind of majesty captured in Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. If there was ever a case to be made of the intricate similarities between painting and cinema, look no further.

Ultimately however, and as always, it all comes down to Mike Leigh. If he doesn’t walk away with the Best Director, Palme or Grand Jury Prize (though it’s much too early to tell, and there’s no viable reason to the contrary) he will still be leaving the French Riviera a winner. His talent of getting under the skin of his characters and illuminating the hidden shadows that reside within us all is still unmatched. His penchant for comedy, a special highlight here involves a discussion of criticism versus art, is still very much present and welcoming. If you’re as big of a Leigh fan as I am, chances are you’ll be craving the next Leigh film just as much. The good news is that, along with all previous Leigh creations, we now have Mr. Turner to keep us company as well.

In honor of the film’s 50th birthday, and the 50th anniversary of the Spaghetti Western as a genre, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars will help close the 67th Cannes Film Festival during a screening hosted by none other than Quentin Tarantino. The screening of A Fistful of Dollars will feature a 4K version of the film restored by Cineteca di Bologna, and occur on Saturday, May 24th following the main prize ceremony.

The screening’s host Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to the Western genre, claiming to have been influenced by the films of Sergio Leone. Tarantino’s most recent film Django Unchained was ostensibly a Western, and his rumored (but troubled) follow-up The Hateful Eight is expected to be another run at the genre. A Fistful of Dollars, which introduced audiences to Clint Eastwood’s iconic character the Man with No Name, didn’t reach the United States until 1967.

The film restoration was aided by Unidis Jolly Films, A Fistful of Dollars‘ original producer and distributor, as well as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. Noted cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri oversaw the restoration which was done through the Immagine Ritrovata film restoration laboratory.

Before we send this year’s Cannes correspondent Nikola Grozdanovic off to the south of France, the Way Too Indie staff compiled a list of our 10 Most Anticipated Films at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Despite the lowest number of films playing in Competition since 1990 (18 total), there is still a lot to get excited for with new films from David Cronenberg, Xavier Dolan, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Michel Hazanavicius, Mike Leigh, a directorial debut for Ryan Golsing, and more. And besides, some of our favorite films in the past have come out of other categories at the festival such as Un Certain Regard, Midnight Screenings, and sidebar events like Director’s Fortnight. We will be bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage from the festival beginning May 14th. In the meantime, see below for the films we can’t wait to see.

Way Too Indie’s 10 Most Anticipated Films At Cannes 2014

The Captive

This marks Atom Egoyan’s sixth film to play in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The plot for The Captive closely resemblances Denis Villeuneuve’s recent film Prisoners, a father (played by Ryan Reynolds) attempts to find his kidnapped daughter. But after watching the impressive trailer, Egoyan adds a hair-raising twist when the family uncovers surveillance cameras in their own home. Suddenly they realize this is not just an average kidnapping case and fear their every move is being monitored. Co-starring alongside Reynolds are Rosario Dawson, Mireille Enos, Scott Speedman, and Bruce Greenwood. Egoyan has received his fair share of awards from Cannes in the past, but it’s been nearly 20 years since his last win. Maybe The Captive will change that. [Dustin]

Maps to the Stars

It’s hard not to get giddy with anticipation whenever David Cronenberg’s got a new film on the horizon. He’s an auteur with a delectably skewed vision of the world, so Maps to the Stars, written by cult author Bruce Wagner, seems a perfect match: An unrelenting showbiz satire, it follows the famous Weiss family, a clan of corrupted, mentally unstable Hollywood types, and their strange, fucked up lives. Cronenberg’s got a strong stable of talents at his disposal, with Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Mia Wasikowska, Rob Pattinson and the underrated Olivia Williams rounding out the cast. [Bernard]

Mr. Turner

As far as first and second visits to the Cannes Film Festival competition go, I don’t think there’s ever been a bigger success story than Mike Leigh (let us know in the comments if there was). In 1993 Leigh entered the main competition for the first time and walked away with the Best Director, helping David Thewlis earn Best Actor for the same film, the irreproachable Naked. Three years later, he returned for the second time with the emotionally stirring familial, class, race, and life drama Secrets & Lies, and walked away with the Palme D’Or, helping Brenda Blethyn earn Best Actress for her portrayal of mother-in-shambles Cynthia. You don’t need a PhD to recognize the pattern; Leigh is a bonafide master of the craft and he’s got a way with actors. This year, he’s back with Mr. Turner and two of his most prominent collaborators, Timothy Spall in the title role and Leslie Manville who redefined acting in Leigh’s last film Another Year. The closest Leigh got to a 19th century biopic was 1999’s Topsy-Turvy but something tells me this one’s going to be slightly different in tone, as it deals with the last quarter of controversial painter J.M.W. Turner’s life. Honoured to be waving the Way Too Indie banner at this year’s Cannes, Turner is at the very top of my must-see films mostly because Leigh has yet to disappoint me (and I’ve seen all of them). Watch out for an early review as Mr. Turner screens in the first few days. [Nik]

P’tit Quinquin

Bruno Dumont may have won 2 Grand Prix awards at Cannes (L’Humanité and Flandres, respectively), but he’s still not an especially well-known or watched figure for arthouse audiences. His style, filled with ambiguities and provocations, leaves audiences both captivated and enraged. His last film, Camille Claudel 1915, was a bit of a departure due to his casting of Juliette Binoche (Dumont typically prefers to work with non-professionals), but P’Tit Quinquin appears to be the beginning of a completely new direction for the filmmaker.

P’Tit Quinquin is a four part miniseries dealing with a string of bizarre murders in a small French town. The fact that Dumont was able to get a miniseries made in the first place is shocking enough, but the trailer appears to show Dumont making something appealing to mainstream audiences. Of course it’s not a complete 180 for Dumont; the series still looks very strange, and it’ll be exciting to see the results. With the show airing in the fall, and signs of a North American release unlikely, it’ll be quite interesting to see how this new work by Bruno Dumont turns out. [CJ]

Lost River

Ryan Gosling is usually starring in my most anticipated Cannes films, so this new turn of Gosling behind the camera obviously piqued my interest. Furthermore, that his directorial début has thus far been described as a dark fantasy thriller, makes Lost River that much more intriguing. Formerly called How to Catch a Monster, the story follows Billy, played by Gosling’s Drive co-star Christina Hendricks, as a single mother of two who is pulled into the dark and macabre underworld of her dying city, Lost River, while her adult son Bones (Iain De Caestecker) finds a secret road leading to an underwater town. The film also stars Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Eva Mendes, and Ben Mendelsohn.

In his director’s statement on the film Gosling mentions being inspired by the time he’s spent in Detroit, a city in desperation having been hit hardest by the recession and with thousands of homes and neighborhoods abandoned. Gosling described the true main character of the film as the city of Lost River itself, saying the city is “the damsel in distress” and the characters are “broken pieces of a dream, trying to put themselves back together.” Gosling may follow in many other lead actors steps jumping behind the camera, but it’s admirable he hasn’t tried to capitalize on his own acting acclaim by casting himself in the film. Warner Brothers has already picked the film up for distribution, so the rest of us will get to see it soon enough, and in the meantime I’ll be keeping an eye on the Un Certain Regard competition. [Ananda]

The Search

Director Michel Hazanavicius made a huge critical splash with his previous film The Artist, a wildly entertaining throwback to the silent black-and-white era, picking up 5 Oscars and 4 Independent Spirit Awards along the way. Hazanavicius returns to the Croisette this year with his latest film called The Search, a two and a half hour film that is adapted from Fred Zinneman’s 1948 film of the same name. Bringing back his wife Bérénice Bejo for the lead role, The Search is about a woman working for a non-governmental organization who forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya. The film will also feature Oscar Nominated actress Annette Bening. All eyes will be on Hazanavicius to see if he can repeat the success he had from his previous efforts. [Dustin]

Two Days, One Night

Two Days, One Night‘s premise is so ingeniously simple it’s a wonder no one’s thought of it yet: A woman has a weekend to convince her co-workers to forego their annual bonuses so that she can keep her job. It’s a fruitful setup with so much drama ripe for the picking I can’t help but be intrigued. Oh, and the brilliant Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardene (The Kid With a Bike, L’enfant) are in the directors’ chairs. And the film stars Marion Cotillard. Oui s’il vous plait! [Bernard]

Leviathan

This was something of a surprise when it was announced by Fremaux, because the state of production was kept very much under wraps on this one. Also, the state of Russian cinema hasn’t exactly been taking international film by storm as much as it was when people like Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Kalatozov were around, so there’s been a lack of attention. Well say hello to Andrey Zvyagintsev, who should be changing all of that. If his short filmography is anything to go by, he’s the one sticking his country’s flag in today’s film world. His latest Elena, about a woman stuck between her lazy son and her stubborn husband, is directed with such finesse and poise, it transports one to a level of sophistication that’s rarely felt these days in cinema. His feature debut, The Return, about two brothers coping with their absent father’s return, is even better; atmospheric and deeply absorbing with brilliant performances and a thematic depth you can dive into headfirst with no fear of ever hitting the bottom. This time he’s coming back to Cannes with Leviathan, a story set around the Barents Sea coast in North Russia about a man’s struggle to keep his small business when the mayor of his town threatens to close it down. Human struggles on the edges of a gorgeous remote location, directed with a Russian artist’s eye for the powerfully subtle and the visually stirring? This is an absolute must, and no amount of festival fatigue will restrain my anticipation when I catch it during the last days of Cannes. [Nik]

