Five things you probably didn’t know about Cannes

On Wednesday 16th May, the 65th Cannes Film Festival kicks off in the South of France.  For 12 movie-packed days and glamorous evenings, le Festival de Cannes (as it’s known by the cognoscenti) sees filmmakers, casts and crews from around the world descend upon a small seaside town to watch one another’s work.  

There are films “in competition”, vying for awards such as the Palme d’Or (given to the director of the voted Best Film) and Le Prix Un Certain Regard (for best newcomer).  The names Loach, Haneke, Cronenberg may be familiar; Mungiu, Nichols and Garrone less so (though Take Shelter and Gomorrah were lapped up by Kiwi audiences, which bodes well for their latest offerings).  There is a programme of short films which showcases young talent (including New Zealand filmmaker Zia Mandviwalla’s Night Shift), special screenings of classics and Master Classes given by legendary director Philip Kaufman and film composer Alexandre Desplat.  The Festival is a veritable cornucopia of cinematic treats.  

But aside from pictures of Brad in black tie on the red carpet, and news stories about Danish directors being banned for unsavoury comments made at press conferences, there are a few things behind the scenes at this world famous bun-fight that may surprise.  

Queues
Cannes is an invitation-only festival for filmmakers and foreign press, and it is undisputedly a privilege to attend.  But just because your name’s on the pass, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting in.  Members of the press are accredited under different categories, where regulars from Sight & Sound and the New York Times will get precedence over a first-timer from the SST.  With a busy timetable of movies to preview, journalists must queue, often for an hour or more, from early in the morning (we’re talking 8.30am-early for some films) before fighting their way to a seat.  No room for lateness here; no traipsing in during the trailers and staring into the gloom as you slurp your jumbo size Coke and try to find a centre-middle-seat for two.  It doesn’t pay to come with mates or a plus-one. At Cannes, it’s every writer for herself.  

No such thing as a free chat
Despite the fact that you could say the press are there to help – to spread the word, start the buzz, fuel the fire of excitement that a film sometimes requires in order to be a worldwide hit – let’s face it honey – it’s called the Film Business for a reason.  Securing interviews with filmmakers and cast requires nomination by a distributor and often payment, usually at the distributor’s expense (in whose interests it is, obviously, that the film gets seen when it’s brought back home), sometimes to the tune of 2000 euros to join a table with other foreign journalists, all vying for their sound-bite.  One-on-one interview opportunities are like hen’s teeth.  Less-funded press will have to resort to collaring their prey at the local patisserie, dictaphone at the ready.  If they can get past the entourage.

To frock or not to frock
Again, because of the red carpet photos, one might assume Cannes is just one big catwalk.  By comparison, the press previews that a jobbing reviewer attends in New Zealand are an entirely casual affair – hoodies and jandals mingle with cargo pants and parkas.  So Cannes is a shock to the system for someone who seldom has high heels in her wardrobe, let alone her suitcase.  Because, don’t forget – we’re also in France, land of the chic and home of the vogue, so even during the day one has to hit the “smart casual” button like a European.  And just in case one has the good fortune to be invited to the Dutch Ambassador’s party to launch a new cine-environmental initiative, or to be shown the nightlife by pals from the British Film Pavillion, one has to be prepared. So it’s frocks and heels at the ready, because, really, as much as people say “if you need something, you can just buy it!” we are still playing with Euros.  

Buy buy, sell sell
For the filmmakers, Cannes is where they first show off the latest from their oeuvre and gain the critical acclaim of their peers and the world.  Directors are often working right up until the eleventh hour in post-production to get the film ready for submission, and a category win can launch a new director’s career into the stratosphere. Following in Scorsese’s footsteps with Taxi Driver, Tarantino scored with Pulp Fiction; Campion won for The Piano.  With far more critical kudos than an Oscar, the Palme d’Or has seen some brave and exciting work rewarded over the last six decades.   But Cannes is also the market for distributors to buy and sell, hawking their wares to foreign programmers hoping to acquire the latest Prophet and White Ribbon to take home to their own festival audiences, who wait eagerly as if for a mail-order bride.  Le Marche du Film (literally the Film Market) was set up in 1959 to run in conjunction with the Festival as a forum for producers, sales agents and festival programmers to get the movies out into worldwide audiences.  Only the lucky press get into the Marche screenings; the rest of us will have to wait like the rest of the world.    

