Eight days and fifty-six films and I have yet to discover that jaw-droppingly great movie that awes and astonishes me and affirms the greatness of cinema as an art form. I know it awaits me. Cannes never fails to deliver at least one of those "WOW" experiences. Sometimes it comes on the last day as with "The Class." Sometimes I find it in the Market as with "Man On Wire." Sometimes it turns up in Un Certain Regard" as with "The Death of Mr. Lazarusco," Or the Director's Fortnight as with "Tarnation."
But usually it is a Competition film such as "A Prophet" or "Tree of Life" or "We Need to Talk About Kevin" or "Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days." There is no denying when it happens. It leaves me overwhelmed for days and stays with me to the present. I had a few hints of the sensation this year with "The Past," so far the most powerful film I've seen so far, but it couldn't sustain it. I am lagging behind with the Competition films having seen only eight of the fourteen that have played with six to go. They are all being repeated three of the next four days, so I will see them all before the festival concludes.
I was hoping for a "wow" experience today with Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives" as I had two years ago with his "Drive," both starring Ryan Gosling. But this Bangkok crime-thriller had none of the adrenalin rush of his previous film that won him best director honors. He seemed to be self-consciously trying to live up to that best director award going overboard with stylish effect not unlike Gaspar Noe with "Enter the Void." Gosling is more of a presence than an actor this time. Kristin Scott Thomas somewhat steals the movie with her commanding performance as his blond-haired monstrous mother.
It is immediately obvious that she is someone not to be trifled with when she is incensed that her room at a Bangkok hotel is not ready for her. She has just flown in to retrieve the body of her oldest son, who was murdered. She's not happy at all that Gosling has yet to revenge the murder, scoffing at his assertion that he may have deserved it for killing and raping a young prostitute. She tells him that he gave signs even when he was in her womb that he would be difficult and that maybe she should have had him aborted.
This was one of my two movies today that served up excessive violence and had a boxing connection. The other was "Diablo," a black-comedy from Argentina. Gosling manages a kick-boxing gym in Bangkok that serves as a cover for the family drug business. Diablo is a former champion boxer who has retired after killing someone in the ring played by Jorge D'Elia with a tour de force performance. He is hiding out at a friend's house. Two thugs manage to tie him up and use him as a punching bag. He manages to extricate himself and then beats them to death. He tortures a couple of guys trying to find out who sent those guys. His torture rivals that of "Heli," with its dousing someone's testicles with lighter fluid and then igniting it. He forces ice into his victim's mouths, then sticks a funnel in and pours boiling water from a tea kettle down their throats. The violence of this movie was much more gruesome than that of "Only God Forgives" and had people fleeing the small market screening room.
There was excessive violence and brutality as well in "My Sweet Pepper Land" that takes place in the gorgeous mountain scenery of Kurdish Turkey. I can certainly testify that the region is synonymous with violence. It is the cliched story of the local resistance to a young woman who has come to teach in a small isolated village. Not only is she unwelcome as a teacher but as a single woman. Her family sides with the locals not thinking it is appropriate behavior for a woman who ought to be married. Her five brothers come to take her away. The local chieftain spreads rumors that she is having an affair with the new police chief, who he is also trying to intimidate ans tame. The plot does not rise above cliche. The only reason it was selected to play in Un Certain Regard is because it looked so good and was very well cast.
"Soldier Jane" and "End of Time" were also unrealized, lesser efforts in the Market. Both featured women alone in the forest for at least a spell. "End of Time" takes place after a comet has hit the earth and wiped out much of the population. A young woman foraging for food in a forest stumbles upon a house with some canned goods. A young guy discovers her. They first attack each other but then team up. There was very little credibility to what follows.
"Soldier Jane" from Austria was an absurdist story of a 40-year old woman who is evicted from her luxury apartment after not paying rent for three years. She withdraws all her money then burns the wads of 500 and 100 euro notes in the forest. It was just one of a series of senseless acts that might have had some meaning if this script had had some sort of cohesion.
Two guys pedaling a swan-boat for 160 miles through the narrow waterways of England after an initial foray in the English Channel made for a pleasantly wacky documentary aptly titled "Swandown." Their destination was London and the Olympics. Along the way they are joined by various writers and artists who shared their out-of-whack philosophical bent. This was a fun little diversion of a movie.
Ken Loach offered up a deeply serious documentary endorsing socialism as the answer to society's woes. "The Spirit of '45" raises the point that there was full employment during WWII, so there is no reason other the corporate meddling that there isn't full employment now. The film is rich with post WWII celebratory footage and then the struggles of England to recover from the war. He interviews an array of people with personal post-war experience as well as present day authorities on how socialism is the humane approach.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Day Seven
Rather than thinning out, the crowds are only thickening, or at least descending upon the higher profile films that are also on my agenda. It was another three-reject day, two Competition films and the Claire Denis film in Un Certain Regard. At no other festival have I had such continuing bad luck. Not getting in is a bummer and a let-down, but that isn't what is so taxing, just the uncertainty of it. If I were willing to show up at a screening more than thirty minutes before its start, I could have gotten into any of them, but since none were bike-related I had no desire to sacrifice that much waiting time, although it allows me to read the various daily trade papers while trying to stay out of the waft of the smokers.
Among the hundred of us turned away from the ten p.m. Denis film was an American who let everyone around know, "I hate this country." He could well have been in the "Last Minute Access" line for people without an Invitation at the Palais earlier that morning for the Soderbergh Competition film. The guardians of the gate left us all hanging and never did tell us that we couldn't get in. A new policy this year gives people in that line priority for the screening at the nearby 60th Anniversary theater that starts thirty minutes after the screening in the Palais. If Ralph, my friend from Telluride who joined me the past two years but is taking this year off to hone his photographic skills at a school in Santa Barbara, were here this unannounced new policy would have had his blood boiling, as he made the effort to be among the first in line at the 60th so no one could budge in front of him. Now those people have to stand and wait while a hoard of similar pass holders are allowed to mix with the press who have priority at those screenings. I was quite surprised the first time I saw it happen and it caused a mini-riot. Once I knew about the new policy I just joined that special line at the Palais. Well today it didn't matter and for one of the few times ever (other than for "Inglorious Basterds" and "Melancholia") I did not get into the nine a.m. screening at the 60th Anniversary Theatre.
That was disheartening, but it allowed me to attend the 9:30 screening of "A Touch of Sin," the Chinese Competition film that played three days ago and has the second highest rating from "Screen" magazine's panel of critics. Moments before it was about to start I felt a tap on my should and looked up to see Milos of Facets wishing to slip into the seat beside me. He had walked out of the Soderbergh film after an hour saying it was getting tedious. He had missed the earlier screening of "A Touch of Sin" as it was playing when he had to file one of his reports for WBEZ back in Chicago, though he said he had attended the press conference of the film's director, who acknowledged the film would have to be edited to be able to play in China.
That was very understandable. When I spent a couple of months bicycling around China three years ago, the country made a point of how gunless it was compared to the US. Even the mafia gangs did not have guns, and had to resort to knifes and meat cleavers and crow bars for weapons. This movie puts that generalization to rest. Citizens with guns taking matters into their own hands, defending themselves or seeking revenge or committing a crime, is the dominant theme of the several stories of this film. One disgruntled guy uses a shotgun to kill the accountant and owner of the mine in his town for becoming greedy bastards. He also blasts a guy who is beating his horse. Each of the film's stories show someone unraveling, emphasizing that these are not the best of times in China. Each was powerful and quite well done, but I preferred the single narrative of the Mexican Competition film "Heli," even tho its average score from the critics was a 1.6 compared to the three on a scale of four for this. Any of the episodes of "Sin" could have made a worthy feature.
I would have also given the emotionally-involving "Like Father, Like Son," a Japanese film in Competition, a slightly higher rating than "Sin." A hospital discovers five years after the fact that it switched babies of two sets of parents. There is no easy resolution to the problem, though the hospital officials say that 100 per cent of parents prefer their blood child. It takes several months for the families to come to an agreement. None of the complications seem like the contrivance of a Hollywood scriptwriter as did all the plot twists in "The Past" and "Jimmy P." also vying for the Palm d'Or. One of the fathers is an over-achieving workaholic salaryman while the other is a happy-go-lucky small shop owner who baths with his children, something the workaholic couldn't imagine doing. This riveting story unravels naturally and effortlessly.
My efforts to see something in every time slot every day also rewarded me with two small but telling films from Mozambique and Tunisia. I was drawn to "Virgin Margarida" as it was about prostitutes in Maputo. My most googled blog entry is "prostitutes of Maputo," my tale of a night in a whorehouse in the capital city of Mozambique when I could find no place cheaper to stay. The prostitutes in this movie have been rounded up by the military in 1975 after Mozambique gains its independence from Portugal and are taken out into the countryside to be reeducated. They are overseen by a tough young woman. None of them had the glamour of the prostitutes of the whorehouse I stayed at adjoining a night club, but that did not detract from the realism of the film.