Amour Fou

It didn’t matter what exactly Amour Fou was about, because what puts this film on our list is the director. Jessica Hausner has slowly gained traction over the years as a director to look out for, from her debut Lovely Rita to Lourdes, her most recent film. Five years after Lourdes, Hausner returns with a film inspired by the life and death of German poet Heinrich von Kleist. Of course, Hausner isn’t one to make a film as simple as that description, with the official synopsis saying “rather than being a biographical portrait, the film is a parable about the ambivalence of love.” Lovely Rita and Hotel, her extremely underrated horror film, have both played Un Certain Regard, and Amour Fou will play the sidebar as well. Hopefully this year will be the one where Hausner finally gets her due. [CJ]

Foxcatcher

Bennett Miller has pretty much proven he has a knack for bringing true stories to the screen in mesmerizing ways. He seems to prefer to work with the stories that arise from real life and made baseball statistics intriguing in Moneyball, and cold-blooded killers and one off-kilter writer a fascinating look at two sides of humanity in Capote. Now Miller takes on another tragedy, coupled (as life seems to do) with the inspiring story of Olympic wrestling champions Mark and David Schultz played by Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo respectively. The Schultz brothers hold the distinction of having won more NCAA, US Open, World Championship, and Olympic titles than any American brother duo in wrestling history.

Their biggest headline however was in 1996 when Dave was shot and killed by the Schultz’s longtime friend and mentor John E. Du Pont (played by Steve Carrell in what could be an Oscar-worthy performance if he pulls it off), the mentally ill multimillionaire who founded Team Foxcatcher and who owned the facility where the two wrestlers trained. Up for the prestigious Palme d’or, Foxcatcher seems the sort of difficult tale that Bennett Miller is so good at depicting, and its subjects provide for challenging performances that are guaranteed some attention. [Ananda]

Barring any outside chances of more additions (…Roy Andersson, we’re waiting…) from Fremaux and co., this year’s Cannes lineup is complete. We’re playing a little catch up with the news, so you may have already heard, but the two sidebar events – the 53rd Semaine De La Critique or Critic’s Week, and the Quinzaine Des Realisateurs or Director’s Fortnight – have released their selections and reminded the world how much better their names sound in French.

Going in line with their mission to seek out new and emerging talent, Critic’s Week showcases a lot of first- and second-time directors (among them Shosanna herself, Melanie Laurent) so there’s not a lot of room to comment on here. Director Andrea Arnold will be leading the jury this year and choosing one of seven features for the Grand Prize.

International Critic’s Week lineup

Opening Film: Faire : L’amour (FLA) Dir. Djinn Carrénard

In Competition

Darker Than Midnight (Più Buio di Mezzanotte ) Dir. Sebastiano Riso
Gente de bien Dir. Franco Lolli
Hope Dir. Boris Lojkine
It Follows Dir. David Robert Mitchell
Self Made (Boreg) Dir. Shira Geffen
The Tribe (Plemya) Dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
When Animals Dream (Når Dyrene Drømmer) Dir. Jonas Alexander Arnby

Closing Film: Hippocrates (Hippocrate) Dir. Thomas Lilti

Special Screenings

Breathe (Respire) Dir. Mélanie Laurent
The Kindergarten Teacher (Haganenet) Dir. Nadav Lapid

And who better to explain the selections than Mr. Charles Tesson, the Artistic Director, of the Semaine.

Next up is the juicy Director’s Fortnight and, like every year, there’s more than a couple of gems.

Director’s Fortnight lineup

Alleluia Dir. Fabrice Du Welz
At Li Layla (Next To Her) Dir. Asaf Korman
Bande De Filles (Girlhood) Dir. Céline Sciamma (Opening Film)
Catch Me Daddy Dir. Daniel Wolfe
Cold In July Dir. Jim Mickle
Les Combattants (Love At First Fight) Dir. Thomas Cailley
Gett – Le Procès De Viviane Amsalem Dir. Ronit & Shlomi Elkabetz
Kaguya-Hime No Monogatari (Le Conte De La Princesse Kaguya) Dir. Isao Takahata
Kkeut Kka Ji Gan Da (A Hard Day) Dir. Seong-Hun Kim
Mange Tes Morts (Eat Your Bones) Dir. Jean-Charles Hue
National Gallery Dir. Frederick Wiseman
P’tit Quinquin (Li’l Quinquin) Dir.Bruno Dumont
Pride Dir. Matthew Warchus (Closing Film)
Queen And Country Dir. John Boorman
Refugiado Dir. Diego Lerman
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Dir.Tobe Hooper
These Final Hours Dir. Zach Hilditch
Tu Dors Nicole Dir. Stéphane Lafleur
Whiplash Dir. Damien Chazelle

I’ll be sure to add more than a few of these on my schedule. The internet is a-buzz with veteran John Boorman’s latest, the Sundance wonder Whiplash, the 4K restoration of (one of my personal favorite horror films) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the LGBT representer Pride, starring a fantastic set of British actors in Dominic West, Bill Nighy and Andrew Scott. But what of Grave Of The Fireflies director Takahata? Then there’s Bruno Dumont’s new 200-minute miniseries in its entirety P’tit Quinquin, Frederick Wiseman’s follow-up to the brilliant At Berkley, and Céline Sciamma’s second outing since her soaring gender drama Tomboy.

Yes, it seems that my cup will runneth over with all of these magnificent selections. I’ll be furiously blueprinting my festival schedule (with plans B, C, D.. at the ready) once the timeline becomes more conclusive. Until then, I’m still hoping for Fremaux to add Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence. The title alone should make it a shoe-in for the Palme.

Unless you’ve managed to live without the internet since April 16th, the question “How do you feel about the Cannes lineup this year?” must have surfed its way to – or from- you by now. Yes, cinephiles around the world have been slowly digesting Thierry Fremaux’s announcement from April 17th, and Way Too Indie is no exception. As this years man in the field, my excitement is only contained by perpetual bouts of anxiousness as I mentally prepare for the invasion my body and mind will succumb to in three weeks time. 19 films competing for the main prize, 19 films competing in the smaller, edgier, and often times more revelatory Un Certain Regard section, 2 films in the Out Of Competition slot, 3 Midnight Screenings, and 5 Special Screenings (Cannes slang for Documentary.)

That’s 48 movies, and with Fremaux confirming that two or three more will be added in the coming weeks, that’ll make just about 50 or so films in the Official Selection. That’s not even including the Cannes affiliated Director’s Fortnight and Critic’s Week! What I would give to be able to see them all! But that’s not going to be possible, so once every film gets announced, and the schedules are out, I’ll have a better idea of what I’ll be able to catch.

In the meantime, you’d do well to bookmark this page because for the coming weeks this is going to be a PR mecca for everything Cannes related. We will have trailers, images, interview links and anything else we grab our hands on. You’re encouraged to use the comments section and let us know if we’ve missed anything!

IN COMPETITION

Clouds Of Sils Maria

Director Olivier Assayas

Saint Laurent

Director Bertrand Bonello

Winter Sleep

Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Maps To The Stars

Director David Cronenberg

Complex look at Hollywood and what it reveals about Western culture.

Two Days, One Night

Directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

The film follows Sandra, a young woman assisted by her husband, who has only one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job.

Mommy

Director Xavier Dolan

A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.

The Captive

Director Atom Egoyan

A father tries to track down his kidnapped daughter.

Goodbye To Language

Director Jean-Luc Godard

The Search

Director Michel Hazanavicius

A woman who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya.

The Homesman

Director Tommy Lee Jones

A claim jumper and a pioneer woman team up to escort three insane women from Nebraska to Iowa.

Still The Water

Director Naomi Kawase

Mr. Turner

Director Mike Leigh

A look at the life of British artist J.M.W Turner.

Jimmy’s Hall

Director Ken Loach

Political activist Jimmy Gralton is deported from Ireland during the country’s ‘Red Scare’ of the 1930s.

Foxcatcher

Director Bennett Miller

The story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz and how paranoid schizophrenic John duPont killed his brother, Olympic Champion Dave Schultz.

Le Meraviglie

Director Alice Rohrwacher

Timbuktu

Director Abderrahmane Sissako

Wild Tales

Director Damian Szifronr

Leviathan

Director Andrey Zvyagintsev

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Party Girl

Director Marie Amachoukeli

An aging nightclub hostess decides to settle down and get married.

Jauja

Director Lisandro Alonso

A father and daughter journey from Denmark to an unknown desert that exists in a realm beyond the confines of civilization.

poster via IndieWire

Le Chambre Bleue

Director Mathieu Almaric

Incompresa

Director Asia Argento

Titli

Director Kanu Behl

A young man in Delhi tries to break free from his controlling brothers.

Eleanor Rigby

Director Ned Benson

A New York couple’s relationship.

Bird People

Director Pascale Ferran

An American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew.

Lost River

Director Ryan Gosling

A single mother is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town.