First to see the new day
Films cannot have been shown at any other festival prior to their debut at Cannes, which means that once acquired by a programmer, the race is then on for international festivals to show off the latest winners.  New Zealand’s annual international film festival tours the country in July/August, which puts us in the agreeable position of sometimes being able to show a Cannes movie before London, Berlin and Toronto. Our festival programmers work tirelessly at the key markets around the world to secure morsels for our viewing pleasure.

It certainly saves us the airfare and the cost of outfits.

Brother Number One

In 2008 I went to Cambodia and, despite having travelled much of the rest of the world, I found it to be the most emotional, joyous, devastating experience of my life.  No, really.  Cambodia isn’t just the place for a cheap, Asian holiday.  The whole country carries scars from a tragic past that happened within most of our lifetimes, as a quarter of the country’s population was killed, whether by starvation, overwork or literal “smashing”, by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.

NZ producer James Bellamy has a strong connection with Cambodia, and on approaching Olympian Rob Hamill some years ago they banded together, with acclaimed documentary maker Annie Goldson, to produce an incredible story about the genocide.  What brings this story close to home is that it tracks the murder of Hamill’s brother, Kerry, by the Khmer Rouge – after his boat strayed innocently into Cambodian waters, very much a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Goldson’s documentary manages the remarkable feat of being intense, powerful and desperately sad, without needing to manipulate those feelings in its audience.  The soundtrack is scarce.  The Cambodians are stoic.  Rob Hamill allows us to follow his journey to find the truth about his brother’s fate, but he doesn’t spend the whole time crying on camera.  Instead we visit the recently established ECCC (civil court) where the regime’s top players are on trial for crimes against humanity.  Hamill gets the opportunity to read out a victim impact statement, 31 years after his brother’s disappearance, and as he talks the court through the devastation it brought upon his family, we are completely captivated and in turn mortified at each revelation.

Brother Number One is a necessarily hard watch, but one that holds in its hands so much compassion and grace, the audience is not left feeling desolate by the end.  The hope is that more people will see this film, appreciate the depths of horror inflicted upon the Cambodian people, and mobilise us all into a better way of being.  For the Hamills, at very least, my wish is that in sharing their anguish it may provide some sort of catharsis.

Senna

When people rave about a film you’re yet to see, particularly overseas reviewers in worthy film magazines, you get excited – but there’s still a feeling of suspicion about really how great the film can possibly be.  Senna has been receiving high praise, and after only one month of release was the fifth highest grossing documentary at the UK box office – ever.  That’s certainly saying something.

As it turns out, Senna – an account of the Formula One racing days of Brazilian super-hero Ayrton Senna – is just what it says on the tin.  Director Asif Kapadia pulls together found footage of Senna and the various races, pre-race meetings, and interviews with key players of the time, and splices this into a completely gripping, enthralling documentary.  While we occasionally have Senna’s words as voiceover, there are no new interviews, which makes the film fairly unusual in doco terms.  But it’s enough.  We have everything we need to gain a full picture of the handsome, gentle, spiritual young man who provided Brazil with its “only hope” during decades of despair (we see locals openly admitting that Brazil has nothing going for it “except Senna”).

Kapadia follows a standard narrative formula for sports documentaries, naturally focusing on the important races, covering the lead-up, the emotional make-up of the subjects, and providing an exciting record of the game in action.  Thus we frequently find ourselves in the driver’s seat (well, actually at his right shoulder) with the use of in-car camera footage – thrilling as we weave around the racetrack at speeds of more than 200km/hour – and giving us the necessary insight into just how difficult it is to drive Formula One well, and win.

