Cannes: It's going to be a bloodbath

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Cannes: It's going to be a bloodbath

If Cannes Film Festival were a gladiatorial arena, this year there would be a bloodbath.

No swords will be unsheathed, but the duels are as much metaphorical as it is literal: The line-up of films in the top-tier In Competition, the special Out-of-Competition, and the sidebar Un Certain Regard, is packed to the gills with respected (and daredevil) filmmakers, setting off an anticipation that the on-screen contest at this influential cinefest will be the most exciting in years.

The 62nd Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13 to 24, during which slobbering critics and industry professionals watch dozens of World Premieres and gauge the pulse of world cinema. Culturally speaking, Cannes is like a G-20 summit of art films: the festival, in its good year, illuminates the path blazed by (some of) the most brilliant minds in the cinema. Or even -- in its great year -- the artistic expression borne by the selected films lets us glimpse into the unknown -- of the human heart, of the secret machinery of feelings, of the hidden evil of our own mind. If the Olympics thrills us with the sight of what a human body can achieve, Cannes is the Olympics in which we watch how artists can stretch the horizons of the movies.

Forgive me if I've come across as too effusive. The fact is the films in this year's Official Selection (about 50 movies have been picked from over 1,700 submissions) are really electrifying (on paper at least). It's also a good year for Southeast Asian cinema, with films from Thailand, the Philippines (three films actually!), Singapore and Malaysia all having been picked by the festival.

During the next two weeks I will blog from Cannes to keep the readers updated -- again just like sports journalists reporting from the Olympics or the World Cup. For now let's take a look at the films that have been selected to join the procession this year:

IN COMPETITON (revered elites, you could say)

"Inglourious Basterds" by Quentin Tarantino

"Broken Embraces" by Pedro Almodovar ("Volver", "All About my Mother")

"Fish Tank" by Andrea Arnold ("Red Road")

"Un Prophete" by Jacques Audiard ("The Beat that My Heart Skipped")

"Vicenre" by Marco Bellocchio

"Bright Star" by Jane Campion (The Piano)

"A L'Origine" by Xavier Giannoli

"Map of the Sounds of Tokyo" by Isabel Coixet ("Elegy")

"The White Ribbon" by Michael Haneke ("Cache", "Funny Games")

"Taking Woodstock" by Ang Lee

"Looking for Eric" by Ken Loach

"Spring Fever" by Lou Ye ("summer Palace")

"Kinatay" by Brillante Mendoza ("Serbis")

"Enter The Void" by Gasper Noe ("Irreversible")

"Thirst" by Park Chan-Wook ("Oldboy")

"Les Herbes Folles" by Alain Resnais

"The Time That Remains" by Elia Suleiman

"Vengeance" by Johnnie To

"Face" by Tsai Ming-liang ("I Don't Want to Sleep Alone")

"Antichrist" by Lars Von Trier ("Dogville")

OUT OF COMPETITION (A kind of special showcase)

"L'Armee Du Crime" by Robert Guediguiam

"Agora" by Alessandro Amenabar ("Open Your Eyes")

"The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus " by Terry Gilliam

The sole Thai film "Nang Mai", by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, is in the UN CERTAIN REGARD section -- a sidebar programme of around 20 films reserved for upcoming/edgy filmmakers (though it's getting harder by the year to describe what exactly UN CERTAIN REGARD is, anyway, it's the little brother ofthe IN COMPETITION and OUT Of COMPETITION).

The rest of the UN CERTAIN REGARD are:

"Mother" by Bong Joon Ho
"Irene" by Alain Cavalier
"Precious" by Lee Daniels
"Demain Des L'Aube" by Denis Dercourt
"Adrift" by Heitor Dhalia
"Nobody Knows About The Persian Cats" by Bahman Ghobadi
"The Wind Journeys" by Ciro Guerra
"Le Pere De Mes Enfants" by Mia Hansen-Love
"Tales From The Golden Age" by Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Propescu and Ioanna Uricaru
"Tale In The Darkness" by Nikolay Khomeriki

"Dogtooth" by Yorgos Lanthimos
"Tzar" by Pavel Lounguine
"Independencia" by Raya Martin

"Police, Adjective" by Corneliu Porumboiu
"To Die Like A Man" by Corneliu Porumboiu
"Eyes Wide Open" by Corneliu Porumboiu
"Samson & Delilah" by Warwick Thornton
"The Silent Army" by Jean Van De Velde
"Air Doll" by Hirokazu Kore-Eda

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The closing film, meanwhile, is what I'm eagerly looking forward to: "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky", by Jan Kounen, an account of the affair between the French fashion icon and the Russian-born composer. It's said that the film will feature the infamous Paris premiere of Stravinski's 'The Rite of Spring". That's what's getting me slobbering like a mastiff!