Amour Fou

Director Jessica Hausner

Charlie’s Country

Director Rolf De Heer

Snow in Paradise

Director Andrew Hulme

Hard-hitting character study that’s based on the real story of one man’s journey to control his violence through religion. It takes us from the blood soaked East End of London to the world of the Islamic whirling dervishes.

A Girl At My Door

Director July Jung

Xenia

Director Panos Koutras

Strangers in their own birthplace, 16-year-old Danny and 18-year-old Odysseus cross the entire country in search of their Greek father, after their Albanian mother passes away.

Run

Director Philippe Lacote

Run escapes… He just killed the Prime Minister of his country. In order to do so, he had to act as if he was a crazy man, wandering through the city. His life comes back by flashes; his childhood with Tourou when his dream was to become a rain miracle-worker, his adventures with Gladys the eater, and his past as a young member of militia, in the heart of the politic and military conflict in Ivory Coast. All those lives, Run didn’t choose them. Everytime, he felt in by running from another life. That’s the reason why his name’s Run.

Turist

Director Ruben Ostlund

Hermosa Juventud

Director Jaime Rosales

Fantasia

Director Chao Wang

The Salt Of The Earth

Directors Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Away From His Absence

Director Keren Yedaya

The film plans to follow the incestuous relationship between a 60-year-old man and his 22-year-old daughter who live together in a small apartment in Israel. The film will deal with difficult moral and political issues. It faces questions such as how and why an evolving, adult woman is still having sex with her father — a man whom, despite raping her at an early age, she claims to be in love with.

White God

Director Kornel Mundruczo

OUT OF COMPETITION

Grace Of Monaco

Director Olivier Dahan

The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly’s crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco’s Prince Rainier III and France’s Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Director Dean DeBlois

It’s been five years since Hiccup and Toothless successfully united dragons and vikings on the island of Berk. While Astrid, Snotlout and the rest of the gang are challenging each other to dragon races (the island’s new favorite contact sport), the now inseparable pair journey through the skies, charting unmapped territories and exploring new worlds. When one of their adventures leads to the discovery of a secret ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace. Now, Hiccup and Toothless must unite to stand up for what they believe while recognizing that only together do they have the power to change the future of both men and dragons.

Coming Home

Director Zhang Yimou

A Chinese man is forced into marriage and flees to America, but when he returns home, he is sent to a labor camp.

In The Name Of My Daughter

Director André Téchiné

The real life story behind the disappearance of Agnes Les Roux

MIDNIGHTERS

The Rover

Director David Michôd

A loner tracks the gang who stole his car from a desolate town in the Australian outback with the forced assistance of a wounded guy left behind in the wake of the theft.

The Salvation

Director Kristian Levring

In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family’s murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone.

The Target

Director Chang

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Maidan

Director Sergei Loznitsa

A look at the 2013 and 2014 civil unrest in the Ukrainian capital’s central square.

Red Army

Director Gabe Polsky

Following the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, RED ARMY tells the story of the nation’s famed Red Army hockey team through the eyes of its captain Slava Fetisov. Whether he was pitted against enemies in the political arena or on the ice, Fetisov’s story provides a rare glimpse behind the Iron Curtain of the 1970s and ’80s by mirroring the social and political forces at work in the world around him. While helping pave the way for his nation to cross over into the next century, this one man demonstrated how sports could not only be an avenue for creative expression in a world determined to suppress it, but also be something so inextricably intertwined with a nation’s cultural and political identity.

Bridges of Sarajevo

Director Aida Begic, Leonardo di Costanzo & more

The Bridges of Sarajevo is a cinematic contribution to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. The film is a collaboration of well known European directors, who all contribute one short to the feature film.

Cartoonists, Foot Soldiers of Democracy

Director Stéphanie Valloatto

The Ardor

Director Pablo Fendrik

An Argentinian western revenge tale starring juror Gael Garcia Bernal.

Geronimo

Director Tony Gatlif

A story about social conflict between Turks and gypsies as seen through the eyes of a teacher.

The Owners

Director Adlikahn Yerzhanov

Two brothers struggling to hold on to their ancestral home while their sister and mother lose their breath and mind, respectively.

Of Men And War

Director Laurent Becue-Renard

The anticipation was killing us all week but finally it’s here, the official lineup for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Grace Of Monaco (which stars Nicole Kidman) had previously been announced as the opening film of the festival. At first glance, the most notable films that were announced today are The Search from Michel Hazavanicus, his follow-up to The Artist, David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, Ryan Golsing’s directorial debut Lost River, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language. More anticipation will build as more information gets released on the rest of the films.

Those paying attention to the rumors may be disappointed to see P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice didn’t make the lineup. Also absent on the list was Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups (which was also mentioned as a rumor for last year’s festival). Still the lineup is a very impressive start. There will be one or two more out-of-competition films, Critics’ Week lineup, and Directors’ Fortnight lineup announcements coming next week.

This year Nik Grozdanovic will be representing Way Too Indie at Cannes, providing daily reports from the festival. So stay tuned for our coverage!

2014 Cannes Lineup

Opening Film:

Grace Of Monaco (director Olivier Dahan)

Competition:

Goodbye To Language (director Jean-Luc Godard)
The Captive (director Atom Egoyan)
Foxcatcher (director Bennett Miller)
The Homesman (director Tommy Lee Jones)
Jimmy’s Hall (director Ken Loach)
La Meraviglie (director Alice Rohrwacher)
Leviathan (director Andrei Zvyagintsev)
Maps To The Stars (director David Cronenberg)
Mommy (director Xavier Dolan)
Mr. Turner (director Mike Leigh)
Saint Laurent (director Bertrand Bonello)
Sils Maria (director Olivier Assayas)
The Search (director Michel Hazanavicius)
Still The Water (director Naomi Kawase)
Timbuktu (director Abderrahmane Sissako)
Two Days, One Night (directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Wild Tales (director Damian Szifron)
Winter Sleep (director Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Out Of Competition:

Coming Home (director Zhang Yimou)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (director Dean DeBlois)

Un Certain Regard:

Party Girl (directors Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis)
Amour fou (director Jessica Hausner)
Bird People (director Pascale Ferran)
The Blue Room (director Mathieu Amalric)
Charlie’s Country (director Rolf de Heer)
Dohee-ya (director July Jung)
Eleanor Rigby (director Ned Benson)
Fantasia (director Wang Chao)
Harcheck mi headro (director Keren Yedaya)
Hermosa juventud (director Jaime Rosales)
Incompresa (director Asia Argento)
Jauja (director Lisandro Alonso)
Lost River (director Ryan Gosling)
Run (director Philippe Lacote)
The Salt of the Earth (directors Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado)
Snow in Paradise (director Andrew Hulme)
Titli (director Kanu Behl)
Tourist (director Ruben Ostlund)
Xenia (director Panos Koutras)

Midnight Screenings:

The Rover (director David Michod)
The Salvation (director Kristian Levring)
The Target (director Yoon Hong-seung)

Special Screenings:

The Bridges of Sarajevo (various directors)
Eau argentee (director Mohammed Ossama)
Maidan (director Sergei Loznitsa)
Red Army (director Polsky Gabe)
Caricaturistes – Fantassins de la democratie (director Stephanie Valloatto)

The official poster of the 67th Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled. The suave looking man in the dark shades in the photograph is Marcello Mastroianni from Federico Fellini’s film 8 ½, which played at the festival back in 1963. Stay tuned as the official lineup for Cannes 2014 will be released on Thursday. This year Nik Grozdanovic will be attending the festival to represent Way Too Indie.

Cannes 2014 Official Poster

Zulu, the film that closed the Cannes Film Festival this year, now has its first (NSFW) trailer. The movie stars Forest Whitaker and Orlando Bloom in an intense crime thriller set in South Africa in the aftermath of Apartheid. Director Jérôme Salle (Anthony Zimmer, Largo Winch) makes his English language debut in a somewhat familiar genre; high speed nail-biters certainly aren’t foreign to him, even if the language is. He also adapted the script himself (another exercise he is familiar with) from a Carol Férey novel of the same name.

The movie follows Whitaker and Bloom playing homicide detectives on a case in Cape Town which leads them on a brutal, winding investigation of deadly drugs, nefarious science experimentation, and the remnants of a race war. Judging from this preview, there will be action and twists in large supply.

Acclaimed film composer Alexandre Desplat handles the score. After his work on, among other well-received productions, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, I am excited to see what he does with this.

This Pathé, M6 Films, and Lobster Film joint production has yet to receive an American release date, but check out the trailer below (again, not at the office) and keep an eye out.

Watch the trailer for Zulu:

We spoke to Ahna O’Reilly (The Help) who plays Katie, a girl who meets Oscar by chance, shares a pleasant interaction with him, and later becomes a witness to the horrific shooting in a tiny roundtable interview the day after the film premiered in Oakland. She talked to us about her friendship with The Help and Fruitvale Station costar Octavia Spencer, her first time watching the film with an audience, shooting at the titular train station, and more. Check out the edited transcript below.

Read More Fruitvale Station Interviews:

Ryan Coogler
Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer
Melonie Diaz

How was the premiere?
It was wonderful. I felt more excited for this premiere in Oakland than any one we’ve had.