You don’t have to be a racing fan to care.  Ayrton Senna comes across as an exceptionally humble, completely committed young man, outrageously disqualified from world champion status one year, and graciously raising this as a grievance the following.  It’s not a spoiler to say that Senna tragically lost his life at age 34.  What is devastating about this film is watching him so talented, so alive, and knowing that calamity is just around the corner.

La Dolce Vita

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that La Dolce Vita is not all it’s cracked up to be.

However, before I venture into such treacherous terrain, I should say that the NZFF’s newly restored print of this 1960 black and white classic is truly magnificent, and there is no better way to experience something that, whether I like it or not, is a work of art.

It’s true that Maestro Fellini produced an icon of Italian culture that is undeniably beautiful and compelling – there are images seared into our memories without our even having seen the film (notably Anita Ekberg’s frolic in the Trevi Fountain).  But by the end it simply feels overlong, noncohesive and vapid – and if indeed that’s the point of it, hence the ironic title, then Fellini has certainly produced a self-referential masterpiece.  I just wish he’d made it tighter.

Granted, the first half is a delight.  The dreamy Marcello Mastroianni plays a journalist who effortlessly ingratiates himself into the lives of the lovely and famous, avoiding a home-life with his jealous, suicidal fiancee while having flings with the likes of Maddalena (the exquisite Anouk Aimee).  When Swedish film star Sylvia comes to town, Marcello becomes part of her crowd.  He has an ambivalent relationship with the swarm of photographers who appear in every doorway, the principal named Paparazzo (which just goes to show how wide-reaching the influence of this film has been in the last half century).

For a while we lap up the heady, playboy lifestyle afforded to Marcello and his pals, revelling in Sylvia/Ekberg’s glamour and Aimee’s impeccable wardrobe.  However, once Ekberg leaves the scene, things get altogether more abstract.  The reporters race off to cover allegations that two young children have seen the Madonna.  Sick people are brought out on stretchers, it rains, chaos ensues.  There are fights, recriminations, ugly words hurled between lovers, and uncomfortable reconciliations.  Marcello attends a party of interesting people, and we realise he is longing for a different life, but can’t see how to attain it.  Nihilism starts to seep into the tone of the film, as eccentric party-goers entertain themselves with bizarre rituals.  It all feels rather empty, and a bit depressing.

Obviously La Dolce Vita is about how life isn’t that sweet at all.  What lost me as we got into the third hour was just how Fellini intended to put his message across.  The narrative becomes rambling and many scenes desperately in need of judicious editing.  If the point is to show us how noncohesive and vapid life can be, the point is made, but laboriously.  Furthermore, our hero – the man whose story is supposed to transport us through this view of the world – descends into someone even less likeable than the narcissistic, emotionally stunted journalist we first meet.  Marcello’s answer to his problems is to move into advertising and bully a young woman at a party.

My issue isn’t with long films per se – there was for me no greater delight in 1996 than realising, mid-film, that Heat was going to go on past two hours.  Last year the NZFF brought back Visconti’s Senso, and my personal festival highlight the 175-minute Once Upon A Time in the West.  By comparison, Fellini’s masterwork ultimately lacks narrative drive (even compared with the also-challenging 8 1/2), and by the end of it the various set-pieces failed to enthrall this reviewer.

The Trip

Michael Winterbottom, a filmmaker whose career is as diverse in its subject matter as that of Ang Lee, revisits the wit and charm of A Cock and Bull Story by teaming up again with comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon – you know, the guy who played Alan Partridge, and that Welsh chap who does impressions.

Coogan and Brydon again play themselves (you can say “versions” of themselves, but there are so many truths and likely-truths illuminated by their largely improvised chitchat that most of the laughs derive from that classic, close-to-the-bone humour we all witnessed from the mean-but-funny bully at school).

Coogan gets a gig from the Observer Sunday newspaper to drive around boutique hotels and restaurants in the north of England and write reviews.  When his American girlfriend decides they need an hiatus, he begrudgingly invites new dad Brydon along.  They spend their days driving from village to village, riffing and singing and trying to outdo one another’s impressions of everyone from James Bond to Anthony Hopkins to welsh actor Michael Sheen.

