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Cannes – Tuesday

Watched Cristian Mungiu’s (4 months, 3 weeks) portmanteau Tales From The Golden Age, a very enjoyable set of 5 shorts parodying life in the Ceausescu’s Romainia – my favourites were the The Legend Of The Official Visit and the The Legend Of The Greedy Policeman (3 out of 5)

Cristian Mungiu's Tales From The Golden Age
Cristian Mungiu's Tales From The Golden Age

Caught the 3pm screening of Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces in the Lumiere (4 out of 5) nothing really new in terms of Almodóvar but a great mix of noir and melodrama, intertwining plots and a film within a film.

Theatre Lumière, Cannes
Theatre Lumière, Cannes

In the evening headed down the beach for an enjoyable evening at the EIFF / Scotish film party

Edinburgh Film Festival party
Ginny and Hannah welcome everyone to the Edinburgh Film Festival party
On the beach at EIFF party
On the beach at EIFF party

Grabbed some dinner in the old town and finished the evening off with some great cocktails over at the Wild Bunch villa.

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Cannes – Monday

Caught Johhny To’s new film Vengence (2 out of 5) in the morning, lots of stilted acting and a major plot device that appears out of nowhere which which have most directors laughed out of the cinema. While not really excusable, somehow I managed to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the action scenes which as always in a To film are stunning.

Watched Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric in the Lumiere (4 out of 5) enjoyable, funny, heartfelt, the ending seems a bit silly and at odds with the rest of the film, but not so much that it ruins it. In short an excellent Ken Loach film which I expect will do particularly well theatrically in the the UK at least. Decide that I’m not going to make the 4pm market screening of Bright Star and instead catch a panel titled “It’s a mad, new media world” at AmPav.

Saw Hierro in the evening – billed as a Spanish psychological horror from the producers of Pan’s Labyrinth and the Orphanage. That “from the producers of..” tag line should have set alarm bells ringing earlier. It’s the story of a lost boy and his mothers attempt to find him. Well shot but it felt more like the work of a competent commercials or music vid director than someone used to working in narrative film. Still trying to decide if it was the lack of plot of just the bad development of it, but it just didn’t work for me. I think the sweeping music every time someone opened a door was the final straw. At it’s best it left me disinterested in the mother and her plight and at others just simply irritated. I’m giving it (1 out of 5). I’m probably being extra harsh on Heirro as the late start to the film and a packed Croisette afterwards meant I missed a third screening of Un Prophet.

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Cannes Film Festival Film Film festivals

Cannes – Sunday

Missed ‘A Prophet’ for a second time, decided that waking up at 7am to get in line for the 9am screening after three hours sleep was probably asking too much of even a hardened cinephile.

Instead checked out the midday screening of Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (2 out of 5) – well enough made and perfectly watchable but felt more like a feel good / coming of age TV movie than something from Ang Lee – in short a easily forgettable film.

Headed off to BFI / LFF drinks on the roof of the Palace Stephanie (still can’t get used to not calling it the Noga / Hilton nor it seems can anyone else)

BFI / LFF reception on the roof of the Palais Stephanie
BFI / LFF reception on the roof of the Palais Stephanie

Left BFI drinks and headed over to Morrison’s Irish pub for the Anvil Party (RAWK DOODZ)

Anvil Stamp
Anvil Stamp

Completely out of the context of normal Cannes (but then what is normal in Cannes apart from overpriced food, drinks and permatans) we got a live set from Anvil, complete with encores enthusiastically cheered on by the crowd.

Anvil live at Morrison's pub, Cannes
Anvil live at Morrison's pub, Cannes
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Cannes Film Festival Film Film festivals

Cannes – Saturday

Just arrived in Cannes, picked up the car and dropped bags off at villa and now off to pick up badge and tickets, hopefully in time to catch the 3pm screening of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet which Screen have just given a great review.

Picking up badge
Picking up badge

[update: missed ‘A Prophet’ – by the time we’d got up our badges, dashing down the Croisette to pickup invitations and then back to the Lumiere for 3pm didn’t seem feasible – in fact I missed all three screenings of it that I attempted to make this week, obviously I wasn’t meant to see this film here, which is extra annoying as going back over the week I think it probably was the one film I would have enjoyed the most and I suspect a strongcontender for the Palm D’Or. Still at least I have it to look forward to when back in London – Optimum are realising it in the UK later this year]

Jacques Audiard's A Prophet
Jacques Audiard's A Prophet

Popped in to the UK film pavilion and caught the end of interesting panel hosted by Power to the Pixel on digital financing and  distribution. Left the UK film pavilion and headed next door to AmPav to get some sun and read the dailies. 

The American Pavillion in Cannes
The American Pavillion in Cannes

Grabbed dinner at La Pizza and then went off to meet friends at the Petit Majestic (as the de-facto and cheap, by Cannes standards, late night drinking hole de choix, the recession seems to have worked in their favour, certainly no sign of a slowdown here) finally finishing the night off in a more civilised fashion at the Grand (although after paying €12 for a small glass of Rose you feel like you’ve just been mugged, kicked in the gutter and then propped up in a plastic seat on the lawn, no wonder the Petit Majestic is rammed)

The Petit Majestic
The Petit Majestic
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Cannes Film Festival Film Film festivals

Cannes 2009 – Line up Announced

Yesterday Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux announced the line up for this years festival and a pretty fantastic line up it seems to be too. New films from Almodóvar, Michael Haneke and Tarantino, for starters.

Variety describe the Competition line up as “Cannes’ biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown in recent years” and judging by the list of names their probably not far off the mark. Screen responsed to the announcement in much the same way “heavyweight Cannes line-up”

Over in Un Certain Regard this year is Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or in 2007 with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Day, with his new film Tales From The Golden Age. Originally the name of a set of scripts set in the Ceausescu era, of which 4 Months was supposedly one. It now seems to be the title of a single film described as  “a collection of Romanian urban legends from the communist era“. Why has it been relegated to Un Certain Regard after a Palme d’Or win for 4 months is not yet clear, will have to wait and see.

Haven’t had time yet to go over all the competition and sidebar titles properly yet. Michael Haneke new  film The White Ribbon looks interesting and almost certainly slightly harrowing. The press notes describes it as follows “Some inexplicable events disturb the quiet life of a German village, just before World War I. A cable has been put up to trip the doctor riding his horse, a barn is set on fire, two children are abducted and tortured…” in other word classic Haneke material. Will Tarantino be back on form? Judging by the trailer it seems unlikely, but on the off chance he is it’s too good to pass over, so it’s firmly on my Cannes ‘to see’ list.

According to Screen, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro will now open Directors’ Fortnight despite him previously turning down an out of competition slot. After Youth Without Youth you have to wonder if Tetro is yet another dud and has been given the opening slot for Directors’ Fortnight simply because it’s Coppola.

Anyway, my accreditation has been confirmed so will have to wait to May to see which ones turn out to be worthy of the hype and which previously unheard of gem will set the Croisette buzzing this year.
 The man from Cannes says Oui