How familiar were you with the story of Oscar Grant?
Embarrassingly, not enough. I lived in LA at the time it happened, but my parents still lived here. I remember talking about it with them vaguely. One of the things that is most crazy and upsetting about this is that I didn’t have one conversation with people about it in LA. Most people that see this movie, this is the first they’re going to hear of it. One of the main differences between the premiere last night (in Oakland) and the other premieres we’ve had—at Sundance, at Cannes—is that most of those people had no idea who Oscar Grant was. When I’m talking to people about this movie, it’s rarer that they know who Oscar Grant is. That is tragic.

You don’t work with her on the film, but talk about your friendship with Octavia and how she got you involved with the film.
Octavia and I worked together on The Help, but we actually worked together before that. She and I have been friends for years. She’s one of my best friends. I was working on a film in Savannah, Georgia at the time they were shooting Fruitvale Station. She called me and she said, “Can you come be a part of this movie? We need someone to play this part. Please please please?” I was like, “I would do anything for you!” I read the script and I thought, she’s giving me such a huge gift. She’s acting like I’m doing her this huge favor, but she’s just given me such a gift. Being from the Bay Area, to be a part of telling this story, to be working with such an incredible group of artists—it doesn’t get any better.

Is your character is based on anyone?
Ryan told me that [my character] was a combination of a lot of different people. Because it was a combination of people, I didn’t feel I had to base my character on someone 100 percent real. There wasn’t someone I had to go interview. Because this movie came to me so last minute, I was kind of thrown into it. I watched the Youtube footage, I read up on it, but I was kind of thrown into it, which was perfect, because that’s what it was on the train—everyone was just thrown into that dramatic and heart-wrenching and horrible situation. It worked for me to just show up. The grocery store scene is just someone talking to me out of the blue. I actually had no real preparation to do other than I wanted to do my research on Oscar Grant.

Your scene with Oscar in the grocery store goes a long way in showing what kind of a guy Oscar was.
I think the scene is so lovely in that we see Oscar being a great dad, we see him in this moment with this dog, and then we see him having a total random act of kindness with a stranger, and that is such a beautiful trait in him to just want to lend a hand to a community member. Ryan was talking last night about how a lot of what this movie is about is community. I love that little random act of kindness. I think we’re increasingly closed off to the people around us—we’re always on our phone, we’re not looking up and taking people in. That’s what I’m doing in the scene. I’m totally ignoring him, kind of hoping he’s not going to keep talking to me. That’s how I often feel in life, and I have a sense of shame about it. Why didn’t I just say hello to the person helping me out? Why didn’t I just ask them how their day was going? Those little things matter so much. It shows a beautiful side of [Oscar.]

How was it was it watching the movie for the first time with an audience at Sundance?
[It was] incredible. You could hear a pin drop towards the end of the movie. All you heard was people being emotional. [It] didn’t matter—age, sex, race—everyone was shocked. I was a mess. I was sitting next to Michael, gripping him. I knew [the film] would be powerful, but what Ryan did with it really bowled me over. When you have a film going to Sundance, the fact that the film is going to Sundance is exciting, so I was already like, “This is great! We’re here! We made it!” I had no idea [the film] would have the life that it has. I think everyone’s pinching themselves, and it couldn’t happen to a greater group of people who are in this for the purest of reasons—to tell honest, socially relevant stories.

How was it working with Ryan Coogler?
The first scene I shot was the grocery scene, and it was a night shoot. I remember being in [the store] and seeing how he was interacting and talking with everybody and thinking I would literally serve coffee to people on set on his next movie. I want to be around him. He has such a quiet, powerful presence. I think one of the greatest qualities a director can have is finding the balance between being collaborative and wanting to hear everybody’s ideas, but also having a very clear vision. He totally embodied that.

(On the film’s script)
I think it’s brilliant that he started the movie with the real footage. Even if you’ve never heard of Oscar Grant, you know how it ends. The fact that he keeps us glued to the screen, knowing how it’s going to end—that’s an incredible accomplishment.

What was it like filming at Fruitvale Station?
That was one of the most powerful days of work I will probably ever have. On any day of work, you get there and it’s a little chaotic. Who’s going to hair and makeup? Who’s doing what? People are being rushed to where they need to go. Then, we all got [to Fruitvale Station] and it’s like, oh yeah, we’re here. We can see the bullet hole. Ryan took a moment of silence and a prayer circle. It was very, very powerful. Then, you have to get going because you have only until sunlight to make it happen. You’re dealing with a moving train. Those are technically difficult things to have to shoot. It was wild on many levels.

Not all of the train stuff was shot on the same day. The interior train stuff we did down at the Bart repair station. When we were on the Fruitvale Station platform it was a separate shoot.

Why is this film, about such a specific Bay Area community, able to touch people across the world?
I personally wondered how many Europeans watching [the film would know] what Oakland, California is. They know San Francisco, but will they know Oakland? It’s a really American story about a very specific place in our country. You wonder how it will translate [and if] the humor will resonate with them. When [the screening] was over, it got a 10 minute standing ovation. That was incredible. For this [tiny movie]—in terms of budget and scale—[to touch] people from around the world…I’m speechless thinking about it. It’s a universal story. Ryan is asking us, the audience, to think about how we treat each other as human beings. [Can we] erase our ideas about what you are because you’re black or you’re from Oakland or you’re 22 or you were in prison? Can we try to push all that aside and try to look at the heart of this person? People from anywhere should be able to think about that. I think that’s why it succeeds.

The French know about the American South. That’s something people have ideas about. They know about New York, Boston. Oakland? I doubt [it.]

Fruitvale Station opens in theaters this Friday.

In the spirit of the Cannes Film Festival having recently announced this year’s winners, the staff here at Way Too Indie have decided to compile our favorite films that have previously won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. In order to give ourselves the most freedom, we voted on films that have won any award at the festival, instead of just ones that have won the top prize of the Palme d’Or. Not only are these films our favorite Cannes winners, but these are films that all film lovers should make an effort to watch.

Top 10 Cannes Winners

#10 – Dogtooth

Dogtooth is nothing if not original. In 2009, the film was the winner of the Un Certain Regard category, a selection of film at Cannes that tend to be of the “edgier” fare, though surprisingly it did go on to earn a Best Foreign Language nomination at the Oscars. The film is about a brother and two sisters that are completely fenced in from the outside world by their over-protective parents. The parents instill fear into their children by telling them the cat they sometimes see in the backyard is a vicious creature that they should stay away from. Pairing well with the unique story is the brilliant camera work that carefully keeps everything in the center of the frame. This fixed camera technique means that you are only allowed to see what is inside the frame, detaining the viewer similar to how the high-wall fence around the house detains the children. Dogtooth is a wonderfully disturbing satire on censorship. [Dustin]

Dogtooth movie review

#9 – Taste of Cherry

Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most unique and poetic directors in film today, and Taste of Cherry is as good an example of his vision as any. Mr. Badii, middle-aged man, scours Tehran looking for someone who will aid him in killing himself. He is willing to offer quite a sum of cash to any who will help, but to his surprise, no one is willing to carry that weight. Badii’s potential accomplices try desperately to talk him down from the ledge, but he’s a stubborn one. Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997, Kiarostami’s life-affirming masterpiece is one of the great indie treasures of the ‘90s. [Bernard]

#8 – Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola’s film is one of the best ever made about man’s decent into hell. Taking place during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with exterminating (with extreme prejudice) a Colonel (Marlon Brando) who has lost his mind. Traveling up the Nung River on a boat into Combodia, Willard is joined by a small group of soldiers who all seem to be at their breaking point. Coppola fills his film with exciting, visceral images that will haunt you long after the film finishes. Sure some of it is extreme, in one scene has an ox hacked to death with a machete in another Willard’s boat passes a slew of decapitated human heads on large sticks, but certainly you cannot deny how powerful the film is. Dennis Hopper, Robert “I love the smell of Napalm in the Morning” Duvall, Harrison Ford and Laurence Fishburne populate this frightening film. While the film is definitely hard to watch at times, it is one that is not to be missed. Coppola’s vision of the Vietnam War is the best that cinema has ever produced; unrelenting, disgusting, nightmarish, deplorable, fascinating all at the same time. [Blake]

#7 – The Piano

Told with a sweeping paintbrush of emotion, Jane Campion’s 1993 Palme d’Or winner, is a haunting film. Mute Ada arrives from Scotland on the shores of 19th century New Zealand to enter into an arranged marriage. With only her daughter Flora to interpret her sign language, Ada prefers to communicate by playing her piano. So when her husband-to-be decides the piano isn’t worth the trip through the swamps to their home, she’s understandably upset. Their neighbor Baines retrieves the piano and bargains with Ada to earn it back by teaching him to play; lessons that quickly turn into something more. Holly Hunter truly earned her Oscar that year, making each stroke of the piano keys more sincerely intense than any line uttered (for only her “mind’s voice” is heard in narration), and for fogging glasses with a sexually charged romance with a blue-tattooed Harvey Keitel. Anna Paquin made history as the second youngest actress to win an Oscar for her role as Flora, the contrarily verbose and imaginative daughter to silent Ada. Resonating with imagery, one almost feels damp as the characters traipse through New Zealand’s unsettled land. And accompanied by a flawless score written by Michael Nyman, a librettist who understands how to allow a piano to do most the speaking, The Piano is evocative and unforgettable. [Ananda]