Women too are the focus of "Hidden Beauties," but in contemporary times as Tunisia is experiencing its Arab Spring upheaval. This could well have been titled "To Veil or Not To Veil," as that is the continual debate throughout the movie. It focuses on two young women who are good friends. One has taken to the veil and the other resists despite the demands of her fanatic brother and the rest of her family. Every argument imaginable for and against the veil is raised in one debate or confrontation after another. There are those who try to get the veiled woman to give hers up as well. This was most disturbing and poignant.
All these movies were realistic enough to have been documentaries of the issues they raised, complementing the three documentaries I did see during my seventh consecutive day-long movie marathon. Russell Crowe narrates "Red Obession." This could have been a companion piece to the Chinese movie, as it describes how the wine of Bordeaux has become maniacally popular in China, driving the price of a bottle to unheard of levels, over 500 dollars a bottle. Wine is a form of investment for people around the world. Since 1982 it has out-performed all other markets including gold.
The homeless of Paris are the subject of the very polished and artful "The Edge of the World." They are all interviewed at night by their makeshift encampments under bridges and in assorted nooks and crannies about the city, often with magnificently shot Parisian landmarks nearby. There were more shots of the Eiffel Tower than any other film in the festival so far, even "Girl on a Bike."
The Director Fortnight selection "Stop Over" was a grittier film shot in Athens mostly at an apartment that serves as an underground refuge for immigrants, many from Iran, and elsewhere in Asia, trying to infiltrate Europe. Then "refugees" are a most run-down and weary lot with a full catalogue of hard luck stories. It has taken each considerable risk and effort to get this far and none seem too eager to go further. One forty-year man is brought to tears recounting the hardships of his life.
Among the hundred of us turned away from the ten p.m. Denis film was an American who let everyone around know, "I hate this country." He could well have been in the "Last Minute Access" line for people without an Invitation at the Palais earlier that morning for the Soderbergh Competition film. The guardians of the gate left us all hanging and never did tell us that we couldn't get in. A new policy this year gives people in that line priority for the screening at the nearby 60th Anniversary theater that starts thirty minutes after the screening in the Palais. If Ralph, my friend from Telluride who joined me the past two years but is taking this year off to hone his photographic skills at a school in Santa Barbara, were here this unannounced new policy would have had his blood boiling, as he made the effort to be among the first in line at the 60th so no one could budge in front of him. Now those people have to stand and wait while a hoard of similar pass holders are allowed to mix with the press who have priority at those screenings. I was quite surprised the first time I saw it happen and it caused a mini-riot. Once I knew about the new policy I just joined that special line at the Palais. Well today it didn't matter and for one of the few times ever (other than for "Inglorious Basterds" and "Melancholia") I did not get into the nine a.m. screening at the 60th Anniversary Theatre.
That was disheartening, but it allowed me to attend the 9:30 screening of "A Touch of Sin," the Chinese Competition film that played three days ago and has the second highest rating from "Screen" magazine's panel of critics. Moments before it was about to start I felt a tap on my should and looked up to see Milos of Facets wishing to slip into the seat beside me. He had walked out of the Soderbergh film after an hour saying it was getting tedious. He had missed the earlier screening of "A Touch of Sin" as it was playing when he had to file one of his reports for WBEZ back in Chicago, though he said he had attended the press conference of the film's director, who acknowledged the film would have to be edited to be able to play in China.
That was very understandable. When I spent a couple of months bicycling around China three years ago, the country made a point of how gunless it was compared to the US. Even the mafia gangs did not have guns, and had to resort to knifes and meat cleavers and crow bars for weapons. This movie puts that generalization to rest. Citizens with guns taking matters into their own hands, defending themselves or seeking revenge or committing a crime, is the dominant theme of the several stories of this film. One disgruntled guy uses a shotgun to kill the accountant and owner of the mine in his town for becoming greedy bastards. He also blasts a guy who is beating his horse. Each of the film's stories show someone unraveling, emphasizing that these are not the best of times in China. Each was powerful and quite well done, but I preferred the single narrative of the Mexican Competition film "Heli," even tho its average score from the critics was a 1.6 compared to the three on a scale of four for this. Any of the episodes of "Sin" could have made a worthy feature.
I would have also given the emotionally-involving "Like Father, Like Son," a Japanese film in Competition, a slightly higher rating than "Sin." A hospital discovers five years after the fact that it switched babies of two sets of parents. There is no easy resolution to the problem, though the hospital officials say that 100 per cent of parents prefer their blood child. It takes several months for the families to come to an agreement. None of the complications seem like the contrivance of a Hollywood scriptwriter as did all the plot twists in "The Past" and "Jimmy P." also vying for the Palm d'Or. One of the fathers is an over-achieving workaholic salaryman while the other is a happy-go-lucky small shop owner who baths with his children, something the workaholic couldn't imagine doing. This riveting story unravels naturally and effortlessly.
My efforts to see something in every time slot every day also rewarded me with two small but telling films from Mozambique and Tunisia. I was drawn to "Virgin Margarida" as it was about prostitutes in Maputo. My most googled blog entry is "prostitutes of Maputo," my tale of a night in a whorehouse in the capital city of Mozambique when I could find no place cheaper to stay. The prostitutes in this movie have been rounded up by the military in 1975 after Mozambique gains its independence from Portugal and are taken out into the countryside to be reeducated. They are overseen by a tough young woman. None of them had the glamour of the prostitutes of the whorehouse I stayed at adjoining a night club, but that did not detract from the realism of the film.
Women too are the focus of "Hidden Beauties," but in contemporary times as Tunisia is experiencing its Arab Spring upheaval. This could well have been titled "To Veil or Not To Veil," as that is the continual debate throughout the movie. It focuses on two young women who are good friends. One has taken to the veil and the other resists despite the demands of her fanatic brother and the rest of her family. Every argument imaginable for and against the veil is raised in one debate or confrontation after another. There are those who try to get the veiled woman to give hers up as well. This was most disturbing and poignant.
All these movies were realistic enough to have been documentaries of the issues they raised, complementing the three documentaries I did see during my seventh consecutive day-long movie marathon. Russell Crowe narrates "Red Obession." This could have been a companion piece to the Chinese movie, as it describes how the wine of Bordeaux has become maniacally popular in China, driving the price of a bottle to unheard of levels, over 500 dollars a bottle. Wine is a form of investment for people around the world. Since 1982 it has out-performed all other markets including gold.
The homeless of Paris are the subject of the very polished and artful "The Edge of the World." They are all interviewed at night by their makeshift encampments under bridges and in assorted nooks and crannies about the city, often with magnificently shot Parisian landmarks nearby. There were more shots of the Eiffel Tower than any other film in the festival so far, even "Girl on a Bike."
The Director Fortnight selection "Stop Over" was a grittier film shot in Athens mostly at an apartment that serves as an underground refuge for immigrants, many from Iran, and elsewhere in Asia, trying to infiltrate Europe. Then "refugees" are a most run-down and weary lot with a full catalogue of hard luck stories. It has taken each considerable risk and effort to get this far and none seem too eager to go further. One forty-year man is brought to tears recounting the hardships of his life.
Day Six
This was a day of second choices. Three times I heard the word "complet" before I had my pass scanned by the usher at a theater's entry. Every time it was for a film a by name director--the Coen brothers, James Toback and James Franco. I'll have ample opportunity to see the Coen brothers' film, the the highest rated of the ten Competition films screened so far. The other two are no necessity. I had back-ups for all three films, so kept to my average of seven a day.
Its a rare year with no Hanake or Von Trier film in Competition. The Dutch film "Borgman" partially fills the void with elements from each--a family of affluence terrorized by a team of wackos and a quick-tempered husband and wife off and on at each other's throats. A long-haired homeless guy knocks at the door of the wealthy family asking if he can have a bath. The husband answers and categorically says no. The homeless guy says he knows his wife. A moment later she approaches the door herself. She denies knowing him. He says she once tended to him as a nurse in the hospital. She says she has never worked as a nurse.
The husband shoves the the guy out, knocks him down with a couple of punches and then repeatedly kicks him. His wife is appalled by his uncharacteristic response and later goes out to tend to the homeless guy. She gives him refuge in their small guest house and smuggles him into the house for a bath. The next day she says he ought to leave, but he refuses. She relents. The homeless guy eventually brings in several comrades leading to a diluted form of Hanake terror. Despite interesting characters all round, including a Dutch nanny and her military boy friend, the director Alex van Warmerdam had seemed to fully digest his material and lacked the firm and precise vision that could have made this more than a small curiosity.
At least there was a shred of veracity to this film, a quality notably lacking in my other Competion film for the day, Takeshi Milke 's "Shield of Straw." A squadron of 350 vehicles are escorting a young man who has committed a couple of heinous rapes and murders of young women that has enraged all of Japan. A businessman whose grand daughter was one of his victims has offered a billion yen to whoever kills him before he is brought to trial. No one is above suspicion wanting the bounty including the cops escorting him. Even this huge convoy is not enough to protect him as a semi-trailer full of nitroglycerin bashes through them, the first of countless absurdities. But Milke doesn't care about reality. His movies are simply exercises in highly stylized violence that are invariably cinematic enough to be selected for Competition. One has to choke though on the heaps of baloney he serves up.