Winterbottom directed the BAFTA award winning TV series from which he built this film, splicing the episodes together so well that you don’t feel you’re watching anything less than a planned feature film.   It is quite simply hilarious, air-gasping, side-splitting stuff – from the “Michael Caine-off” in one fine restaurant, to the well-observed examination of why men going into battle always decide to leave at “daybreak” (not “8:45 for 9 o’clock”).  The humour lies in the sending-up of Coogan as the bigger star, but also the one who wants it desperately, against Brydon’s happy home existence and his online success with Small Man Trapped in a Box.

Two of Britain’s finest comedians, directed by one of Britain’s (and the world’s) most talented filmmakers, The Trip is indispensable viewing.

 

Tiny Furniture

Lena Dunham has created a brave, witty, exquisite little film that deserves plaudits for its charm and its unusually high production values.  It’s not often a low-budget, indie comedy, written and directed by its young female star, looks and sounds this good.

Lena plays Aura, a recent college graduate who boomerangs to her mother’s Tribeca apartment in order to “figure stuff out” before hitting the real world.  Decidedly non-”Gossip Girl” in appearance, she is resented by her sister Nadine (played by real-life sister Grace) and loved in a distracted way by her free-thinking artist mother.  Aura drifts through her directionless life and unromantic entanglements with wit, insight and great comic timing.

The supporting cast are a delight,  from the self-centred, freeloading Jed (“kinda famous in an internet way”) to the lonely, gorgeous Charlotte with her British twang.  Aura’s interactions with her family, in some scenes seemingly improvised, ring true (if a little bratty) and even her bad decisions are a pleasure to watch.

The performances are great, and considering none of the actors has appeared (yet) in anything major, this film ought to prove a springboard for many careers.  Stunning production design and high-definition digital photography lift this quirky coming-of-age movie into the realm of the best, well-written, independent cinema.  Here’s hoping we see much more of Ms Dunham in years to come.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

This Brazilian crime drama, overflowing with corrupt cops and well-meaning criminologists, is a fresh, relentlessly fast-paced two hours of cinematic inferno in the spirit of The Departed (originally the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs) and Heat.

Setting the tone, we are thrown right in to a prison riot that turns into a botched raid, ending in bloodshed and political recriminations for the police at the helm.  Nascimento (our flawed cop) takes the hit, stood down then swiftly “promoted” to government intelligence, while his nemesis (and new husband of his ex-wife) Fraga appears on national TV issuing scalding criticism of the police’s conduct.

So there’s the emotionally complex personal story.  On top of this we have gun battles in the anarchistic streets, where it’s hard to keep up with who’s a goodie (there aren’t many) and who deserves what he gets.  It’s exciting, endlessly noisy (the soundtrack composer clearly worked hard for his paycheck) and the story punctuates shocking executions with twists and turns that keep us guessing.  Echoing the quality of TV’s The Wire, the characters are sufficiently fleshed out, and the acting universally convincing, that we believe in their agony and we in turn care about the outcome.

Elite Squad 2 is allegedly better than its predecessor, which screened in the 2008 NZFF, and thankfully acts as a standalone film.  Put your earplugs in, sit back and soak it up.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Based on a best-selling novel, this Italian/French/German co-production ticks all the boxes for “art-house cinema” while still managing to surprise and disturb.  The tone is set as the film opens with a group of children performing in a play with no dialogue, until one of them inexplicably starts screaming.

The story continues, however, relatively benignly.  We are introduced, through a series of flashbacks to their various ages, to our eponymous primes, Mattia and Alice.  As a small child, Mattia is tasked with looking after his disabled sister, a burden he carries with absolute diligence.  Meanwhile, Alice is the beloved daughter of emotionally inconsistent parents who push her into skiing.

In later life Mattia has grown into a silent, moody, if handsome young man.  Alice is bullied by emotionally inconsistent school friends, and the two odd numbers (primes can only be odd) are brought together at a party where the pumping ’90s house music helps to create almost unbearable tension.  Throughout, in fact, the soundtrack composed by Faith No More’s Mike Patton (!) serves to heighten anxiety, echoing Clockwork Orange‘s synthesizers and Jaws’ strings.

This is a story of secrets and tragedies, and an unusual relationship borne out of difference.  Though at times difficult to watch, it is absolutely capitivating thanks to engaging performances by the younger children, and excellence from Alba Rohrwacher (who played Tilda Swinton’s ethereal daughter in the equally challenging I Am Love) and newcomer Luca Marinelli.  Isabella Rossellini is superb as Mattia’s mother, paving the way for the film to descend to almost Lynchian depths of mystery and unease.

It’s not quite that bad.  But it does get tough toward the end as the questions unravel to leak uncomfortable, and somewhat drawn-out, answers.  Go, but don’t go it alone.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

So you think you wanna be a writer?

This fascinating insight behind the scenes at one of the most lauded daily newspapers in the world will either have you hankering for the journalistic lifestyle, or leave you with the sobering thought that print news is a dying media.

This is how the interviewees would have you see it, anyway.  For the most part the documentary considers how the mighty Internet and its capacity for free, uncontrolled, Everyman publishing presents a huge threat to traditional print media.  This, we already know.  Doubtless many of us read our newspapers (local and international) online, and for free, enabling a far wider, more global take on current affairs.

What’s interesting is the fact that while news aggregator sites such as The Huffington Post are partly blamed for the change in wind direction, a NY Times media reporter makes the salient point that without the newspapers, they wouldn’t have news to aggregate.

Said reporter, David Carr, is our voice during the film – ex-junkie and single dad, he peels off pithy one-liners that don’t just sound clever but actually ring true.  His thinly veiled outrage when interviewing his subjects at Vice magazine is entertaining and inspiring.  But as he admits – if you write about the media long enough, eventually you’ll type your way to your own front door.

There is a terrific scene where the news team get wind of the USA’s decision to withdraw troops from the Middle East, via the TV media rather than the Pentagon, and are not sure what to rely on – a curious but no doubt common incidence of primary and secondary sources starting to blur (“Is this a media story, or an ‘actual’ story?” quips the news chief.)

Page One isn’t a day-in-the-life, but it’s a very pertinent analysis of journalism’s present and predicted future.  Screening in the week that Rupert Murdoch’s empire starts to crumble, a film like this couldn’t come at a better time.

Bobby Fischer Against the World

It says a lot that a documentary about chess, once the national sport of the Soviet Union but hardly renowned for its fast pace or inherent danger, can be as enthralling as any fiction film.  As with the recent Bill Cunningham: New York, it’s not so much the subject matter but the subject himself that captures our interest and imagination.

Bobby Fischer was a young lad from Brooklyn when he became the US Chess Champion at age 15.  He had started playing when he was six and like most prodigies he did little else, admitting in a later interview that he didn’t really have any other interests, but “perhaps should have”.  Bobby’s intensity clearly paid off, as he pursued his dream of becoming World Chess Champion and keeping it for “twenty years or so”.  He was the stuff of legend, and his success and profile gave chess a huge boost in popularity during the 1970s.

The film centres around Fischer’s most famous fight - sorry, match – against the Russian Boris Spassky.  After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, Fischer finally agrees to play in Reykjavik where we start to see the cracks in his psyche, as he famously turns up late to games and complains about the intrusion from TV cameras as the match is broadcast around the world.  Like all good sports documentaries, the outcome of each game is made gripping and our understanding of what is at stake (particularly crucial for the non-chess player) is explained by those who knew Fischer throughout the years.

It’s easy to write off his introversion as mere eccentricity, and to forgive his demanding behaviour as part and parcel of his genius.  But the picture grows darker as we learn more about Fischer’s childhood and upbringing, and the ultimate story of his last days cannot help but inspire sympathy.  (This film brings to mind last year’s superb Glenn Gould: The Genius Within where it was Bach, not chess, that did our hero in.)  It may be a sad indictment when one interviewee says “His genius and his illness are joined at the hip”, but by the end, as gripping as car-crash telly (and for the same wrong reasons), we cannot help but agree.