Hey folks, Harry here with Grozilla and Solamen... Two marathon runners going at it... Grozilla seems to be growing stronger, while Solamen is being racked with urges to sleep... Can Solamen pull another 4 film or 5 film day? Can she do it? But GROZILLA had a pretty damn good day seeing GHOST WORLD and THE DEEP END!!! Lucky fella! Errrrrr....
Like I said last time, I did attend to the Ghostworld screening.
This Terry Zwigoff film is one of the best I saw here for now. But wasn't what I was expecting.. What I liked in Daniel Clowes comic book adapted here was the mix of feelings, the moving tale of two girls leaving their teenage years but also their weird neighborhood, with those strange, almost scary, faces. Zwigoff's film is kind of reconstiution of Clowes' work. The suits, the outfits, the hair, the place, It's very like watching the comic-book becoming alive. Except for one thing, the actors are truly beautiful. Too much to catch the sleazy feeling which was in this comic. Who can't fall in love with Thora Birch, exquisite in her Enid part ?
All the cast is wonderful,direction and script too, but I feel like something's missing here. Anyway, Zwigoff managed to do great work by catching the melancholy, the sadness of those characters portraying the cruel loneliness one must live through at this age. The end of the film, quite different from that of the comic-book made me think more of an adaptation of Daria (the great animated show on MTV) than of Clowes' universe. Too bad for this author's fans (I guess only Todd Solondz can deal with this weird universe. Hey Todd, ever read Clowe's Like a velvet hand cast in an iron glove, here's material for you !) but it doesn't make Ghostworld a bad film. Far far from it. This, for sure,will be a classic film on teenage angst, to be put aside Breakfast club or River's edge.
Then I went to see THE DEEP END. Scott McGehee & David Siegel surprised Cannes seven years ago with their twisted thriller Suture (remember this story of twins, but one was black the other one white ?), this time they try to apply the same treatment to film noir. One mother will do anything to save his son from blackmailing in a murder case. Tilda Swinton is this mother. She's really great in a somewhere daring part. The twist here is to mix some classic film noir intrigue with the social position of a mother.
This intelligent idea tears the usual stereotypes aside. Even more when this character appears slowly as an overprotective mother who, as the coming out about the homosexuality of her son, reveals her true face. Very smartly acted and photographed, THE DEEP END won't reach a large audience because of its intellectual side, its slow pace, but I ' d say that this film gave me what I've expected from the Coen : style AND meaning. Brilliant.
Read in the screening schedule : Raining in the moutain, director's cut 8.30 pm at the Arcade theater. What ? A director's cut from one of the finest King Hu's film ? I went there as fast as I can. Some two hours later, I can say this "director's cut" thing is bullshit. This edit is exactly the same one can see (at least in France, for years). Anyway it was a good thing to meet again with Hu's cinema, it reminds me how this great filmmaker left an heritage. Look at this film, Touch of Zen then you'll give another look on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as Lee's film obviously pick things in Hu's ones.
Last film for the evening, Alexandr Sokourov's one. Taurus. Last year, this Russian director was here with Moloch, one very rich reflexion on power in XXe century, where Hitler was portrayed as kind of unbearable capricious man. With this film, the second one in a cycle about power he portrays Lenine as an old man, close to death, and as usual films him as an human on the verge to become a corpse. Not many difference between Taurus & Moloch : same intents, same purpose, same -wonderful- artistic direction, often looks like painting instead of films. It's another brillant reflexion about regrets, men confronting death, but having seen Moloch, I can't avoid the feeling of déjà vu. Anyway, Sokourov is still one of best classic director from Russia.
Some Spanish wine and ham on a beach in a very quiet soirée and some hours of sleep later, I went at the market to get the last (well, in the last days of Cannes, the list of screening get smaller and smaller, yesterday there was like sixty different films showed in all sections, today only thirty, tomorrow there will fifteen, and so on ... On the last days, this festival becomes kind of sad. It's also a tradition here...) screening of Sogo Ishii's Gojoe. It's a traditional chambara : a monk seeks his spiritual enlightment by chasing a demon he must kill by the sword.This demon is on the other side of Gojoe bridge (there Ishii's film meets Monty Python Holy Grail with an old men warning that anyone try to cross will perish) If the first hour is very theatral, the second gets unusually wild. Gory fights, loud shouts from men suffering.. But above all one last fight who become a fight between natural elements. Swords sparks when the hit each other, rain is falling, sky is opening. This last fifteen minutes are really unbelievable and pull this film out of its even mood. After one and half hour I was suddenly excited by this film. Alas, Gojoe just ends a few second after this duel...
Too bad. Now I'm waiting to see Desert moon, the new entry form Shinji Aoyama, the guy who gave us here in 2000, one of the year's masterpiece : Eureka. I will soon reveal if this Japanese guy still has the magic formula...
Grozilla
And now for the enchanting goddess which keeps the artic frost from the shores of Cannes.... SOLAMEN!!!!
Cannes, day 8.
Boring festival this year. Everyone had high hopes for the Sean Penn movie and the David Lynch movie. Sean Penn was disappointing and David Lynch, well, is still David Lynch.
So, today, I saw Mulholland Drive.
It is always difficult to report about a Lynch movie and this one does not escape to that rule. Basically, a woman becomes amnesic after an accident and meet a young actress who just arrived from Ontario. The amnesic woman seems to be in trouble and they both try to find out what happens. But this is David Lynch and that cannot go on that simple. At some moment we arrive at a break point which seems to be materialized by a blue box. And then the story changes because the name of the characters are mixing, being exchanged and the story and the relationships change too. The problem with Lynch is that at first you try to understand the story : you don't succeed. Then you try to understand what he meant : you don't succeed too. It's rather a poetry of the bizarre and the arbitrary of life, and for this precise film, the arbitrary of naming people. At first, I rather liked it but now, a few hours ago, I'm not sure it can have an award. It is too as usual. Even if it's a good "as usual".
There was another french film today in competition too : "Va savoir !" by Jacques Rivette. I didn't see this one because it was early this morning and I needed a good sleep.
Tonight no parties : I still need a good night sleep. Especially that tonight was the party for the Hot d'Or, the porno awards. For those who don't know this french speciality : every year, during the Cannes Film Festival, the small world of the porn movies gather to give awards to the best porn "actress" and best porn "actor" and best porn film. It is usually followed by a party with lots of girls (have a nice dream tonight gentlemen !) But it's not really interesting if you're a girl, wandering by the pool in the middle of silicone valleys...
Anyway, this year the tendancy at the Festival for the films in competition is : sex ! Sex between man and woman, between men and woman but especially between women only. It was the case for "The rehearsal" and also today for "Mulholland Drive". And the film announced for Saturday is forbidden for minors under 16 yr-old. So all of this to prove that cinema is a reflection of the world and that only a few things matter in the world ! But it's true that most of the Festival goers have fun of this tendancy : while queuing this morning, I heard a man says "The films are sure boring this year but at least we don't need to go to the Hot d'Or party to have excitement !"
Solamen