Ritzy Panh's "The Missing Picture" was nothing but the essential truth, an essay-narrative in the spirit of Chris Marker about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot's takeover of Cambodia in 1975. Panh was a thirteen-year old at the time. He reconstructs the years of their complete overhaul of the country with archival footage and clay dolls. This was captivating and insightful cinema most worthy of its Un Certain Regard selection.
The Ecuadorian film "Path to the Moon" also won my full attention with its adept portrayal of a father and son on a 600-mile road trip through Costa Rica and Panama to a bowling tournament that the son is competing in. The father and son haven't seen each other in a while and are somewhat reconciling their relationship helped by a young woman hitch-hiker they have picked up. I particularly related to the film as I biked the exact route they took back in 1989.
I was also drawn to the documentary "Out of Africa: Quest for the Northern Lights," as it was described as a drive around Iceland, a route I have also biked. Iceland was simply a hook to draw people to this movie as it was largely an exercise in propaganda about how the West has plundered Africa over the years, first by its colonizers and then by multi-national corporations and the World Bank. Although there are short snippets of Iceland interspersed in the movie, often with a commercial for the hotel the film-makers stayed in, the film largely showed footage of Africa from over the years and all the troubles it has suffered, not only from whites, but black dictators as well.
An even bigger dud of a movie, as at least the Africa movie was well-financed and competently directed, was the American film "The Activist." This was a bad, inept movie in every respect and I knew it the moment it started. It had a worthwhile subject, the Wounded Knee confrontation in 1973, but the script did it no justice whatsoever. Two activists, one a Native American, are locked up in a small town cell for the duration of the movie. They are beaten by one of their jailers and receive a couple visits from a representative of President Nixon, accompanied by a pair of ditzy female assistants. There is no future whatsoever for this film. I regretted not having gone to see a documentary on climbing in Patagonia instead of this. Of the 42 films I've seen so far, this was easily the worst, but there's always at least one like that.
Being turned away from James Franco's directorial debut in Un Certain Regard of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" allowed me to see the documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" screening in the Director's Fortnight. The 84-year old Jodorowsky provided a most energetic commentary on his attempt to make "Dune". He'd lined up Salvador Dali and Orson Welles for two significant roles and had a team of artists and technicians working in Paris on all the special effects. Hollywood pulled the money on the project just as he was set to begin building sets in Algeria. All the preparatory work he put into it is argued to have been put to use in "Alien" and "Star Wars" and other seminal films. His "Dune" is considered the greatest movie never made.
Its a rare year with no Hanake or Von Trier film in Competition. The Dutch film "Borgman" partially fills the void with elements from each--a family of affluence terrorized by a team of wackos and a quick-tempered husband and wife off and on at each other's throats. A long-haired homeless guy knocks at the door of the wealthy family asking if he can have a bath. The husband answers and categorically says no. The homeless guy says he knows his wife. A moment later she approaches the door herself. She denies knowing him. He says she once tended to him as a nurse in the hospital. She says she has never worked as a nurse.
The husband shoves the the guy out, knocks him down with a couple of punches and then repeatedly kicks him. His wife is appalled by his uncharacteristic response and later goes out to tend to the homeless guy. She gives him refuge in their small guest house and smuggles him into the house for a bath. The next day she says he ought to leave, but he refuses. She relents. The homeless guy eventually brings in several comrades leading to a diluted form of Hanake terror. Despite interesting characters all round, including a Dutch nanny and her military boy friend, the director Alex van Warmerdam had seemed to fully digest his material and lacked the firm and precise vision that could have made this more than a small curiosity.
At least there was a shred of veracity to this film, a quality notably lacking in my other Competion film for the day, Takeshi Milke 's "Shield of Straw." A squadron of 350 vehicles are escorting a young man who has committed a couple of heinous rapes and murders of young women that has enraged all of Japan. A businessman whose grand daughter was one of his victims has offered a billion yen to whoever kills him before he is brought to trial. No one is above suspicion wanting the bounty including the cops escorting him. Even this huge convoy is not enough to protect him as a semi-trailer full of nitroglycerin bashes through them, the first of countless absurdities. But Milke doesn't care about reality. His movies are simply exercises in highly stylized violence that are invariably cinematic enough to be selected for Competition. One has to choke though on the heaps of baloney he serves up.
Ritzy Panh's "The Missing Picture" was nothing but the essential truth, an essay-narrative in the spirit of Chris Marker about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot's takeover of Cambodia in 1975. Panh was a thirteen-year old at the time. He reconstructs the years of their complete overhaul of the country with archival footage and clay dolls. This was captivating and insightful cinema most worthy of its Un Certain Regard selection.
The Ecuadorian film "Path to the Moon" also won my full attention with its adept portrayal of a father and son on a 600-mile road trip through Costa Rica and Panama to a bowling tournament that the son is competing in. The father and son haven't seen each other in a while and are somewhat reconciling their relationship helped by a young woman hitch-hiker they have picked up. I particularly related to the film as I biked the exact route they took back in 1989.
I was also drawn to the documentary "Out of Africa: Quest for the Northern Lights," as it was described as a drive around Iceland, a route I have also biked. Iceland was simply a hook to draw people to this movie as it was largely an exercise in propaganda about how the West has plundered Africa over the years, first by its colonizers and then by multi-national corporations and the World Bank. Although there are short snippets of Iceland interspersed in the movie, often with a commercial for the hotel the film-makers stayed in, the film largely showed footage of Africa from over the years and all the troubles it has suffered, not only from whites, but black dictators as well.
An even bigger dud of a movie, as at least the Africa movie was well-financed and competently directed, was the American film "The Activist." This was a bad, inept movie in every respect and I knew it the moment it started. It had a worthwhile subject, the Wounded Knee confrontation in 1973, but the script did it no justice whatsoever. Two activists, one a Native American, are locked up in a small town cell for the duration of the movie. They are beaten by one of their jailers and receive a couple visits from a representative of President Nixon, accompanied by a pair of ditzy female assistants. There is no future whatsoever for this film. I regretted not having gone to see a documentary on climbing in Patagonia instead of this. Of the 42 films I've seen so far, this was easily the worst, but there's always at least one like that.
Being turned away from James Franco's directorial debut in Un Certain Regard of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" allowed me to see the documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" screening in the Director's Fortnight. The 84-year old Jodorowsky provided a most energetic commentary on his attempt to make "Dune". He'd lined up Salvador Dali and Orson Welles for two significant roles and had a team of artists and technicians working in Paris on all the special effects. Hollywood pulled the money on the project just as he was set to begin building sets in Algeria. All the preparatory work he put into it is argued to have been put to use in "Alien" and "Star Wars" and other seminal films. His "Dune" is considered the greatest movie never made.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Day Five
Today was my much anticipated day with a pair of bicycling films, the last of the five in the program. The Belgian film with the alluring title "Allez Eddie!" was all I could hope for. The other, the German, "Girl on a Bicycle," proved Hollywood doesn't have exclusivity on making insultingly mindless romantic comedies that are painful to sit through.
"Allez Eddie!" takes place in 1975 during The Tour de France as Eddie Merckx is trying to become the first rider to win The Tour six times. An 11-year old boy by the name of Freddie imagines himself the next Merckx. He trains on a bike that hangs from the rafters in the attic of his house while listening to The Tour on the radio. He wears a Molteni cycling cap of Merckx's team with World Champion stripes. His bedroom is adorned with Merckx posters and other cycling memorabilia. His father too is an ardent cycling fan. His butcher shop has a painting of a cyclist. He goes to the local bar packed with other fans to watch The Race and wildly cheer on Merckx.
The butcher shop though is threatened by a supermarket that has just opened in town, an early-day Wal-Maet. A group of young men march around in uniform protesting it, as they fear it will drive all the small grocers out of business accusing people who patronize it of being collaborators. To gain local favor the supermarket sponsors a bicycle race for the youth of the town. The winner gets to go to Roubaix to meet Merckx. The son of the butcher enters the race, but under a different name, as his father and the vigilante group do not wish to support the race.
The Bicycle in Cinema Certification Board should immediately demand that the word "bicycle" be stripped from the title of "Girl on a Bicycle." Bicyclists need to be saved from being lured into this abomination. Though there is some random cycling in the movie, including a couple of trips on the legendary rental bikes of Paris, this is not by any means a cycling movie.
A young attractive woman is seen on a bicycle several times, catching the eye of a tour bus driver who has just proposed to his girl friend of four years. He sees her three different times, all at the same place near Notre-Dame. The third time, when he finally has a chance to ask her for her phone number, she refuses to give it. He chases after her in his double-decker tour bus, terrorizing everyone on board, who all flee the bus when he finally stops after running her down. He takes her to the hospital and then starts caring for her and her two small children who start selling him "Papa," sneaking off from his girl friend. It was all very stupid and silly, though slickly filmed. The Eiffel Tower is liberally sprinkled in and other tourist sites. Still there's no reason to go anywhere near this.
Once again I sacrificed the morning's two Competition screenings for a bicycle movie. At least it was "Allez Eddie!," well worth the sacrifice. I'm falling behind in my Competition viewing, having only seen three of the eight screened so far, but I can now concentrate on catching up. I did see the Mexican entry "Heli" today that was the second of the Competition films screened back on Thursday. It was part of my day's set of four gritty realistic films, the polar opposite of the lame-brained fantasy world of "Girl on a Bicycle."
