Cannes 2008 - Jour Trois (et 1/2)

Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and
Woody Allen on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona

As promised, here are a few more reviews from the third day (yesterday) of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

First off, Anne Thompson talked to Michael Moore about his sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11.

Also, since I posted the first summary yesterday, several readers have pointed out that more reviews of Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona have come in that contradict Jeff Wells’ pan. Calling it a film that is “all about sexual attraction and what to do about it (and in what combinations),” Variety’s Todd McCarthy says Allen appears to have drawn inspiration from Barcelona in the same way he did from London in Match Point. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a sexy, funny divertissement that passes as enjoyably as a summer’s afternoon in the titular Spanish city.”

Soi Cowboy, the 2nd film from the UK’s Thomas Clay (The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael) screened in Un Certain Regard. Most of the reviews of this simple story of a Danish man and his pregnant Thai girlfriend in Thailand seem to be trending middling to negative with the consensus being that this is strictly arthouse fair. However, the film was shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century) and it features several cinephilic allusions to Antonioni, Weerasethekul, David Lynch, Bela Tarr and others. Calling it “the least British UK film you’ve ever seen,” Jonathan Romney blogs in The Independent that “Soi Cowboy confirms - as his first film didn’t quite - that Clay is a man to watch.”

I couldn’t resist this opening description of Rumba from Variety’s Jordan Mintzer: “Like an episode of Sesame Street scripted by Luis Bunuel and helmed by Jacques Tati, Rumba turns dark tragedy into deadpan comedy through a series of surreal G-rated gags.” A special Critics’ Week screening, the film was written and directed by Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy and it tells the story of two avid dancers who are handicapped by a terrible car accident.

The Seven Days is another Critics’ Week special screening. Israeli brother and sister writer/director team Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz return to the story of an unhappy couple they began with To Take a Wife. You may remember Elkabetz from her role in The Band’s Visit. Variety’s Jay Weissberg found it lacking in the searing intensity of the first film saying “the dramatic arc becomes a repetitive series of peaks and valleys” between the two characters.

Weissberg also took in Romanian filmmaker Radu Muntean’s Boogie as part of the Directors’ Fortnight. It caught my eye because it has Anamaria Marinca from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in it. Unfortunately the old tale of a group of friends who grow apart after high school doesn’t appear to hit the mark.

I’ll have recaps of day 4 later today or this evening. For now, I’m off to see some movies.

Filed under: Film Festivals

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