Saturday, August 14, 2010

Cannes Film Festival Competitors In 2009

By Maddox Penner

The White Ribbon - The action takes place in a German village in the fifteen months that precede World War I. Among the people who live there are a baron, who is a large landowner and a local moral authority, his estate manager, a pastor with his many children, a widowed doctor and a schoolteacher who is thinking of getting married. It is he who, many years later, tells this story. Though everything seems to be quiet and orderly, as it always has been, with the seasons following each other, and good harvests following bad ones, suddenly some strange events start to occur. If some appear to be quite ordinary, even accidental -- a farmer's wife dies falling through rotten floorboards -- others are inexplicable and may well be malevolent.

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo - It is difficult to point out what fails in this movie, but I certainly did not connect at all with its characters and situations. The movie is set in Tokyo, but contrary to "Lost in translation" here the movie tries to build half on Japanese characters and half on western ones, which really demands a deeper knowledge about japan. It is difficult for me to believe the Japanese part of the movie, first of all they all seem to speak very good English, which is, at least, difficult to believe, e.g. why would the Japanese girl, played by Kinko Rikuchi, speak good English at all?, why is the other guy working with the Spanish seller almost American? Must say maybe I am biased by my own experience with the Japanese people I met in japan, but certainly communication is in general much tougher than what Isabel portraits here.

Inglourious Basterds - During World War II, Lt. Aldo Raine leads his squad of Jewish-American soldiers behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied France. Their job is simple: kill the enemy. They also have a particularly violent approach to what they do scalping their victims. Soon they are known and feared throughout the German army. In Paris, Shosanna runs a cinema and through a chance meeting with a German war hero, is selected to host the premiere of one of Dr. Josef Goebbels propaganda film. With all of the German high command scheduled to attend - including Hitler, Goering and Martin Bormann - it seems like the ideal opportunity for Lt. Raine and his men to bring the war to a quick end. Shosanna, who is Jewish and whose parents and siblings were killed before her eyes, also has her own plans for the evening's festivities. When she realizes that the man who killed her family Colonel Hans Landa, known as the Jew Hunter, will also be there it makes her own plans complete.

Bright Star - London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw), and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an out-spoken student of high fashion. This unlikely pair begin at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, while she was unimpressed not only by his poetry but also by literature in general. However, when Fanny heard that Keats was nursing his seriously ill younger brother, her efforts to help touched Keats and when she asked him to teach her about poetry he agreed. The poetry soon became a romantic remedy that worked not only to sort their differences, but also to fuel an impassioned love affair.

Chun feng chen zui de ye wan - I attended the North American Premiere of "Spring Fever" at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. A co-production of Hong Kong and France, director Ye Lou's "Spring Fever" is quite a unique film about a gay love triangle. There's very little dialogue, which is a device I normally relish, but here it just drags out the already minimal action. The film is shot with all hand-held and shaky camera style, using lots of extreme closeups. It might not have been that hard to handle except that the picture itself was very dark at times so it was often difficult to even see what was taking place. I don't know if it was the source print, digital transfer, or projection, but it made for a very disappointing experience.

Vincere - The powerful new film from acclaimed auteur Marco Bellocchio (My Mothers Smile, Good Morning, Night, The Wedding Director), VINCERE is a compelling drama based on the littleknown story of Benito Mussolinis first wife. Ida Dalsar (Giovanno Mezzogiorno) and Mussolini (Filippo Timi) begin their liaison in 1914; she is a well-to-do beauty salon owner and he is an impoverished young Socialist and union activist. When Ida sells all her possessions to fund her lover's new newspaper, the rise of Fascism is set into play An official selection of the Cannes, Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals, VINCERE is a gripping film that combines drama, archive footage, and music creating a highly cinematic oratorio of enormous emotional force. - 40726

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