"Heli" portrayed contemporary Mexico, while the others took me to Scotland, Morocco and India, all of which I am on familiar terms with thanks to my bicycle and tent. It's been a while since I biked Mexico, before drug lords have become such a brazen and dominant part of many communities such as that in "Heli." Heli is a young man with a young wife and baby who lives with his father and thirteen-year old sister. His sister is dating a seventeen-year old who is in the army and wants to marry her. She thinks she's in love too, though she's not sure and asks her brother's wife how she knew she was in love. She refuses to have sex with him, but they may soon run off to marry. Her boy friend steals several kilos of cocaine that the army had confiscated and was burning. He hides it in the water tank on top of his girl friend's house. Heli discovers it and tosses it into a pond.
The drug lords find out about the stolen cocaine and want it back. They show up at Heli's house with the soldier who stole it already bloody and beaten in the back of their military-style van. They take Heli and his sister and drive them to a home where three young boys who had been playing video games watch and then participate in the torture of the two guys that includes setting the testicles of one on fire as he hangs. A woman, who looks like she could be the mother of the boys, is occasionally seen in the background. The thirteen-year old is not around as someone else drives her off. The brazenness and casualness of the young drug thugs is astounding. This was the lone pregnancy movie of this day. When the thirteen-year shows up days later, unwilling to talk about her experience, a doctor discovers she is pregnant and that she will have to go elsewhere for an abortion.
"For Those in Peril" from Scotland in the Critic's Weekly was a similarly well-conceived and truthful film. It focused on the torment of a young man who was on the lone fishing boat of five that survived a storm. His brother was one of those killed. He wanders his village hoping that his brother will suddenly turn up. No one in the town wants to commiserate with him or give him work.
The Moroccan film "They Are the Dogs" shows a camera crew from a television station following a political prisoner around Casablanca just after he has been released after serving thirty years in prison as he visits friends and family who all thought that he was dead. He is let out in the midst of the Arab Spring. He knows nothing of his son. His last memory is giving him a bicycle. He had yet to learn to ride it when he disappeared. So buys a "stabilizer" (training wheel) for the bike. He is told that his son has become a famous bicycle racer. Such is the tone of this semi-cinema verité, half-serious, half-comical look at present-day Morocco.
There was no singing or dancing in the Indian thriller "Ugly," but plenty of violence and gritty realism. A young woman is kidnapped and a lot of people are involved trying to recover her in this Director's Fortnight film.
I also managed two quite good documentaries. The world of fashion continues to provide exemplary material for film. "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's" gave a most captivating history of the legendary Manhattan department store. It has launched the fashion careers of many designers. One of the latest is the young designer who has supplied Michele Obama with her inauguration dresses. The film maker had no shortage of interesting characters to interview, some of whom have appeared in other recent fashion-related docs including "Billy Cunningham New York."
Legendary extreme-skier and ski-Base jumper Shane McConkey also made an excellent subject for a documentary. It was a natural that Red Bull produced the film simply titled "McConkey." Watching all his death-defying stunts, it was inevitable that he would one day die. It is a wonder he lasted as long as he did up to 2009.
This was my first eight-film day this year thanks to an early 8:30 screening before the Belgian bicycle movie at eight and then a movie every two hours for the rest of the day. The iPad also made it possible, not having to seek out a computer for an hour but able to compose my report in the few minutes between each movie.
"Allez Eddie!" takes place in 1975 during The Tour de France as Eddie Merckx is trying to become the first rider to win The Tour six times. An 11-year old boy by the name of Freddie imagines himself the next Merckx. He trains on a bike that hangs from the rafters in the attic of his house while listening to The Tour on the radio. He wears a Molteni cycling cap of Merckx's team with World Champion stripes. His bedroom is adorned with Merckx posters and other cycling memorabilia. His father too is an ardent cycling fan. His butcher shop has a painting of a cyclist. He goes to the local bar packed with other fans to watch The Race and wildly cheer on Merckx.
The butcher shop though is threatened by a supermarket that has just opened in town, an early-day Wal-Maet. A group of young men march around in uniform protesting it, as they fear it will drive all the small grocers out of business accusing people who patronize it of being collaborators. To gain local favor the supermarket sponsors a bicycle race for the youth of the town. The winner gets to go to Roubaix to meet Merckx. The son of the butcher enters the race, but under a different name, as his father and the vigilante group do not wish to support the race.
The Bicycle in Cinema Certification Board should immediately demand that the word "bicycle" be stripped from the title of "Girl on a Bicycle." Bicyclists need to be saved from being lured into this abomination. Though there is some random cycling in the movie, including a couple of trips on the legendary rental bikes of Paris, this is not by any means a cycling movie.
A young attractive woman is seen on a bicycle several times, catching the eye of a tour bus driver who has just proposed to his girl friend of four years. He sees her three different times, all at the same place near Notre-Dame. The third time, when he finally has a chance to ask her for her phone number, she refuses to give it. He chases after her in his double-decker tour bus, terrorizing everyone on board, who all flee the bus when he finally stops after running her down. He takes her to the hospital and then starts caring for her and her two small children who start selling him "Papa," sneaking off from his girl friend. It was all very stupid and silly, though slickly filmed. The Eiffel Tower is liberally sprinkled in and other tourist sites. Still there's no reason to go anywhere near this.
Once again I sacrificed the morning's two Competition screenings for a bicycle movie. At least it was "Allez Eddie!," well worth the sacrifice. I'm falling behind in my Competition viewing, having only seen three of the eight screened so far, but I can now concentrate on catching up. I did see the Mexican entry "Heli" today that was the second of the Competition films screened back on Thursday. It was part of my day's set of four gritty realistic films, the polar opposite of the lame-brained fantasy world of "Girl on a Bicycle."
"Heli" portrayed contemporary Mexico, while the others took me to Scotland, Morocco and India, all of which I am on familiar terms with thanks to my bicycle and tent. It's been a while since I biked Mexico, before drug lords have become such a brazen and dominant part of many communities such as that in "Heli." Heli is a young man with a young wife and baby who lives with his father and thirteen-year old sister. His sister is dating a seventeen-year old who is in the army and wants to marry her. She thinks she's in love too, though she's not sure and asks her brother's wife how she knew she was in love. She refuses to have sex with him, but they may soon run off to marry. Her boy friend steals several kilos of cocaine that the army had confiscated and was burning. He hides it in the water tank on top of his girl friend's house. Heli discovers it and tosses it into a pond.
The drug lords find out about the stolen cocaine and want it back. They show up at Heli's house with the soldier who stole it already bloody and beaten in the back of their military-style van. They take Heli and his sister and drive them to a home where three young boys who had been playing video games watch and then participate in the torture of the two guys that includes setting the testicles of one on fire as he hangs. A woman, who looks like she could be the mother of the boys, is occasionally seen in the background. The thirteen-year old is not around as someone else drives her off. The brazenness and casualness of the young drug thugs is astounding. This was the lone pregnancy movie of this day. When the thirteen-year shows up days later, unwilling to talk about her experience, a doctor discovers she is pregnant and that she will have to go elsewhere for an abortion.
"For Those in Peril" from Scotland in the Critic's Weekly was a similarly well-conceived and truthful film. It focused on the torment of a young man who was on the lone fishing boat of five that survived a storm. His brother was one of those killed. He wanders his village hoping that his brother will suddenly turn up. No one in the town wants to commiserate with him or give him work.
The Moroccan film "They Are the Dogs" shows a camera crew from a television station following a political prisoner around Casablanca just after he has been released after serving thirty years in prison as he visits friends and family who all thought that he was dead. He is let out in the midst of the Arab Spring. He knows nothing of his son. His last memory is giving him a bicycle. He had yet to learn to ride it when he disappeared. So buys a "stabilizer" (training wheel) for the bike. He is told that his son has become a famous bicycle racer. Such is the tone of this semi-cinema verité, half-serious, half-comical look at present-day Morocco.
There was no singing or dancing in the Indian thriller "Ugly," but plenty of violence and gritty realism. A young woman is kidnapped and a lot of people are involved trying to recover her in this Director's Fortnight film.
I also managed two quite good documentaries. The world of fashion continues to provide exemplary material for film. "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's" gave a most captivating history of the legendary Manhattan department store. It has launched the fashion careers of many designers. One of the latest is the young designer who has supplied Michele Obama with her inauguration dresses. The film maker had no shortage of interesting characters to interview, some of whom have appeared in other recent fashion-related docs including "Billy Cunningham New York."
Legendary extreme-skier and ski-Base jumper Shane McConkey also made an excellent subject for a documentary. It was a natural that Red Bull produced the film simply titled "McConkey." Watching all his death-defying stunts, it was inevitable that he would one day die. It is a wonder he lasted as long as he did up to 2009.