#6 – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

As he prepares to die from kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee goes to the countryside with his family to live out his final days. Ghosts, monkey creatures and princesses are only a few of the oddities that pop up throughout Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s masterpiece, a film about moving on to the afterlife that feels like it exists between our world and the next. Despite its bizarre content and free-flowing narrative, including a 15 minute detour involving sex with a catfish, the film walked away with the Palme D’Or in 2010. It was one of the few years at Cannes where the Palme was given to the most deserving film in competition. [CJ]

#5 – The Seventh Seal

Still (for my money) the best example of cinema at its most lyrical and literary, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is one of cinema’s most essential works. When it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1957, it alerted the entire film community of the genius of Bergman and the silver-screen titan that is Max Von Sydow. Set in an exquisitely realized middle ages, a knight on the way home from the crusades engages in a high-stakes chess game with death himself (one of cinema’s most enduring images) as he treks a plague-ridden countryside with his partner, the squire. Bergman used The Seventh Seal, like many of his other films, as a way to visually articulate his inner-struggle with mortality and God’s muteness. Says the knight, “I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me. I cry out to him in the dark, but there is no one there.” [Bernard]

#4 – The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life took home the coveted Palme d’Or in 2011 for his visual masterpiece of a film. Despite winning over many critics and picking up Oscar nominations, the film had a difficult time winning over the general audience and has the box office numbers to prove it. But Malick is one of those directors who is in the rare position to not depend on commercial success, which allows him to make such daring and experimental films such as this. The Tree Of Life is a mesmerizing cinematic experience that contains some of the most visually stunning scenes you will ever see in film. It is too bad its theatrical run was cut short, this is a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen. [Dustin]

The Tree Of Life movie review

#3 – Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver was amid the first few films that kick started De Niro’s career, and one that won the Palme d’Or award in 1976. Argued to be one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert, it holds great cultural and historical significance to American history in regards to the post-Vietnam era. De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle is a war veteran who received honourable discharge from the U.S Marines. He is an extremely lonely and depressive man whose chronic insomnia allows him to take a job as a taxi driver. Travis soon finds himself being overwhelmed and angered by the street crime and prostitution he is witnessing on a daily basis and turns this built up frustration into training his body and his mind into a man capable of doing anything. Taxi Driver is a great classic that has imprinted profoundly within film history and definitely worth a watch. [Amy]

#2 – Pulp Fiction

Resevoir Dogs was a hit for Quentin Tarantino in 1992, but it wasn’t utnil 2 years later when he premiered his highly influential game changing masterpiece Pulp Fiction to the world. The film shot Tarantino into the stratosphere of filmdom’s elite and to countless year-end awards. Pulp Fiction tells three tales of blood, mayhem and hilarity. Two hit men, their boss’ wife, the prize fighter they hunt and a special briefcase that is an enigma unto itself. Tarantino and screenwriting partner Roger Avery expertly weave these three stories from back to front to middle to the back again. Tarantino’s dialogue glides off the actor’s tongues like an ice cube in the heat. A career best performance from John Travolta leads the numerous supporting turns from Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Eric Stolz, Frank Whaley, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames and Christopher Walken in a single scene stealing cameo. This is one of the most invigorating film going experiences that cinema has to offer; one that only becomes richer and richer the more it’s viewed. [Blake]

#1 – Oldboy

It is unbelievably difficult to summarize this film in just a few short sentences, seeing as the storyline is so complex and vastly different to anything you may be expecting. Oldboy focuses on the painfully playful torment and torture of Dae-su Oh who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years without any known reason. His mission, once released, is to find his captor and confront him. As Western popular film audiences have only been introduced to Asian cinema through the horror genre, Oldboy is an excellent example of modern East Asian cinema. Oldboy was a phenomenal stylistic achievement and along with the soundtrack and intense original storyline makes it essential viewing to any film fan. [Amy]

Being that Steven Spielberg was the president of the Jury for the 66th Cannes Film Festival everyone who I talked to seemed to think that the Palme d’Or would be given to an American film, with Inside Llewyn Davis having the best chances to win. There was certainly a solid American presence at this year’s festival, but I anticipated Spielberg to pick elsewhere (at the very least to prove he is not biased just towards American films). The Palme d’Or ended up going to a French film called Blue is the Warmest Color, which earned fantastic marks from most critics. Sadly, it was a film that I missed while I was there but obviously plan to watch at my earliest opportunity.

See the full list of nominations.

The entire list of 2013 Cannes Film Festival Award Winners:

Blue Is the Warmest Color, (director Abdellatif Kechiche)

Inside Llewyn Davis, (directors Ethan Coen & Joel Coen)

Amat Escalante, Heli

Jia Zhangke, A Touch Of Sin

Ilo Ilo, (director Anthony Chen)

Like Father, Like Son, (director Hirokazu Koreeda)

Berenice Bejo, The Past

Bruce Dern, Nebraska

The Missing Picture, (director Rithy Panh)

Omar, (director Hany Abu-Assad)

Alain Guiraudie, Stranger By The Lake

The Ensemble cast of La Jaula De Oro

Fruitvale Station, (director Ryan Coogler)

Blue Is The Warmest Color, (director Abdellatif Kechiche)

Manuscripts Don’t Burn, (director Mohammad Rasoulof)

Blue Ruin, (director Hirokazu Koreeda)

The Past, (director Asghar Farhadi)

Like Father, Like Son, (director Mohammad Rasoulof)
Miele, (director Valeria Golino)

Here is a quick numbers breakdown of my 2013 Cannes Film Festival coverage. I spent about 8 full days (I had two half days that I am counting as one) watching a total of 17 films (not counting the one I walked out on). So I managed to see just over two films on average a day with an average rating of 6.8 that I gave out. All in all, I saw a lot of daring films, many of which were hard to watch, but all were crafted among the best talent in cinema today. So while my ratings may seem a little on the low side, it was only because it felt appropriate to critique them on the upmost of scales considering the extraordinary stage they were presented on.

NOTE: Here is a few films that I did not get a chance to see either because of schedule conflicts or general availability of the release in the US after the festival. Some of the the following could have changed the list; Inside Llewyn Davis, Blue Is The Warmest Color, Fruitvale Station, Behind the Candelabra, The Immigrant, The Missing Picture.

My Top 10 Films from Cannes 2013:

#10 – Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Affleck dominates the screen when he appears and makes a good case for one of his better roles as an actor. The sun-filled landscapes of Texas provides great cinematography.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints review

#9 – The Dance of Reality

Although The Dance of Reality is a bit disorganized, the film was extremely playful and entertaining. Feels more like a theatrical play than a film.
The Dance of Reality review

#8 – Nothing Bad Can Happen

Do not be fooled by the title, enough bad and painful things happen in this film, and they will stick with you long after the film is over. Emotions are definitely evoked.
Nothing Bad Can Happen review

#7 – The Congress

Of all the films at this years Cannes Film Festival The Congress may be have the strongest and ambitious plot. The biggest downfall might be that it tried to achieve too much, a shame because it had potential to be much higher on this list.
The Congress review

#6 – As I Lay Dying

This film has to earn the most uniquely shot films of the festival. Several parts of the film are shot in split screen to show perspective and reactions of multiple characters at once. And it did it without it feeling too gimmicky!
As I Lay Dying review

#5 – Borgman

Borgman was this year’s Holy Motors or Dogtooth for Cannes, a film that cranks the bizarre factor to the max. Films that are unlike any others typically sit well with me.
Borgman review

#4 – Nebraska

There is not a whole lot that goes on in Nebraska, similar to the small towns that are featured in it, but this is a road trip/family bonding film that is extremely heartwarming and entertaining.
Nebraska review

#3 – Sarah Prefers To Run

Sarah Prefers To Run wonderfully allows the audience to make their own guesses on what results in the film because of how subtle the film handles much of what is shown. The film contains a great message of controlling your own destiny.
Sarah Prefers To Run review

#2 – The Great Beauty

The Great Beauty takes a few jabs at the current snapshot of Italian culture and does so by showcasing hilarious satire with magnificent cinematography. It ends up being a love letter to Rome, or at least the great beauty of it.
The Great Beauty review

#1 – Like Father Like Son

Like Father Like Son shows its cards nearly right away but it remains intriguing long after you think it has played its hand. It takes a rather simplistic plot and turns it into something of a complex story that explores every angle.
Like Father Like Son review

Cannes rules to live by or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Cannes Film Festival

Learn to live and thrive on coffee; but ask for it American style unless you take actually handle the strong bitterness of espresso. Trains are an unreliable means of transportation; they are often late or sometimes may not even show up at all. Also, they do not run all night, during the week it may only be as late as ten. Most people come for the films, some just for the parties, but all for the experience. Contrary to popular believe, French hospitality is quite welcoming and patient of English speaking people; or at least they are around the festival. The crowd will clap at nearly every opportunity they can; distributor credits, closing credits, and especially the short Official Festival de Cannes video that plays before each film. Bring an umbrella because it will rain. If you forgot one, the men who were selling sun glasses on the streets will convert their business into selling umbrellas. You will find them. During the festival, Cannes is filled with the most beautiful women and handsome men in the world. No matter what color of badge you have, the morning press screenings are generally not hard to get into because the Grand Théâtre Lumière holds a couple thousand people. But the real reason may be that most are sleeping off a night of drinking and cannot drag themselves out of bed to stand in line at 7:30 in the morning. While we are at it, call the line a queue. There will be at least three walk-outs in every film. The dress apparel for press is not formal, unless you somehow get an invitation to a red carpet premiere. Wear comfortable shoes but do no flip flops! Get good at eating most of your meals on the go. Showing up at least an hour early gets you better chances of getting a seat. Talent from the film will sit in the middle aisle in a section that is usually reserved, so pick seats accordingly if you care to see and greet them. Bring a bag for water, energy bars, umbrella, and a cardigan. Outside the Palais the coffee is relatively expensive considering a badge gets you inside where it is free (sometimes even beer is an option). It is fun to explore the Palais but the men in suits that guard each hallway and entrance will determine just how far you will go (hint, it is not that far). But above all, do not forget to stop and take in the truly amazing atmosphere Cannes has to offer. Bon festival.

