With Grace, Cannes Film Festival opens tonight

With Grace, Cannes Film Festival opens tonight

Cannes remains hefty and unmissable despite its shortage of Asian films

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
With Grace, Cannes Film Festival opens tonight

From the woes of Princess Grace to weird limo sex, from a Saint Laurent biopic to a 3D envelope-pusher, the 67th Cannes Film Festival rolls out its enviably red carpet tonight in an annual cinema bash that sees the world’s brand-name directors unveiling their latest offerings. The Nicole Kidman-starring Grace Of Monaco, by director Olivier Dahan (La Vie En Rose), will open the 10-day festival to the usual surfeit of glitz, before the gladiatorial ring of European-heavy filmmakers take turns to gauge the pulse of cinema art through their fine (and not so fine) movies.

67th Cannes Film Festival poster.

Every year, someone complains about Cannes’ line-up, certainly the most elite pickings from the latest crop of world cinema. This year, the Competition entries are hefty though not entirely surprising, and a small number of Asian films has raised a lot of eyebrows. Naomi Kawase’s Still The Water, a tale of young love in an isolated Japanese village, is the only title from this part of the world to be picked for the top tier section, though if we look at greater Asia, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the best-known cinema auteur from Turkey, also arrives with his 190-minute Winter Sleep (another early carping: so many long films). Over to the second-tier Un Certain Regard category, July Jung from South Korea makes the cut with her first feature A Girl At My Door, and Wang Chao from China will present his new film Fantasia. Meanwhile the much-expected Coming Home by Zhang Yimou, a Cultural Revolution drama starring Gong Li, gets an Out of Competition slot, which means it’s not eligible for the Palme d’Or prize.

The last Asian film to win the Palme d’Or was Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, in 2010.

But to take a jibe at Cannes has become a sport, and usually it’s not justified. This year’s Competition titles — which see a good number of rather not-so-young directors — also promises if not a revelation then at least a fair crop of solid works from filmmakers who hardly misstep. To start with, we have Goodbye To Language, a 3D film by Jean-Luc Godard, the trailblazer of the 1960s French New Wave who’s now 83, and who remains steadfastly revolutionary in his probe into the ever-expanding bounds of cinema. A Godard film never fails to confound and dazzle, and we hope this one — his first in Cannes Competition in a decade — will pack a punch and verve.

David Cronenberg, 71, will land in the Riviera with Maps To The Stars, a Hollywood-on-fire story starring Robert Pattinson and Julianne Moore, and the trailer has already left viewers gaping at a steamy, scary sex scene in a car’s back seat. Cronenberg ’s previous film, Cosmopolis, also starring Pattinson, is a woozy head trip through Manhattan; the new film takes on California and its spiritual and visceral vices, which gives us a high hope of seedy thrills. Another Canadian director in the Competition is Atom Egoyan, who’s back after a long absence with kidnapping story Captives. And yet there’s another Canadian auteur, whose presence will also bring the average age of Competition directors down a few notches: Xavier Dolan, 25, breaks into the top class with Mommy. The Quebecois director — a precocious brat or master in the making, take your pick — first had a film in Cannes when he was barely 20, but this story of a widowed mother and her son is the first time on the Competition red carpet.

Otherwise, it feels like a European summit of established masters. Two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne from Belgium return with Two Days, One Night, starring Marion Cotillard as a working-class woman fighting for her rights. From England, we have two respected septuagenarians: Mike Leigh, 71, comes with Mr Turner, about the artist J.M.W. Turner (of the Turner Prize); and Ken Loach, 78, is in Competition with Jimmy’s Hall, about a political activist in exile. From Russia, Andrey Zvyagintsev will present Leviathan, which, like most Russian drama since Tolstoy, sounds very heavy. Then we have the French. And the best bet is on Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent, a biopic of the celebrated designer (not to be confused with another film telling the same story, called Yves Saint Laurent, which has been released in France earlier), and on Olivier Assayas’ Clouds Of Sils Maria, which stars Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart and Chloe Grace Moretz in a story of an ageing actress and a young upstart. Then, probably less exciting to me at least, is the new film by the Michel Hazanavicius (of The Artist) called The Search, a war drama set in Chechnya — in colour and sound, of course.

Last year, one of the most resonating quibbles was how Cannes seemed to overlook female directors and undermine the diversity of its line-up. This year, the festival has appointed Jane Campion as head of jury (which makes five women and four men), and included two woman filmmakers in the Competition: Kawase of Japan and Alice Rohrwacher from Italy (The Wonders). In the sidebar Un Certain Regard, we have even more women at the helm: Jessica Hausner with Amour Fou, Asia Argento with Incompresa, Pascale Ferran with Bird People, Keren Yedaya with That Lovely Girl, July Jung with A Girl At My Door, and Marie Amachoukeli and Claire Burger with Party Girl.

In addition to these, Ryan Gosling will premiere his directorial debut Lost River in Un Certain Regard section (last year, it was James Franco’s first as director, which was quickly forgotten). That said, Cannes, for all its circus-like bustle, its quirks, glamour and indulgences, remains the most influential movie festival and a crossroads of cinema as art, dream and marketplace. We’ll have more reports on the festival in Life as well as online over the next 10 days. Stay tuned.

The Competition Line-Up

Opening film: Grace Of Monaco by Olivier Dahan (Out of Competition).

- Clouds Of Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas.

- Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello.

- Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

- Maps To The Stars by David Cronenberg.

- Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Two Days, One Night) by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

- Mommy by Xavier Dolan.

- Captives by Atom Egoyan.

- Adieu Au Langage (Goodbye Language) by Jean-Luc Godard.

- The Search by Michel Hazanavicius.

- The Homesman by Tommy Lee Jones.

- Still The Water by Naomi Kawase.

- Mr Turner by Mike Leigh.

- Jimmy’s Hall by Ken Loach.

- Foxcatcher by Bennett Miller.

- Le Meraviglie (The Wonders) by Alice Rohrwacher.

- Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako.

- Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales) by Damian Szifron.

- Leviathan by Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Nicole Kidman in Grace Of Monaco. The film will open the 67th Cannes Film Festival tonight.

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in Clouds Of Sils Maria.

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