This was my first eight-film day this year thanks to an early 8:30 screening before the Belgian bicycle movie at eight and then a movie every two hours for the rest of the day. The iPad also made it possible, not having to seek out a computer for an hour but able to compose my report in the few minutes between each movie.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Day Four
Today's "bicycle movie" was a false alarm. The program notes for the German film "The Famous Five 2" promised that four kids and a dog would set out on a journey by bike unaccompanied by their parents. That they do, but its just a short bike trip before they set up camp and go hiking. There wasn't much more biking in this children's movie except when the kids have to chase after a guy on a motorcycle carrying a special order pizza to one of their group who has been kidnapped by a couple of thugs, who mistake him for someone else, someone they think holds the key to finding the most valuable jewel in the world.
This was the first film of the festival I left early, half-way through after I finished the can of ravioli that was my lunch for the day. I would have stayed if the kids had spent the whole movie riding their bikes, or if I didn't need a hunk of time to file my report for the day. There wasn't much of a gap between movies for the rest of the day. I might have had to cut back to six for the day rather than the seven I'd been managing.
For the fourth consecutive day an unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock was an element of at least one movie. There were three today just as on Day One. It was the centerpiece of Daniel Auteil's "Fanny," a crowd-pleasing, semi-commercial adaption of a Pagnol story getting a screening in the Market. Auteil is in town serving on Spielberg's exceptional jury, but he did not show himself at his movie, other than on screen.
Auteil is the owner of a small bar in a French port city in Provence early last century. His son goes off to sea without telling him for a five year stint. He left behind a girl friend, who he doesn't know is two months pregnant. An older wealthy sail-maker has been trying to get her to marry him for some time. She decides to finally accept his proposal for the good of her child but fears the sail-maker would not have her knowing her condition. But he is delighted to raise the child as his own. There is much debate over these issues, but there is a happy resolution every time, even when the father of the baby makes a surprise, early return. Every conflict is settled amicably, if not nobly, even after heated debate. Pagnol shows the positive side of human nature with good-hearted, caring individuals.
Fathering a child as a 17-year and initialing denying it is one of the issues tormenting Benico Del Toro in the Competition film "Jimmy P." Jimmy is a native American suffering great trauma after WWII. He has severe headaches. His sister takes him to a special hospital for treatment. He seems physically sound despite a having suffered a head wound during the war that left a gash on the top of his head. A psychiatric specialist in Native Americans, played by a quirky Mathieu Amalric flaunting his French accent, is called in to help. The two lead actors deliver worthy performances, but the script portraying psychoanalysis at work left a bit to be desired.
It's not clear if the pregnancy in the Un Certain Regard film "Bends" from Hong Kong is planned or not. The pregnant woman is the wife of a chauffeur. It is their second child, and since they live in China, across the border from Hong Kong, where the chauffeur works for the wealthy wife of a banker, they are only allowed one child. There is a heavy fine for having a second. This is the first of all these pregnancy films to bring up the A-word. At one point as their options seem to be evaporating, the wife says, "Maybe we should have an abortion." They are trying to avoid the fine by having the child in Hong Kong. But the chauffeur must either get permission to bring his wife to Hong Kong for medical reasons or smuggle her in. The chauffeur asks a favor of the head nurse of a hospital to permit it, but she absolutely refuses. The cauffeur's boss has problems of almost equal magnitude herself. Her husband has not been home for days and her credit cards have been cancelled. She starts selling off her art work.
My day's choices also included a pair of movies about 30-year olds taking a stand against the consumer materialistic world. One goes off to the Amazon to assist a nun in her work. The other is a videographer in Finland who decides to put his all too-many belongings in a storage locker to prove happiness does not come from having a lot of stuff. He begins a year of having nothing other than an apartment, without even a refrigerator, to prove he can get along without them. He allows himself to recover one item a day for a year. He also takes a vow not to buy anything other than food for the year.
The movie was appropriately called "My Stuff." The first item he retrieves is a coat, which he wraps himself in to stay warm as he is otherwise naked as sleeps in his empty apartment on the first night of his withdrawal. It is his only possession. He is so happy when he recovers his mattress a while later he hugs and kisses it. He thinks he can be happy with not much, but he seems very happy with many of the things he gets back. On day eleven he recovers his bicycle and on day twelve his helmet. When his bike is later stolen he must borrow a bike from a friend. It is a necessity, as after 200 days he gets a date with a woman for a bike ride. He must also figure out a way to cut the Kryptonite lock from her bike, as the key is stuck in the lock. That takes five hours of several different attempts. He was reduced to such trivialities without having any but superficial insights to offer.
"There Will Come a Day" wasn't fully realized either, but it was much more genuine and heartfelt. The young Italian woman featured in this film begins a South American sojourn accompanying a nun on a boat going down the Amazon stopping in at small villages promoting Catholicism. The young woman isn't convinced that encouraging them to do observe rituals they do not understand, such as confessing, is right. She eventually goes off on her own and tries to help the indigent in a larger city.
"Viva La Liberta," another Italian movie rounded out my day. This comedy about a politician who disappears while his look-alike brother masquerades as him while he regains his will was just filler. It had a fine performance by the actor playing the two brothers, and some commentary on the moral vacuity of Italy, while being pleasantly diverting entertainment.
This was the first film of the festival I left early, half-way through after I finished the can of ravioli that was my lunch for the day. I would have stayed if the kids had spent the whole movie riding their bikes, or if I didn't need a hunk of time to file my report for the day. There wasn't much of a gap between movies for the rest of the day. I might have had to cut back to six for the day rather than the seven I'd been managing.
For the fourth consecutive day an unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock was an element of at least one movie. There were three today just as on Day One. It was the centerpiece of Daniel Auteil's "Fanny," a crowd-pleasing, semi-commercial adaption of a Pagnol story getting a screening in the Market. Auteil is in town serving on Spielberg's exceptional jury, but he did not show himself at his movie, other than on screen.
Auteil is the owner of a small bar in a French port city in Provence early last century. His son goes off to sea without telling him for a five year stint. He left behind a girl friend, who he doesn't know is two months pregnant. An older wealthy sail-maker has been trying to get her to marry him for some time. She decides to finally accept his proposal for the good of her child but fears the sail-maker would not have her knowing her condition. But he is delighted to raise the child as his own. There is much debate over these issues, but there is a happy resolution every time, even when the father of the baby makes a surprise, early return. Every conflict is settled amicably, if not nobly, even after heated debate. Pagnol shows the positive side of human nature with good-hearted, caring individuals.
Fathering a child as a 17-year and initialing denying it is one of the issues tormenting Benico Del Toro in the Competition film "Jimmy P." Jimmy is a native American suffering great trauma after WWII. He has severe headaches. His sister takes him to a special hospital for treatment. He seems physically sound despite a having suffered a head wound during the war that left a gash on the top of his head. A psychiatric specialist in Native Americans, played by a quirky Mathieu Amalric flaunting his French accent, is called in to help. The two lead actors deliver worthy performances, but the script portraying psychoanalysis at work left a bit to be desired.
It's not clear if the pregnancy in the Un Certain Regard film "Bends" from Hong Kong is planned or not. The pregnant woman is the wife of a chauffeur. It is their second child, and since they live in China, across the border from Hong Kong, where the chauffeur works for the wealthy wife of a banker, they are only allowed one child. There is a heavy fine for having a second. This is the first of all these pregnancy films to bring up the A-word. At one point as their options seem to be evaporating, the wife says, "Maybe we should have an abortion." They are trying to avoid the fine by having the child in Hong Kong. But the chauffeur must either get permission to bring his wife to Hong Kong for medical reasons or smuggle her in. The chauffeur asks a favor of the head nurse of a hospital to permit it, but she absolutely refuses. The cauffeur's boss has problems of almost equal magnitude herself. Her husband has not been home for days and her credit cards have been cancelled. She starts selling off her art work.
My day's choices also included a pair of movies about 30-year olds taking a stand against the consumer materialistic world. One goes off to the Amazon to assist a nun in her work. The other is a videographer in Finland who decides to put his all too-many belongings in a storage locker to prove happiness does not come from having a lot of stuff. He begins a year of having nothing other than an apartment, without even a refrigerator, to prove he can get along without them. He allows himself to recover one item a day for a year. He also takes a vow not to buy anything other than food for the year.
The movie was appropriately called "My Stuff." The first item he retrieves is a coat, which he wraps himself in to stay warm as he is otherwise naked as sleeps in his empty apartment on the first night of his withdrawal. It is his only possession. He is so happy when he recovers his mattress a while later he hugs and kisses it. He thinks he can be happy with not much, but he seems very happy with many of the things he gets back. On day eleven he recovers his bicycle and on day twelve his helmet. When his bike is later stolen he must borrow a bike from a friend. It is a necessity, as after 200 days he gets a date with a woman for a bike ride. He must also figure out a way to cut the Kryptonite lock from her bike, as the key is stuck in the lock. That takes five hours of several different attempts. He was reduced to such trivialities without having any but superficial insights to offer.
"There Will Come a Day" wasn't fully realized either, but it was much more genuine and heartfelt. The young Italian woman featured in this film begins a South American sojourn accompanying a nun on a boat going down the Amazon stopping in at small villages promoting Catholicism. The young woman isn't convinced that encouraging them to do observe rituals they do not understand, such as confessing, is right. She eventually goes off on her own and tries to help the indigent in a larger city.