Cannes video intro: red carpet steps from the ocean leading up to the stars

Official Cannes logo surrounded by stars

Nothing Bad Can Happen

The opening shot of Nothing Bad Can Happen is of a young blonde teenager named Tore being “baptized” in an ocean by a local Christian activist group called the Jesus Freaks. The goal of this group of misfits is to preach the word of Jesus to people who may not like going to traditional churches. In a parking lot one day the car next theirs will not start. They offer to help by forming a prayer circle around the car and ask for Jesus’s help. Sure enough, the blessing worked and the car started right up.

Tore ends up befriending the man whose car he helped get to start and eventually moves in with the family to help with their garden. But it does not take long before things start to get hectic. Abuse, rape, and food deprivation are all on the menu here, and it is a full three meal course. But when the Jesus Freaks decide to relocation their chapter to another city, he is left with no friends (and presumably no family), thus he feels like he has no other option to stay. Besides, Tore believes this is ultimately a test of his strength from Jesus.

But the real test will be the audience’s patience for the character. By the end it becomes quite frustrating just how long Tore sticks around that dangerous house, to the point where you will likely find yourself yelling at the screen for the character to run away. Nothing Bad Can Happen is based on true events, which is perhaps why it chose not make Tore physically forced to be there. With the obvious option of leaving the house so easily available to him, it is hard to feel complete sympathy, test of strength be damned. The images you see are very powerful, hard to watch, and still stick with you for a while. Emotions will definitely be evoked, but they will not be pleasant ones. Do not be fooled by the title, a lot of bad can happen with this family.

RATING: 6.9

Nebraska

There is not a whole lot that goes on in Nebraska, similar to the small towns that are featured in it, but this is a road trip/family bonding film that is extremely entertaining. Nebraska is not perfect, but it may end up being the year’s best road trip film. Payne keeps the camera rolling a bit too long in the final scenes, resulting in an ending that should have been shortened by about five minutes or so. Nonetheless, Nebraska is finally a Payne film that I can confidently stand behind.

RATING: 7.8

Read my full review of Nebraska

Only Lovers Left Alive

Perhaps the reasoning for not having a morning press screening of Jim Jarmusch’s new film here at the Cannes Film Festial is an obvious one, Only Lovers Left Alive is a midnight film and should not be seen during the day. Considering this film is about vampires, darkness is the overall theme of the film. In fact, there is not even a single shot of the film that shows daylight. Only Lovers Left Alive has fun with itself and the genre by modernizing to present day; where vampires too can have iPhones and YouTube.

The biggest problem for me about the film is how redundant it gets after the first hour. The very beginning starts off with a record spinning shot that is layered over top of a shot the main characters (Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton). This exact same layered record spinning effect is done about two or three more times after the opening. It also reiterates the punch line of the vampires being centuries old so many times that is becomes too repetitive to be funny. I also found the characters spending a great deal of time drooling over vintage guitars and other musical instruments. Yes, I may be nitpicking a little bit and yes, there are some good parts about the film too. But for me, the bad significantly outweighed the good in Only Lovers Left Alive.

RATING: 5.7

This morning’s press screening of J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost marks my second and final screening in the famous Grand Théâtre Lumière. The theater features one of the world’s best projection screens and produces without a doubt the best sound I have ever heard come from a theater. Grand Théâtre Lumière can literally hold a couple thousand (approximately 2,300) and yet there is not a single bad seat in the house. Adding to the prestige of it all is walking up the famous set red carpet stairs to approach this astounding theater.

Grand Théâtre Lumière

Red Carpet at Cannes

All Is Lost

The very opening scene of All Is Lost contains all of the dialog found in this hour and a half story of survival of a man lost at sea. We hear him recounting a farewell letter that he just penned where he admits his faults and states just how sorry he is, though we cannot relate. All Is Lost then jumps eight days back to show the struggles he had to endure from the wrath of mother nature.

Director J.C. Chandor does not provide many background details in the film, which is a brave move just as much as it is a burden. Questions such as who this man is or how he got in this situation are left completely unanswered. We have no idea what his faults are or why he is so apologetic in his letter. As far as the film is concerned, the only important thing is the impending doom that lies ahead for the unnamed character (played by Robert Redford). A storm is brewing on the horizon and his boat has already taken some damage, letting water in. Furthermore, his water pumps no longer function on their own anymore nor does his radio that would allow him to call for help.

You must credit Chandor on making these storms come to life with realistic visuals that combine with haunting sounds of massive storms found in the middle of the ocean. Although most of All Is Lost is about surviving days worth of storms, something that does eventually grew tiresome by the end, the best shots are when the camera is underwater showing the abundant sea life that surrounds him from below. The film offers very little hope, but with a title such as All Is Lost, I expected that to be the case. The biggest flaw for me is that no details are given about his life or what he has to live for, therefore, I found myself not caring as much as I could have about the character. Also, I will not go into too much detail about the ending other than to say it is a disservice to the rest of the film.

RATING: 6

The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino’s latest film La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) is essentially a day in the life of a wealthy journalist named Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), who on his 65th birthday begins to reflect on his life. He openly admits that his life adds up to nothing, despite being surrounded by an extravagant lifestyle of rich and fame. There is a chance that he has simply grown tired of the playboy lifestyle that he has been accustomed to his whole life. Jep is a man who lives without a care in the world, yet desperately wants to care about something again.

The somewhat lengthy runtime allows Sorrentino to explore many tangents in The Great Beauty, some of which probably could have been shortened. One particularly interesting one is a satirical take on performance art when a nude woman runs head first into a Roman monument in front of a cheering crowd. Afterwards, she is pressed on what makes her an artist but she breaks down without an answer, humiliating herself as a self-proclaimed artist. The Great Beauty takes a few jabs at the current snapshot of Italian culture as one character claims, “The best people here are tourists.” Ultimately, Jep is looking for the great beauty; Sorrentino seems to have found it.

RATING: 8.3

Making difficult decisions simply goes hand-in-hand with film festivals, and Cannes is certainly no exception. Deciding upon which film to see when inevitably two play at the same time is just the start. Because there are approximately 4,500 press in attendance, most films require you to wait in line for about an hour a before the film is scheduled to begin. And that still does not guarantee access, especially for films that are in high demand. The real difficult decisions come when you must decide upon waiting in line to better your chances for a spot, or to eat a proper meal. However, in Cannes there is one simple rule that everyone abides by; films always receive the highest of priorities.

Yachts that surround Cannes

Sarah Prefers To Run

As you probably guessed, Sarah Prefers To Run is about a 20-year-old woman who cares little about anything other than running. Her talent in the sport lands her an opportunity to be a part of a university program in Montreal. The only problem is that Sarah does not have much money saved up to cover the costs of moving and living expenses for there. In addition, she has no support from her mother because of a not so great relationship between the two. Her mother has told her before that running will not put money on the table for her in the future, but there is a hint of something else causing their riff.

But Sarah is unwilling to let money issues prevent her from achieving her dreams as a runner. So she visits her friend Antoine, I’ll give you one guess how she got there, to ask if he will be a roommate of hers. He agrees and the two share an apartment together in Montreal. Because Sarah has no time for a job with school and running taking up most of her time, she is not even able to half of the rent. So Antoine comes up with an idea that only a twenty-year-old would think is a good solution; to get married so they can collect money from the government. At first Sarah is very reluctant about Antoine’s plan as she only sees him as a friend not a lover. But with no other options in sight, she agrees on the notion it is purely for financial reasons. The shot of her agreeing with the arrangement is shown as a blurry reflection from a window that perfectly fits the decision at hand.

Sarah’s shyness, haste for the government, and estranged relationship with her mother may all stem from a detail that the director Chloé Robichaud only faintly chooses to expose, much like the personality of the main character herself. At one point her character is asked if she believes in destiny to which she replies, “No.” Perhaps Sarah prefers to make her own destiny by controlling the things that she can. One thing is for sure, Sarah does prefer to run.

RATING: 8.1

The Bastards

Claire Denis’ latest film The Bastards serves up a heavy dose of drama in the form of sexual exploitation that at times is gruesome enough to make you cringe. You will certainly never look at corn on the cob in the same way. Denis hits all the right notes from a technical standpoint; fantastic camera work, solid cast, and a good old-fashion revenge story. But despite all of that, in the end The Bastards does not fulfill. The largest offender for the unsatisfying results is a story structure that is far more complicated than it really needs to be. There is no happy ending when all the characters are bastards.

