On this week’s extra-packed episode of the Way Too Indiecast, Bernard, CJ, and Dustin discuss the 2015 Cannes Film Festival lineup, which looks to break the mold and announce some new filmmakers into the fold as opposed to showcasing the same old faces. Then, inspired by the recent release of While We’re Young and the upcoming The Age of Adaline, the gang talk about the subject of aging in film and why we find it so endlessly fascinating. Also on the show, “Name 5” returns and the boys share their indie picks of the week. Enjoy, friends (while we’re young)!

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (2:12)
• Cannes 2015 Lineup (13:10)
• Name 5 (33:58)
• Aging in Film (39:04)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

2015 Cannes Lineup

While We’re Young review

Different Drum review

Kevin Chenault interview

Blue Jasmine review

Before Midnight review

112 Weddings review

Doug Block interview

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I’ll refer you to Dustin’s Cannes review of Like Father, Like Son where he sat amongst a ‘teary eyed’ audience and witnessed this huge festival success from 2013, and now in 2014 it’s allowed its big screen moment. I unfortunately missed its UK release back in October 2013, however from the reactions of festival-goers from around the world, it’s a story that has been seen as universally relatable regardless of its very traditional Japanese core.

Although Like Father, Like Son looks to play around with many different issues and hardships, it’s focus looks to be the choice to choose bloodlines or the primal importance of bonding with a child. Like Father, Like Son comes to US screens on 17th January.

Watch trailer for Like Father, Like Son

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

Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son turned a lot of heads in theater at the Cannes Film Festival today, where it played in front of a teary eyed audience. On front display is the depiction of how strong parental bonds can be and how the right thing to do is often the most difficult thing to do. Although the film displays very traditional Japanese family values, the themes found within can be related to universally.

Ryota (Fukuyama Masaharu) is a hardworking and well-paid architect who places a lot of emphasis on discipline and manners towards raising his adorable six-year-old son named Keita. Along with his wife Midori (Ono Machiko), the family lives in an affluent apartment which spins at a very slow rate to give a full 360-degree aerial view that overlooks the city. Even though Ryota is so busy at work that he barely has free time to spend with his family, he still comes home at the end of the day to a loving wife and a son who is incredibly well-mannered and happy to see him. There is no question that the young son wants to be just like his father when he grows up. But very quickly into the film a major event occurs out of the blue that completely disrupts the family.

While registering Keita for school, the hospital blood test reveals that Keita is not actually at all related to his parents. It seems hard to believe that a hospital could give someone the wrong child, but it has actually happened several times in real life. As you can imagine, this is absolutely devastating news to both Ryota and Midori who have spent six years carefully raising a child turns out to not actually be their own.

Things begin to get even more interesting when Ryota and Midori meet with the two parents that the hospital switched the babies with. Both couples bring in the photos they have taken over the years of the other family’s son, they are overwhelmed when they finally get a glimpse of their actual son, now six years after birth. Soon they must determine whether or not switching sons at this point in their life is actually a wise decision. Not helping the situation is the fact that the other parents seem more interested in the money they intend to receive from the hospital’s mistake than the more important issue at hand.

On top of all that, Ryota gets increasingly frustrated with his actual son after they spend time together because the parents do not value discipline as much as he does. Unlike the “son” he raised, his natural son has no interest in learning the piano nor even knows how to properly hold chop sticks. Because of this, Ryota ultimately questions the parenting techniques of the other family which adds yet another variable to the equation.

Like Father, Like Son gracefully touches on social class issues, nature versus nurture, and the “right” way to raise a child. While 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.