"Viva La Liberta," another Italian movie rounded out my day. This comedy about a politician who disappears while his look-alike brother masquerades as him while he regains his will was just filler. It had a fine performance by the actor playing the two brothers, and some commentary on the moral vacuity of Italy, while being pleasantly diverting entertainment.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Day Three
I was turned away from only one film today, the least so far, and it wasn't the Tour de France film that the program stated was for Buyers only. It only took some minor convincing to talk my way into the screening. I told the film's representative that I was an avid fan of The Tour and that I had ridden The Tour route the last few years and planned to do it again this year. I showed her a photograph of me with The Devil at The Tour and told her that this was the film I was most looking forward to seeing in the festival. I'm not sure which impressed her the most, but she said to wait a few minutes until she was sure the theater didn't fill with buyers and she would let me in. There weren't any non-buyers such as me hanging around and there was no rush of buyers either, so my day, and maybe the festival, was made.
I has a similar experience at the Berlin film festival nearly fifteen years ago with "Phantom Pain," a German film that is one of the best bicycle movies ever, right up there with "Breaking Away" and "Two Seconds.". It was buyers only the too, but there weren't a great number of them so I was allowed in. If this movie, "Tour de Force," (the French title is more appropriately, "La Grande Boucle," the French euphemism for TheTour de France) was in its class, it wouldn't matter how good the films were the next nine days, the festival would be a great success. That was a tall order to fill. Unfortunately, this film was more like "Premium Rush," last summer's hokey bicycle messenger movie, than "Phantom Pain." Like "Premium Rush" it had some authentic bicycling footage and understood the sport, but deflated the movie with a nonsensical plot.
The premise showed promise. A 40-year old guy who works for a large chain of sporting good stores that sponsors a The Tour de France team is offered the dream assignment just before The Race starts of driving one of the team cars during The Tour. At the team presentation he accidentally bumps into the team's star and ruins his lucky necklace. The star is infuriated and demands that he be fired. To compound the guy's misery his wife is quite angry that he didn't tell her that he had just been given the driver assignment, as they had vacation plans, and once again allows The Tour to take precedence over her. She disappears with their teen-aged son and leaves him a note not to call.
He decides to fulfill a life-long dream of riding The Tour route on his own ahead of the racers. So far this is somewhat plausible other than the star throwing such a fit over his lucky talisman. At the team presentation, he is befriended by a former great team director, someone known as a "cycle-whisperer," a cycling version of "horse-whisperer." It is said that he whispered something into Greg LeMond's ear when he was struggling in the 1986 Tour, and that was how he won The Race. This crusty old character has just served two years in prison, taking the fall for a team owner. He offers to help this guy ride The Tour route. On the first stage the rider is befriended by a Dutch husband and wife and their 20-year old daughter who are following The Tour in an RV with a course marker in their front window as they have done for many years. They are such tour fanatics that their daughter was conceived as they followed The Tour one year. They feed him and give him massages and theirs daughter occasionally rides along with him. All good.
After a few stages the former team director arranges a TV crew to do a story on this guy's efforts and also arranges some sponsorship. His exploits become a national story covered on the Tour broadcast every day. It upsets the star and owner of the team who fired him that he is getting more attention than they are. The star challenges him to a personal race as he's being interviewed. The touring cyclist makes no pretense that he is competing with the riders, but on a rest day they square off in a mini-team time trial, something that would be utterly preposterous. Even more so, the fired guy enlists the help of Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert, two retired great French riders who are part of The Tour entourage every year, to be his teammates in this showdown.
The movie was filmed during The Tour two years ago. There is much footage taken from that race and others, shown on TVs in the background and also simply as part of the story. Since he is riding a day ahead of the racers, stage starts and finishes that have been set up are included in the movie. It is full of authentic detail. It also captures the superlative French scenery. Like "Phantom Pain" there is a dramatic cresting of the Tourmalet. One of the more grievous faults of the movie though is the pathetic double they used for The Devil, rather than including the real one.
Despite its many faults and the missed opportunity for another great cycling movie, I couldn't help but be pleased to see The Tour being showcased in a big budget movie with the story line of someone fulfilling the dream countless Tour fans of riding The Tour route. The movie is worth seeing if only for its opening, beginning with a toddler getting a bike for Christmas, then tracing his early career as a racer from a young tyke in home video type footage up through his teen-aged years. There is even a quick shot of a kid stopping along the road during a race to take a leak just like the professionals do. Another small delight was a French rapper by the name of Ame Strong. He takes the name because Armstrong was a bad mother-fucker. The son of the touring cyclist is a big fan of the rapper and runs away from his mother to attend one of his concerts. She calls her husband during the mock time trial worried about their son. He suspects where he has gone, so takes a beak from his Tour ride to go to the concert. The rapper is of course an ardent cycling fan and knows all about the touring cyclist following The Tour. That impresses his son and they have a reconciliation. He joins his dad for the rest of his ride to Paris. And there comes the final great great insult to the plausibility of this tale. The touring cyclist infiltrates the peloton, even though there is a squadron of gendarmes trying to catch him, and he is welcomed by the rider he had the rivalry with, who happens to be in the yellow jersey. There is some authentic race footage on the Champs Élysées mixed in with some credible footage of the guy racing along. The rider in yellow allows him to win the stage. His wife is awaiting him with open arms. A great movie could have been made of a touring cyclist following The Tour. It did not need all this brainless hocum.
This wasn't the only movie of the day with a rebelliousness teen-ager who flees her parents, causing them great consternation. The other was in the superb Competition entry "The Past," by Ashgar Farhadi, whose last film "A Separation," won the Oscar for best foreign film. This film has an almost equally intricate plot, tho on the service it just seems to be the simple story of the end of a marriage and the beginning of another. The Iranian husband of an Iranian couple returns to Paris after a four-year absence to finalize their divorce so his wife can remarry. The film is rich in bickering between the three principles. The wife is played by the star of "The Artist," and her boy friend by the star of "A Prophet," both Cannes award winners. The ten-aged girl isn't happy at all about her mother's new boy friend who has moved in with her. This was another movie with a pregnancy that has a strong bearing on the plot, as the woman is pregnant by her new boy friend, one of the reasons why they wish to marry. At 130 minutes, it may have been a trifle long, but it was a richly engrossing drama that could be worthy of best acting or script or more awards.
My only other feature of the day, along with four very mediocre documentaries, was the Un Certain Regard "Miele." The best part of this movie was the lead character getting around on her bicycle. She is a young woman who assists the terminally ill to commit suicide. The film takes place in Italy but she has to fly to Mexico periodically to get the barbiturates used to kill dogs for her clients. She is greatly upset when she discovers one of her clients isn't terminally ill and is just depressed. She tries to recover the poison she has sold him. Not much of this movie rang true.
When I was turned away from a repeat screening of the Competition film "Young and Beautiful" within eight people of getting in I greatly regretted having stayed to the end of the utterly stupid documentary "Shooting Bigfoot." This English production featuring several idiotic Americans who claim to have seen a Bigfoot and take the director for another citing was a complete waste of time. These Bigfoot fanatics were more moronic than conspiracy theorists, but there is enough interest in Bigfoot that these guys have websites and one has actually made four movies himself on his search. These guys were all so lame-brained not even Werner Herzog or Errol Morris could have made them interesting.
When I couldn't get into "Young and Beautiful" I filled in the time slot with a documentary on a town's recovery from the Japanese tsunami, "The Radio of Hope: After Tsunami 3.11." It had the noblest of attentions, but was very average film-making. It did more to represent the ways of the Japanese and their culture, than it did to she'd much light on its subject. The German documentary "Breath of the Gods," also did as much to show how it is in India as it did to elaborate on its subject, yoga. This movie would be a contortionist's delight with a considerable amount of archival footage of Indians twisting their bodies into extreme positions.
It is a shame that Spike Lee hadn't directed the documentary "Linsanity," as he would have certainly elevated this remarkable story to the heights it deserved, and gone easy on the religious angle, which was one of the prime thrusts of this effort. The movie seemed to have the full cooperation of Lin and his family. There are interviews with his parents and his brothers and home videos of Lin as a toddler and footage of his playing from youth leagues through high school and college and of course the pros. It is a conventional by-the-numbers documentary.
His rise to prominence was certainly phenomenal. Before he burst into international fame with the Knicks he had been cut by two teams that year and was about tom e cut by the Knicks. He was only given a chance to play because the Knicks in that strike-shortened year we forced to play three games in three nights and were greatly depleted. Lin knew it was his last chance and he gave it his all. The 89 points he scored in his first three starts, including 38 against the Lakers and Kobey Bryant, were the most any NBA player had scored in his first three games in the modern era. As mediocre as this movie was, it was still nice to relive this incredible story that ended up earning Lin a three year 25 million dollar contract with the Houston Rockets.
I has a similar experience at the Berlin film festival nearly fifteen years ago with "Phantom Pain," a German film that is one of the best bicycle movies ever, right up there with "Breaking Away" and "Two Seconds.". It was buyers only the too, but there weren't a great number of them so I was allowed in. If this movie, "Tour de Force," (the French title is more appropriately, "La Grande Boucle," the French euphemism for TheTour de France) was in its class, it wouldn't matter how good the films were the next nine days, the festival would be a great success. That was a tall order to fill. Unfortunately, this film was more like "Premium Rush," last summer's hokey bicycle messenger movie, than "Phantom Pain." Like "Premium Rush" it had some authentic bicycling footage and understood the sport, but deflated the movie with a nonsensical plot.