One of the better sequences found in the film is at the very beginning when jump-cut footage of a woman wearing nothing but high heels walks down the street in complete shock. Police lights fill the streets of Paris at night at the site of an apparent suicide. It is not until much later that the film reveals who it was. The woman has obvious signs of abuse which results in the family to investigate and seek revenge on everyone involved.

RATING: 6.4

We Are What We Are

The much buzzed about film from Sundance named We Are What We Are played tonight here in Cannes as part of the Directors Fortnight section. This is a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film that shares the same name about a creepy family who maintains disturbing family traditions. Preparation of one such tradition requires the family to fast for a few days leading up to this event. The youngest family member is starving and his two older sisters remind him that no food can be consumed. And they take this very seriously.People from the town they live in seem to be disappearing – which also might have something to do with the tradition.

We Are What We Are paces itself all the way until the very end, but even the climax is muted. The little amount of suspense that the film does generate eventually dissolves and is unrewarding. Almost all of the characters are dumber than they should be, examples; a doctor ends up committing one of horrors most offending rules, a young cop who is completely unconvincing, and one of the sisters that wants to make an escape but never tries very hard to do so. In the screening I attended, the film received more laughs than thrills and the only gasps were because of some of the gore that was shown on screen. Maybe that was what the film was going for, but even if that is the case it still did not satisfy.

RATING: 5.5

My third day at the Cannes Film Festival brought both my favorite and least favorite films of the festival so far. After hearing some positive buzz around the Japanese film, Soshite chichi ni naru (Like Father, Like Son), I decided to give the film a chance. And I am glad that I did. It was the first film that I have seen here that was able to take a simple narrative and make it into something complex and organized. It is definitely going to be hard to top Like Father, Like Son. Then I headed over to the Miramar theater to catch my first International Critics’ Week film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The film was picked up by IFC Films right after it won a couple awards after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints‘s director David Lowery came on stage alongside the leads Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, to introduce his film to a packed theater for its first foreign screening of the film. My third and final film of the day ended up being the biggest bust at Cannes so far for me. I stood in line for nearly 1 and a half hours for the French film, Tip Top, only to realize that I apparently do not get French “humor”. Reactions from a primarily French audience received a lot of laughs, just none from me and a few others that were not able to make it all the way through the film.

Outside of the Miramar Theater in Cannes for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Like Father, Like Son

Like Father, Like Son gracefully touches on social class issues, nature versus nurture, and the “right” way to raise a child. After finding out that their six-year-old child got switched at birth, the main focus of the film is the decision to choose bloodlines or the six important years of parenting and bonding with a child, Like Father, Like Son continuously develops its story. The film shows its cards almost right away but it remains intriguing long after you think it has played its hand. As a whole, the film is an excellent display of storytelling as it takes a rather basic premise and turns it into the emotionally complex film that it is.

RATING: 8.9

Read my full review of Like Father, Like Son

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is set in the sun-filled landscapes of Texas where Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and his recently pregnant wife Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) are on the run from cops after a string of robberies. Only a few scenes into the film, the shootout between them and the police ends with Bob being hauled off to prison where he is sentenced to stay for the next 25 years. However, Bob would only stay there four years before busting out in order get back to his family. This sends a local sheriff Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster) on the case to track him down. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints ends up being more about the love between Bob and Ruth than it is about the action, which makes for some pacing issues.

However, biggest fault of the film is not investing enough into the one thing that is chose to focus on; the relationship between the couple. Because of this, Bob’s fate feels inevitably doomed but I found myself not caring if he ever makes it back to his wife or daughter. Affleck does dominate the screen when he appears and makes a good case for one of his better roles as an actor, which makes it all the more sad that his character is underwritten. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints takes a risk by starting the film with one of it’s only action-packed scenes instead of spending a little more time setting up its characters. By the end, the film loses too much of its initial steam that results for an unsatisfying ending.

RATING: 6.7

There cannot be much to complain about when your travels go relatively to plan, but that does not mean that the first day of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival was not a long and hectic day for me. Having less than an hour between both of my flights, one of which included customs, I arrived just as the boarding was about to end for both of my connecting flights. But when I arrived I was greeted with “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey’s that played on my bus ride from the Nice airport into the city where I will call home for the next 10 days, Juan les Pins. I knew that only getting 3 or so hours of sleep was going make the first day challenging and exhausting, and it proved to be so.

Juan les Pins beach

Because I only had time for one film on the first day I decided to give Ari Folman’s buzzed about film, The Congress, a look. The Congress is a part of the Director’s Fortnight program, a sidebar event that is held in tandem with the actual Cannes Film Festival. The screenings for these films are not at the famous Palais des Festival, but are instead held in other theaters spread across the city. I took a few wrong turns but eventually found Studio 13, a theater that is tucked into the residential section of the city. Waiting outside the theater for it to open its doors, I found a few people that spoke fluent English. Turned out that they are all writers from different publications in New York. The screening went mostly fine, apart from an awkward minute or two when the lights suddenly turned on about half way through the film. Afterwards, I made a mad dash to try catching one of the last trains back to Juan les Pins. Because there was a train that was running late, plus the fact that the station announcements are in French only, I nearly got on the wrong train about three different times. I did eventually find the right train back and it felt amazing to finally be done with the day that felt close to two days because of the time change.

In front of Studio 13 at MJC Picaud

The Congress

The Congress seems to be an obvious satire on movie studios, but the film continues to explore other plotlines along the way that makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what message the film was trying to get across. The truth is, there are many ideas expressed in the film and that might be its biggest downfall. There are laugh-out-loud moments when the film is making fun of movie studios. There are some fascinating insights on the future of cinema. There is even some good old family drama and love interests in the film. The problem is some areas work much better than others. One thing is for sure, it is a wildly ambitious film – perhaps it was trying to achieve just a little too much though.

Read my full review of The Congress

It is a great honor to be able to cover the Cannes Film Festival this year as the prestigious festival turns 66-years-old. I am also very excited as it will be my first visit to Europe, although the majority of my time there will be spent inside a dark theater watching films. However, these are not just any ordinary films. The films shown at Cannes are carefully selected by well-respected festival programmers and the majority of the films that play will be the first time that any audience gets a chance to see them. These films are the type that will likely end up on many future “Top 10 Films of 2013” list of film critics rather than topping the box office charts. The Cannes Film Festival brings together a superb mix of films ranging from Oscar contenders to obscure films that may not see another theater audience.

I will be providing Way Too Indie with as much festival coverage as my press pass allows me. We have already posted the 66th Cannes Film Festival lineup (which includes the sidebar events Director’s Fortnight and International Critics Week) as well as our most anticipated films that will be playing. Some of our most anticipated films have trailers available, but many films will not release a single clip before they premiere at Cannes. It is hard to know exactly which films I will be covering as it all depends on demand. But stay tuned to Way Too Indie this week and next as we bring you coverage on the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Also be sure that you are following @WayTooIndie on Twitter for up-to-the-second updating.

The 2013 Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner so we thought we would bring you our most anticipated films that will be playing this year. Because a lot of the films at the festival will be making their world-wide premiere, most of the films do not have a trailer to go by just yet. Therefore, making our picks of the most anticipated films strikes an interesting challenge. There will be hidden gems at Cannes that will come out of nowhere, but here are the films we look forward to the most. Stick around Way Too Indie as we will be attending the festival this year and providing you coverage.

Most Anticipated Films At 2013 Cannes

The Bling Ring

Sofia Coopla’s latest offering, The Bling Ring, has gathered a lot of attention and rightfully so. Most of that attention has likely come from having the beloved Emma Watson “going wild” so to speak, playing a character who is not completely likeable. The Bling Ring is based upon actual events of a group of Hollywood obsessed teenagers who break into the homes of celebrities and steal their possessions. If it ends up being as wacky and ridiculous as it seems, The Bling Ring could be a wildly fun ride. [Dustin]

La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty)

Is it really a surprise that the director of WTI’s favourite film of 2012 is on this list? For those of us who loved This Must Be The Place, we can’t wait for what Paolo Sorrentino has in store next. Teaming up again with Toni Servillo, who was fantastic in Sorrentino’s previous film Il Divo, The Great Beauty is relatively light on plot details right now. What’s known is that Servillo plays Jep Gambardella, a 65 year old writer whose personal dramas make up the film. It seems like anything more specific than that will be saved for later, but there’s a trailer that might be helpful for those who speak Italian and/or French. Whether or not Sorrentino can deliver another great film remains to be seen, but either way we’ll surely be checking out The Great Beauty ASAP if we get the chance. [CJ]

Only God Forgives

I initially wanted to just type: “Refn. Gosling. Drive. Enough said.” for my reasoning to see this, but I am asked to give more. 2 years ago Nicolas Winding-Refn took Cannes (and many other film festivals worldwide) by storm with this violent, bright, pop filled, bubble gum popping, Los Angeles based crime thriller that featured Ryan Gosling as a nameless hero tasked with taking on a bunch of ruthless gangsters who happen to mess with the wrong stunt driver. Refn snagged the Best Director prize and Gosling went on to movie stardom. Now in Only God Forgives they’re back, together, with….you guessed it. A violent, but beautifully shot, crime film set in Bangkok. Gosling is asked by his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas, primed for an Oscar nomination) to kill the man who murdered his brother. This film looks to be BRUTAL. But Gosling and Refn are more than up to the challenge. This is shaping up to be one of the most popular films at the fest. Keep an eye out for this one. [Blake]

