Saturday, August 14, 2010

2007 Cannes Film Festival Competitors

By Maddox Penner

Lights in the Dusk: Koistenin is a sad sack, a man without affect or friends. He's a night-watchman in Helsinki with ideas of starting his own business, but nothing to go with those intentions. He sometimes talks a bit with a woman who runs a snack trailer near his work. Out of the blue, a young sophisticated blond woman attaches herself to Koistenin. He thinks of her as his girlfriend, he takes her on her rounds. She's in league with a crook who's planning a jewel robbery, and Koistenin is their patsy. Will he ever wise up?

The Crocodile: The film-in-the-film is centered on the figure of Italy's prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a subject so controversial that even the public television refuse to produce it. While Bonomo's private life collapses piece by piece, as he's divorcing from his wife, and the bank is pressing him hard to pay back his long-standing debts, he finds out that struggling to get this movie filmed is the only thing that keeps him alive.

When I was a singer: Alain Moreau sings for one of the few remaining dance-bands. Though something of an idol amongst his female audience he has a melancholic awareness of the slow disappearance of that audience and of his advancing years. He is completely knocked off balance when he meets strikingly attractive and much younger businesswoman Marion. She seems distant and apparently otherwise involved but soon shows quiet signs of reciprocating his interest. A brief dalliance turns into something much more complicated and he starts to employ her services as an estate agent by announcing he suddenly must move house.

Pan's Labyrinth: In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again. Written by Tim

According to Charlie: A few days pass in the lives of very different characters in a small town on the scenic Atlantic coast. The town mayor, a teacher, a scientist, a crook, physiotherapist and their families all see their miserable lives cross paths with the others in almost two hours of tedious film. An unhappy portrait of a town which should know better, as the characters themselves refuse to take hold of their lives to make something of them. The scientist tries to convince the teacher to join his team, but the essential problem is shared by all - an incapacity to face their own lives, to care for those around them and themselves. A dull, badly worked out film which should have remained in the editing room considerably longer than it did. Do not let the enigmatic title seduce you into the darkness, there is not much to see.

Flanders: In a gray and un-charming part of France, these farming people live. Life is quiet. You start a relation with the girl in the neighbor house. Life would have remained quiet if it wasn't for war. There's a shocking contrast here, between the silent life and the brutal battles in Africa. It directly affects also life at home, in an almost as brutal way. Can the things we've done, those wounds, be healed? Maybe they can after all. A very tense drama, which is sometimes hard to watch. Well acted, and very far from mainstream action, especially when it comes to psychological violence. - 40726

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