The premise showed promise. A 40-year old guy who works for a large chain of sporting good stores that sponsors a The Tour de France team is offered the dream assignment just before The Race starts of driving one of the team cars during The Tour. At the team presentation he accidentally bumps into the team's star and ruins his lucky necklace. The star is infuriated and demands that he be fired. To compound the guy's misery his wife is quite angry that he didn't tell her that he had just been given the driver assignment, as they had vacation plans, and once again allows The Tour to take precedence over her. She disappears with their teen-aged son and leaves him a note not to call.
He decides to fulfill a life-long dream of riding The Tour route on his own ahead of the racers. So far this is somewhat plausible other than the star throwing such a fit over his lucky talisman. At the team presentation, he is befriended by a former great team director, someone known as a "cycle-whisperer," a cycling version of "horse-whisperer." It is said that he whispered something into Greg LeMond's ear when he was struggling in the 1986 Tour, and that was how he won The Race. This crusty old character has just served two years in prison, taking the fall for a team owner. He offers to help this guy ride The Tour route. On the first stage the rider is befriended by a Dutch husband and wife and their 20-year old daughter who are following The Tour in an RV with a course marker in their front window as they have done for many years. They are such tour fanatics that their daughter was conceived as they followed The Tour one year. They feed him and give him massages and theirs daughter occasionally rides along with him. All good.
After a few stages the former team director arranges a TV crew to do a story on this guy's efforts and also arranges some sponsorship. His exploits become a national story covered on the Tour broadcast every day. It upsets the star and owner of the team who fired him that he is getting more attention than they are. The star challenges him to a personal race as he's being interviewed. The touring cyclist makes no pretense that he is competing with the riders, but on a rest day they square off in a mini-team time trial, something that would be utterly preposterous. Even more so, the fired guy enlists the help of Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert, two retired great French riders who are part of The Tour entourage every year, to be his teammates in this showdown.
The movie was filmed during The Tour two years ago. There is much footage taken from that race and others, shown on TVs in the background and also simply as part of the story. Since he is riding a day ahead of the racers, stage starts and finishes that have been set up are included in the movie. It is full of authentic detail. It also captures the superlative French scenery. Like "Phantom Pain" there is a dramatic cresting of the Tourmalet. One of the more grievous faults of the movie though is the pathetic double they used for The Devil, rather than including the real one.
Despite its many faults and the missed opportunity for another great cycling movie, I couldn't help but be pleased to see The Tour being showcased in a big budget movie with the story line of someone fulfilling the dream countless Tour fans of riding The Tour route. The movie is worth seeing if only for its opening, beginning with a toddler getting a bike for Christmas, then tracing his early career as a racer from a young tyke in home video type footage up through his teen-aged years. There is even a quick shot of a kid stopping along the road during a race to take a leak just like the professionals do. Another small delight was a French rapper by the name of Ame Strong. He takes the name because Armstrong was a bad mother-fucker. The son of the touring cyclist is a big fan of the rapper and runs away from his mother to attend one of his concerts. She calls her husband during the mock time trial worried about their son. He suspects where he has gone, so takes a beak from his Tour ride to go to the concert. The rapper is of course an ardent cycling fan and knows all about the touring cyclist following The Tour. That impresses his son and they have a reconciliation. He joins his dad for the rest of his ride to Paris. And there comes the final great great insult to the plausibility of this tale. The touring cyclist infiltrates the peloton, even though there is a squadron of gendarmes trying to catch him, and he is welcomed by the rider he had the rivalry with, who happens to be in the yellow jersey. There is some authentic race footage on the Champs Élysées mixed in with some credible footage of the guy racing along. The rider in yellow allows him to win the stage. His wife is awaiting him with open arms. A great movie could have been made of a touring cyclist following The Tour. It did not need all this brainless hocum.
This wasn't the only movie of the day with a rebelliousness teen-ager who flees her parents, causing them great consternation. The other was in the superb Competition entry "The Past," by Ashgar Farhadi, whose last film "A Separation," won the Oscar for best foreign film. This film has an almost equally intricate plot, tho on the service it just seems to be the simple story of the end of a marriage and the beginning of another. The Iranian husband of an Iranian couple returns to Paris after a four-year absence to finalize their divorce so his wife can remarry. The film is rich in bickering between the three principles. The wife is played by the star of "The Artist," and her boy friend by the star of "A Prophet," both Cannes award winners. The ten-aged girl isn't happy at all about her mother's new boy friend who has moved in with her. This was another movie with a pregnancy that has a strong bearing on the plot, as the woman is pregnant by her new boy friend, one of the reasons why they wish to marry. At 130 minutes, it may have been a trifle long, but it was a richly engrossing drama that could be worthy of best acting or script or more awards.
My only other feature of the day, along with four very mediocre documentaries, was the Un Certain Regard "Miele." The best part of this movie was the lead character getting around on her bicycle. She is a young woman who assists the terminally ill to commit suicide. The film takes place in Italy but she has to fly to Mexico periodically to get the barbiturates used to kill dogs for her clients. She is greatly upset when she discovers one of her clients isn't terminally ill and is just depressed. She tries to recover the poison she has sold him. Not much of this movie rang true.
When I was turned away from a repeat screening of the Competition film "Young and Beautiful" within eight people of getting in I greatly regretted having stayed to the end of the utterly stupid documentary "Shooting Bigfoot." This English production featuring several idiotic Americans who claim to have seen a Bigfoot and take the director for another citing was a complete waste of time. These Bigfoot fanatics were more moronic than conspiracy theorists, but there is enough interest in Bigfoot that these guys have websites and one has actually made four movies himself on his search. These guys were all so lame-brained not even Werner Herzog or Errol Morris could have made them interesting.
When I couldn't get into "Young and Beautiful" I filled in the time slot with a documentary on a town's recovery from the Japanese tsunami, "The Radio of Hope: After Tsunami 3.11." It had the noblest of attentions, but was very average film-making. It did more to represent the ways of the Japanese and their culture, than it did to she'd much light on its subject. The German documentary "Breath of the Gods," also did as much to show how it is in India as it did to elaborate on its subject, yoga. This movie would be a contortionist's delight with a considerable amount of archival footage of Indians twisting their bodies into extreme positions.
It is a shame that Spike Lee hadn't directed the documentary "Linsanity," as he would have certainly elevated this remarkable story to the heights it deserved, and gone easy on the religious angle, which was one of the prime thrusts of this effort. The movie seemed to have the full cooperation of Lin and his family. There are interviews with his parents and his brothers and home videos of Lin as a toddler and footage of his playing from youth leagues through high school and college and of course the pros. It is a conventional by-the-numbers documentary.
His rise to prominence was certainly phenomenal. Before he burst into international fame with the Knicks he had been cut by two teams that year and was about tom e cut by the Knicks. He was only given a chance to play because the Knicks in that strike-shortened year we forced to play three games in three nights and were greatly depleted. Lin knew it was his last chance and he gave it his all. The 89 points he scored in his first three starts, including 38 against the Lakers and Kobey Bryant, were the most any NBA player had scored in his first three games in the modern era. As mediocre as this movie was, it was still nice to relive this incredible story that ended up earning Lin a three year 25 million dollar contract with the Houston Rockets.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Day Two
I began the day with the bicycling film, "May I Kill U," sacrificing the day's two Competition films, which overlapped their morning screening. I did make an attempt on the 8:30 screening of Ozon's "Young and Beautiful," since it would let out at ten, just as the bicycling film started, but no one in the line for those without Invitations was let in. They were all funneled over to the 60th Anniversary Theater for the nine a.m. screening, which was too late for me. It will have to wait to Day Three or the end of the festival.
The bicyclist in "May I Kill U" is a vigilante London bicycle cop fed up with criminal behavior. He becomes a serial killer executing repeat offenders who incur his wrath. His first victim is a thief who earlier knocked him off his bike and caused him injury. He seeks him out, catching him with an armload of stolen goods. The criminal says he would rather die than go back to prison. So the cop asks him, "May I kill you." When the guy says "yes," he bashes him over the head with the big screen television that was among his stolen goods. His next victim is a domestic abuser. He warns him never to do it again. When he happens upon him again accompanied by his wife with another black eye, he takes him off and forces him into a dumpster and strangles him.
He ranges about on his bicycle, sometimes with a woman cop. She invites him to accompany her on a bike tour to Africa. He refuses at first, but then thinks he might do it. That's before he takes in a Bulgarian prostitute he rescues after killing her two pimps and releasing half a dozen other women they are holding to sell in prostitution, all confined to the back of a van. Not all his victims are hard criminals. He tells an elderly woman, who he catches shop-lifting chocolate, that he must execute her because he knows she has been a life-long shop-lifter with several convictions. His vigilantism becomes head-line news. His partner begins to suspect him, leading to a dramatic conclusion.
This wasn't my only satirical comedy on the times for the day. The other was a mockumentary, "The Conspiracy," an American film. Two young film-makers start making a documentary about a semi-crazed conspiracy theorist who takes to the streets with a bull-horn spouting his theories. As with the bicycle cop, he spends a lot of time on the Internet doing research. When he disappears without a trace a month after the film-makers became involved with him, they fear he's gotten too close to the truth with his research. They continue their project and suspect they are being stalked by a guy on a cool racing bike as was the initial subject of their documentary. Though this was no more far-fetched than the vigilante movie, it was more farcical than credible.
A legitimate documentary on Pussy Riot, "Pussy Riot--A Punk Prayer," was another commentary on the times. This well-polished effort had remarkable footage of the handful of performances the assorted women involved with Pussy Riot gave, as well as remarkable courtroom footage and interviews with the three women who end up being sentenced to two years in prison for their thirty-second outburst in a Moscow cathedral. Pussy Riot is more a feminist movement than an actual punk band. They only had five performances, all unannounced in some public space that they had someone video to put on the Internet. One was in a beauty parlor, another on the roof of a building near a prison. There were actually five women with colorful baklavas over their heads, the movement's trademark, who participated in the cathedral performance, but the authorities were only able to track down three of them. At other performances there were as many as eight of these women all hiding their identity. As much as wishing to empower women, Pussy Riot aimed to reveal the repressive nature of the Russian state. Their trial and the public reaction of outrage shows how extreme it is. The three women are repeatedly put on display in a cage for photographers. They smile and smirk at all the attention they have brought to their cause.
"Exposed" also focused on people who thrive on attention. This documentary on a handful of men and women who like to get naked on stage could have been called "Exhibitionists." The director Beth B certainly had no trouble getting them to agree to be filmed and to talk about themselves. That is their life. They considered their craft burlesque, not strip tease. A more interesting documentary might have been made about people who are drawn to watch such performances. This was less titilating than perplexing.
"Tale of a Forest," a Finnish documentary, was a necessary, soothing antidote to all these films on outrageous behavior. At last an opportunity to sit back and relax and be transported to the nature,al world, complete with gurgling streams, chirping birds, foraging bears, wandering elk and insects of all sorts. The film was complemented with relaxing music and an even-voiced English narration extolling the virtues of the forest.
Along with all the day's fringe cinema, five films worth, my day was highlighted by a pair of high-quality films that would please any cinephile--David Gordon Green's "Prince Avalanche," which played in Competition at Berlin this past January, and "Fruitville Station," a Sundance award-winner also this January.
Green's character-driven drama starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch painting yellow lines down the middle of a road in isolated rural Texas was the lone movie of the day with a pregnancy issue, down from yesterday's three such movies. Hirsch returns from his weekend in s sour mood. Rudd finally gets him to confess that it is because he just learned that a 46-year old woman he had slept with just a couple times told him she was pregnant with his baby. That is just one of many plot strands in this most engaging of films.
"Fruitville Station" is also rich in realistic characters and dialogue. It is the true story of the accidental killing of a young black man by a police officer on New Year's Eve on a Bart Station platform in the Bay Area in 2008. The victim had served time for dealing drugs but was trying to straighten out his life. He is portrayed way more sympathetically than necessary, but that the young director Ryan Coogler, who introduced the film to the Un Certain Regard audience, grew up in the area and intimately knew his material. The Weinstein Company will make sure this film gets seen by many, as it deserves to.
Getting in line an hour ahead of time wasn't early enough to see Sophia Coopola's Opening Night film for Un Certain Regard. The complaints that it should have been in Competition by those who hadn't even seen it seem unjustified by its the tepid response it received from the critics.
Once again I biked back to the campground in a misty drizzle, after biking in to start the day in an even harder rain. I wore shorts on the way in and changed into long pants. Lucky I wasn't wearing the long pants as I might have torn them when I took a spill when I turned to go up on the sidewalks as I neared the Palais and was caught by traffic. I didn't realize there was s bit of a curb hidden by a puddle of warm. It was my first fall in quite some time. Fortunately no damage.
The bicyclist in "May I Kill U" is a vigilante London bicycle cop fed up with criminal behavior. He becomes a serial killer executing repeat offenders who incur his wrath. His first victim is a thief who earlier knocked him off his bike and caused him injury. He seeks him out, catching him with an armload of stolen goods. The criminal says he would rather die than go back to prison. So the cop asks him, "May I kill you." When the guy says "yes," he bashes him over the head with the big screen television that was among his stolen goods. His next victim is a domestic abuser. He warns him never to do it again. When he happens upon him again accompanied by his wife with another black eye, he takes him off and forces him into a dumpster and strangles him.
He ranges about on his bicycle, sometimes with a woman cop. She invites him to accompany her on a bike tour to Africa. He refuses at first, but then thinks he might do it. That's before he takes in a Bulgarian prostitute he rescues after killing her two pimps and releasing half a dozen other women they are holding to sell in prostitution, all confined to the back of a van. Not all his victims are hard criminals. He tells an elderly woman, who he catches shop-lifting chocolate, that he must execute her because he knows she has been a life-long shop-lifter with several convictions. His vigilantism becomes head-line news. His partner begins to suspect him, leading to a dramatic conclusion.
This wasn't my only satirical comedy on the times for the day. The other was a mockumentary, "The Conspiracy," an American film. Two young film-makers start making a documentary about a semi-crazed conspiracy theorist who takes to the streets with a bull-horn spouting his theories. As with the bicycle cop, he spends a lot of time on the Internet doing research. When he disappears without a trace a month after the film-makers became involved with him, they fear he's gotten too close to the truth with his research. They continue their project and suspect they are being stalked by a guy on a cool racing bike as was the initial subject of their documentary. Though this was no more far-fetched than the vigilante movie, it was more farcical than credible.
A legitimate documentary on Pussy Riot, "Pussy Riot--A Punk Prayer," was another commentary on the times. This well-polished effort had remarkable footage of the handful of performances the assorted women involved with Pussy Riot gave, as well as remarkable courtroom footage and interviews with the three women who end up being sentenced to two years in prison for their thirty-second outburst in a Moscow cathedral. Pussy Riot is more a feminist movement than an actual punk band. They only had five performances, all unannounced in some public space that they had someone video to put on the Internet. One was in a beauty parlor, another on the roof of a building near a prison. There were actually five women with colorful baklavas over their heads, the movement's trademark, who participated in the cathedral performance, but the authorities were only able to track down three of them. At other performances there were as many as eight of these women all hiding their identity. As much as wishing to empower women, Pussy Riot aimed to reveal the repressive nature of the Russian state. Their trial and the public reaction of outrage shows how extreme it is. The three women are repeatedly put on display in a cage for photographers. They smile and smirk at all the attention they have brought to their cause.
"Exposed" also focused on people who thrive on attention. This documentary on a handful of men and women who like to get naked on stage could have been called "Exhibitionists." The director Beth B certainly had no trouble getting them to agree to be filmed and to talk about themselves. That is their life. They considered their craft burlesque, not strip tease. A more interesting documentary might have been made about people who are drawn to watch such performances. This was less titilating than perplexing.
"Tale of a Forest," a Finnish documentary, was a necessary, soothing antidote to all these films on outrageous behavior. At last an opportunity to sit back and relax and be transported to the nature,al world, complete with gurgling streams, chirping birds, foraging bears, wandering elk and insects of all sorts. The film was complemented with relaxing music and an even-voiced English narration extolling the virtues of the forest.
Along with all the day's fringe cinema, five films worth, my day was highlighted by a pair of high-quality films that would please any cinephile--David Gordon Green's "Prince Avalanche," which played in Competition at Berlin this past January, and "Fruitville Station," a Sundance award-winner also this January.
Green's character-driven drama starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch painting yellow lines down the middle of a road in isolated rural Texas was the lone movie of the day with a pregnancy issue, down from yesterday's three such movies. Hirsch returns from his weekend in s sour mood. Rudd finally gets him to confess that it is because he just learned that a 46-year old woman he had slept with just a couple times told him she was pregnant with his baby. That is just one of many plot strands in this most engaging of films.
"Fruitville Station" is also rich in realistic characters and dialogue. It is the true story of the accidental killing of a young black man by a police officer on New Year's Eve on a Bart Station platform in the Bay Area in 2008. The victim had served time for dealing drugs but was trying to straighten out his life. He is portrayed way more sympathetically than necessary, but that the young director Ryan Coogler, who introduced the film to the Un Certain Regard audience, grew up in the area and intimately knew his material. The Weinstein Company will make sure this film gets seen by many, as it deserves to.
Getting in line an hour ahead of time wasn't early enough to see Sophia Coopola's Opening Night film for Un Certain Regard. The complaints that it should have been in Competition by those who hadn't even seen it seem unjustified by its the tepid response it received from the critics.
Once again I biked back to the campground in a misty drizzle, after biking in to start the day in an even harder rain. I wore shorts on the way in and changed into long pants. Lucky I wasn't wearing the long pants as I might have torn them when I took a spill when I turned to go up on the sidewalks as I neared the Palais and was caught by traffic. I didn't realize there was s bit of a curb hidden by a puddle of warm. It was my first fall in quite some time. Fortunately no damage.
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