Fruitvale Station

Every year the Cannes Film Festival brings in one or two of the most talked about titles that played at the Sundance Film Festival back in January to make their international premiere debut. Fruitvale Station (formerly titled Fruitvale) impressed more than just the audience and the critics as the Weinstein Company snatched up the rights during the festival. Fruitvale Station takes place on the last day of Oscar Grant’s life, observing all the encounters he came across on his final day. First time filmmaker Ryan Coogler could be a name to remember if the initial responses of the film hold true. [Dustin]

Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw)

Takashi Miike has had quite the journey. He first established himself in the J-horror craze with shockers like Audition and Ichi The Killer, but over the years he’s shown how versatile and talented he truly is. From kid’s movies (Zebraman) to getting banned from TV (Imprint), Miike has covered plenty of genres while maintaining an output of at least two films a year (he released 3 movies last year, including a musical and a video game adaptation). The downside to Miike’s berserk work schedule is that his films may be hit or miss, but Wara No Tate sounds like a hit if done right. A billionaire offers a massive reward for the murder of his granddaughter’s (supposed) killer. The billionaire’s target immediately hands himself over to the police, and as they transport him across the country back to Tokyo a number of assassins try to claim the billionaire’s reward. Miike hasn’t made anything as good as 13 Assassins, one of his best films and a soon to be classic of the samurai genre, but this material sounds like a perfect fit for him. [CJ]

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the most original, surreal, fantastical directors to ever grace a movie screen. Dune by Frank Herbert is considered one of the best (if not the best) Science Fiction novel ever written and many fans deem it un-filmable. David Lynch tried in the 80’s and was a critical and box office failure. Now comes this documentary on the Chilean director’s ambitious attempt to film the impossible. This will surely be a wild ride as the filmmakers have a plethora of material to work with. From the massive preparation the director and his team did to interviews with online film critics and Hollywood directors who love the director, this could be a nice surprise in the wealth of films being presented at the festival this year. [Blake]

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen Brothers are no strangers to the Cannes Film Festival. Inside Llewyn Davis will mark an impressive ninth visit to the film festival along the French Riviera for the brother duo. Not only does the trailer make the story of following a folk songwriter set in New York in the 1960s look interesting, it should naturally have a great soundtrack as well. CBS Films bought up the U.S. rights to Inside Llewyn Davis which may cast a small shadow of doubt considering their past track record of releases, however, this is a Coen Brothers film we are talking about. They are highly respected filmmakers that hold themselves to a certain standard, right? [Dustin]

Blind Detective

It seems that most of the films I want to see are playing outside of competition. Johnnie To, for those who don’t know, is one of the best genre directors working today. Using his production company Milkyway Image along with his usual collaborators (including his co-writer and sometimes co-director Wai Ka-Fai), To has created terrific films that range from romantic comedies to supernatural detective stories. After a detour with some romantic comedies and Life Without Principle, a drama centered around the recent worldwide financial crisis, To is back in action mode. Blind Detective follows, naturally, a former detective who left the force after losing his sight while on duty. Now spending his time helping cops solve cold cases, a young up and coming detective asks him to help her find her missing childhood friend. The plot may sound contrived, but Johnnie To is one of the best when it comes to making these stories feel fresh and exciting. Hopefully Blind Detective will be able to sit alongside Mad Detective, the Election films and Exiled among To’s best work. [CJ]

Nebraska

Alexander Payne is probably one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. Sideways was an instant classic (not to mention one of my favorite films period) and The Descendants two years ago was a great family drama in the same vein. Not to mention films like About Schmidt and Election in his repertoire as well. His newest film concerns an aging, near alcoholic man who teams up with his long estranged son to embark on a trip from Montana to Nebraska to claim a lottery ticket that is worth millions. Sounds minimal from the outset, but like all Payne efforts, this will probably have multiple layers to it. [Blake]

The wait is now over as the lineup for the 2013 Cannes Film Festival has been announced this morning. While a few film festivals such as Sundance and Berlin have already given us a small taste of what is in store for 2013, Cannes ultimately sets the stage for what is to come for the rest of the year’s festival circuit. Also, it is my pleasure to announce that Way Too Indie has been accredited to attend the festival this year, so stay tuned during May 15th through May 26th while we bring you up-to-date coverage during the Cannes Film Festival.

Now back to the lineup, it has been known for quite some time that The Great Gatsby would be the opening film of the festival and yesterday it was announced that Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring would open the Un Certain Regard program. This morning the rest of the lineup for the Cannes Film Festival was finally announced. Some of the more anticipated films that were announced today were; Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, Steven Soderbergh’s Behind The Candelabra, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, and Sundance standout Fruitvale Station previously entitled just Fruitvale.

Unfortunately, absent from the announcement was Steve McQueen’s follow-up to Shame, Twelve Years a Slave. There was also no works from the onslaught of projects Terrence Malick has going on. And many people were disappointed to hear that Bong Joon-Ho’s rumored to play film, Snowpiercer, would not be done in time for the festival.

The full lineup for 2013 Cannes Film Festival:

The Great Gatsby (director Baz Luhrmann)

Behind The Candelabra (director Steven Soderbergh)
Borgman (director Alex Van Warmerdam)
Un Chateau En Italie (director Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi)
The Great Beauty (director Paolo Sorrentino)
Grisgris (director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
Heli (director Amat Escalante)
The Immigrant (director James Gray)
Inside Llewyn Davis (directors Joel & Ethan Coen)
Jeune Et Jolie (director Francois Ozon)
Jimmy P (director Arnaud Desplechin)
Michael Kohlhaas (director Arnaud Despallieres)
Nebraska (director Alexander Payne)
Only God Forgives (director Nicolas Winding Refn)
Only Lovers Left Alive (director Jim Jarmusch)
The Past (director Asghar Farhadi)
Like Father, Like Son (director Hirokazu Kore-eda)
A Touch Of Sin (director Zhangke Jia)
Venus In Fur (director Roman Polanski)
La Vie D’Adele (director Abdellatif Kechiche)
Shield of Straw (director Takashi Miike)

All Is Lost (director J.C Chandor)
Blood Ties (director Guillaume Canet)
The Last of the Unjust (director Claude Lanzmann)

Anonymous (director Mohammad Rasoulof)
As I Lay Dying (director James Franco)
Nothing Bad Can Happen (director Katrin Gebbe)
Bends (director Flora Lau)
The Bling Ring (director Sofia Coppola)
Death March (director Adolfo Alix Jr)
Fruitvale Station (director Ryan Coogler)
Grand Central (director Rebecca Zlotowski)
L’Image Manquante (Rithy Panh)
L’Inconnu Du Lac (director Alain Guiraudie)
La Jaula De Oro (director Diego Quemada)
Miele (director Valeria Golino)
My Sweet Pepperland (director Hiner Saleem)
Norte, The End of History (director Lav Diaz)
Omar (director Hany Abu-Assad)
The Bastards (director Claire Denis)
Sarah Would Rather Run (director Chloe Robichaud)
Wakolda (director Lucia Puenzo)

Max Rose (director Daniel Noah)
Weekend Of A Champion (director Roman Polanski)
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight (director Stephen Frears)
Stop The Pounding Heart (director Roberto Minervini)
Seduced & Abandoned (director James Toback)
Otdat Konci (director Taisia Igumentseva)
Bombay Talkies (directors Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar)

Zulu (director Jérôme Salle)

Above the Hill (director Raphael Nadjari)
Até ver a luz (director Basil da Cunha)
Blue Ruin (director Jeremy Saulnier)
The Summer of Flying Fish (director Marcela Said)
Henri (director Yolande Moreau)
Ilo ilo (director Anthony Chen)
Jodorowsky’s Dune (director Frank Pavich)
L’Escale (director Kaveh Bakhtiari)
The Dance of Reality (director Alejandro Jodorowsky)
The Rendez-Vous of Déjà-Vu (director Antonin Peretjatko)
Les Apaches (director Thierry de Peretti)
Me Myself and Mum (director Guillaume Gallienne)
Magic Magic (director Sebastián Silva)
On the Job (director Erik Matti)
The Congress (director Ari Folman)
The Last Days on Mars (director Ruairí Robinson)
The Selfish Giant (director Clio Barnard)
Tip Top (director Serge Bozon)
Ugly (director Anurag Kashyap)
Ain’t Misbehavin (director Marcel Ophuls)
We Are What We Are (director Jim Mickle)

Suzanne (director Katell Quillévéré)
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (director David Lowery)
You and The Night (director Yann Gonzalez)
The Dismantlement (director Sébastien Pilote)
Los Dueños (directors Agustín Toscano & Ezequiel Radusk)
For Those in Peril (director Paul Wright)
The Lunchbox (director Ritesh Batra)
The Major (director Yury Bykov)
Nos héros sont morts ce soir (director David Perrault)
Salvo (directors Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza)