Tim Burton and the jury awarded Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives the Palme d'Or at Cannes today, marking the first Palme d'Or for the director and for Thailand. Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady (which still feels like a giant oversight by Quentin Tarantino and his jury that year, who gave the Palme d'Or to Fahrenheit 9/11) and the Un Certain Regard Award in 2002 for Blissfully Yours. You can watch A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, the director's fantastic 17-minute short which he expanded into the feature, on MUBI. In his fourth outing as a feature director, Mathieu Amalric took home the Best Director prize for Tournée [On Tour]. In a rare tie, Javier Bardem and Elio Germano were named the Best Actors for Biutiful and La nostra vita [Our Life] respectively, and Juliette Binoche won her first Best Actress prize at Cannes this year for Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme [Certified Copy]. Rounding out the rest of the awards: Lee Chang-dong won Best Screenplay for Poetry, Xavier Beauvois' Des hommes et des dieux [Of Gods and Men] was awarded the Grand Prix and Michael Rowe's Año bisiesto [Leap Year] won the Caméra d'Or (for best first film). Full awards below:
Palme d'Or: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, d. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Germany/Spain/United Kingdom Grand prix: Des hommes et des dieux [Of Gods and Men], d. Xavier Beauvois, France
Prix du jury: Un homme qui crie [A Screaming Man], d. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, France/Chad Prix de la mise en scène [Best Director]: Mathieu Amalric - Tournée [On Tour] Prix d'interprétation féminine [Best Actress]: Juliette Binoche - Copie conforme [Certified Copy] Prix d'interprétation masculine [Best Actor]: (tie) Javier Bardem - Biutiful; Elio Germano - La nosta vita [Our Life] Prix du scénario [Best Screenplay]: Lee Chang-dong - Poetry Caméra d'Or: Año bisiesto [Leap Year], d. Michael Rowe, Mexico
Le voyage du ballon rouge [Flight of the Red Balloon] – dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien
[Edited together from previous entries]
There are so many singular aspects of Flight of the Red Balloon, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first film made outside of Asia, to marvel at that it's almost stupefying that the film encompasses them with such ease. Firstly, there's Mark Lee Pin Bing's cinematography, with is so ravishing in its golden hues that my eyes almost couldn't handle it. The Parisian locale glimmers in ways the city never has before, rivaled in its majesty only by Denis Lavant, Juliette Binoche and an array of fireworks on the Pont Neuf in Leos Carax’s Lovers on the Bridge.
Which brings us to the second element, Juliette Binoche, an actress so gifted as to become nearly unrecognizable in nearly every film she appears, a “character actor” and a “leading lady” all at once. Binoche makes acting look effortless, and I think that causes one to underestimate her incredible skill. There’s a moment near the end of the film where, distraught, Binoche, playing an actress/single mother, tries to wipe away her tears as she asks her young son (Simon Iteanu) how his day went. That single moment, the way Binoche provides so much feeling and complexity in a single gesture, is what great acting is made of.
And finally (though you could easily highlight other aspects), there's Hou Hsiao-hsien, the most important ingredient. Commissioned by the Musée d’Orsay to celebrate their 20th anniversary (which also brought us another of the decade’s best films in Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours), the director uses Albert Lamorisse’s classic fantasy The Red Balloon [Le ballon rouge] as a vivid visual cue, though the balloon itself is absent for a good portion of the film but, more impressively, allows it to uncover a beautiful sadness through the imagination of a young boy. Flight of the Red Balloon is an absolute marvel.
With: Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu, Song Fang, Hippolyte Girardot, Louise Margolin, Anna Sigalevitch Screenplay: Hou Hsiao-hsien, François Margolin Cinematography: Mark Lee Pin Bing Country of Origin: France US Distributor: IFC Films
Premiere: 17 May 2007 (Cannes Film Festival) US Premiere: 7 October 2007 (New York Film Festival)
I've often joked that Abel Ferrara, like Sam Fuller before him, isn't so much "an American filmmaker" as he is the French's idea of "an American filmmaker." He's pulpy and seedy, particularly when addressing issues of philosophy, spirituality and religion. It's recently dawned on me that more than just that, he's the French's idea of an American Ingmar Bergman. As peculiar as that seems, Ferrara's torrid relationship with Christianity appears to have eluded my thoughts until he tackled the issue head-on in Mary. In Mary, Ferrara places Forest Whitaker in the Harvey Keitel role, a total cod whose bad behavior karmicly releases the ultimate test of faith as he's haunted by the performance of Marie Palesi (Juliette Binoche) as Mary Magdalene in yet another Jesus flick. Now, Ted Younger (Whitaker) is no stranger to Jesus and faith; he hosts a popular television program examining the origins of the Christian messiah. However, when his job becomes more important than his relationship with his pregnant wife (Heather Graham) and suspicion is raised about his extramarital affair with actress Gretchen (Marion Cotillard), he seeks understanding from the elusive Marie in his path of redemption.
Like most of Ferrara's work, Mary is deeply flawed. It's a filthy orgy of controversial ideas, none of which come to a simultaneous climax, or even a coherent one. In researching other people's thoughts of Mary, I discovered that the film's crossover appeal (as in an appeal to anyone outside of Ferrara's small fanbase) is pretty much null, almost entirely attributed to the film's shaky stance on faith in chaos. However, to the Ferrara admirer, Mary works beautifully into his oeuvre, a fascinating mess of frustration and admiration.
Where Ferrara succeeds in Mary is in his character placement. Marie, played phenomenally by Binoche, is undoubtedly the most captivating figure in the film and most of her fascination comes from the realization that Ferrara doesn't understand her at all. After taking on the role of Mary Magdalene, Marie spirals into a moral and spirital abyss, unable to shake her own performance, which (according to Whitaker) is shattering. Part of the blame can be placed upon the film's writer/director/star Matthew Modine, a deplorable megalomaniac whose delusions run much deeper than simply casting himself as Jesus. According to Cotillard, it's Modine's self-importance and incompetence as a director which keeps Binoche from leaving Jerusalem. Binoche's personal crisis shrouds the entire film without becoming its central focus. Outside of Lili Taylor's Kathleen in The Addiction (and Drea DeMatteo's nameless character in 'R Xmas, which I hadn't seen at the time), she's the only Ferrara woman I can think of that doesn't fit into his dual idea of women, the simple Madonna/whore complex seen in its fullest between Béatrice Dalle and Claudia Schiffer in The Blackout. It's perhaps in Binoche's obsession with Mary Magdalene, a whore according to certain gospels, Jesus' number one disciple according to others, that her Marie breaks the mold of a typical Ferrara woman in becoming something entirely separate, something he clearly doesn't "get." In keeping Marie in the background while still placing her as the driving force of Mary, Ferrara turns her into a haunting figure as enigmatic and impenetrable as the mysteries of Jesus himself.
There's a chilling relevance to Binoche's Marie, escalated by the death of Heath Ledger, which happened around the time I first saw Mary. As far as most reports go, his death may have been caused by the inability to shake his last role, that of the Joker in Batman. To those unfamiliar with the method of acting, both Marie's conversion and Ledger's death haunt to the bone, a possession of which those outside of the field could never fully grasp. I understand it even less than Ferrara seems to, and it's in this ignorance, or more specificially the impossibility of empathy, that Binoche's performance, reminiscent of Liv Ullmann's Elisabet in Persona, becomes so breathtaking... and scary. There comes a point where Whitaker's tribulations reek of familiarity in the context of Ferrara, but it's Binoche's looming presence that holds the film to where it needs to be. Like Ullmann's disastrous effect on Bibi Andersson, Binoche drives Mary into its frenzy.
With: Forest Whitaker, Matthew Modine, Juliette Binoche, Heather Graham, Marion Cotillard, Stefania Rocca, Marco Leonardi, Luca Lionello, Mario Opinato, Elio Germano, Emanuela Iovannitti Screenplay: Abel Ferrara, Mario Isabella, Simone Lageoles, Scott Pardo Cinematography: Stefano Falivene Music: Francis Kuipers Country of Origin: Italy/France/USA US Distributor: N/A
Premiere: 6 September 2005 (Venice Film Festival)
Awards: Grand Special Jury Prize (Venice Film Festival)
Separating Olivier Assayas' films into two camps, the "globe-trotting erotic-thriller" and the "prestige" pic, is an easy action. On a superficial level, Boarding Gate and Summer Hours couldn't be more different. However, when it comes to Assayas' work, most people choose to make the simple connections, such as the one above or noting the similarities between demonlover and Boarding Gate without recognizing their strong dissimilarities. But really, pairing one against the other overlooks the central idea that appears in nearly his entire body of work (I haven't seen any of the films that came before L'eau froide): a search for identity within changing landscapes, even if it's indirect.
In Summer Hours, the search is quite apparent. After the passing of their mother Hélène (Edith Scob), three siblings (Charles Berling, Juliette Binoche, Jérémie Renier) must determine how to deal with their family's inheritance, with special consideration for the fact that each of them live on separate continents. Like really all of the director's films, Summer Hours is almost deceptively slight. Assayas keeps the film free of teary melodrama and unwanted sentimentality, restricting his camera from the actual death of Hélène as well as her funeral. Summer Hours isn't about a family's grief; it's about the value, monetary and sentimental, of what's left behind.
Though its persistent honesty is no small feat, the strength of the film reveals itself fully in its final moments. Once it's decided to sell the family home, the two eldest grandchildren (Alice de Lencquesaing, Emile Berling) throw a party in the nearly empty house. As teenagers and loud music occupy the rooms, Assayas takes the film in a place I never expected, though maybe I should have known better as he's always placed great emphasis on his films' closing scenes, even if they seem initially puzzling. As my hands down choice for the best film to hit theatres this year, I'd be surprised to find a film as sublime as Summer Hours in the remaining months of 2009.
Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages [Code Unknown] - dir. Michael Haneke
I've run into this problem before, and I'm sure to run into it again. But what does one do when everything they have to say about a given film (or whatever you happen to be writing about) has been said before? Revisiting Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love presented a similar challenge, one which I haven't even begun to tackle, as what benefit would it do to regurgitate the same adjectives ("stunning" and "beautiful" are the most common) in describing a film that's already so sealed in the canon of great cinema? Michael Haneke's Code Unknown may not be the first thing to come to mind when you think of films that have been fervently dissected to the point where it's difficult to have anything fresh to say about it, but Girish's blog-a-thon from February of 2006 covered the film extensively, in which I found most of my own thoughts being said by others.
Andrew Grant's proclamation of Code Unknown as the anti-Crash was one of my first thoughts about the film upon re-watching, and it's a more-than-fair claim. Code Unknown uses its Altman-y structure of multi-character exposition to its fullest potential, examining race, class, culture and more in its greatest attempt: a search for truth. All of the film's characters stem from the second scene in the film (another improvement upon these contrived films: typically they tie their stories together at the end), in which teenage Jean (Alexandre Hamidi) throws his trash on a Romanian beggar-woman (Luminiţa Gheorghiu) and is called out for being an asshole by Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), after Jean's brother's girlfriend Anne (Juliette Binoche) tells him that his brother Georges (Thierry Neuvic) is out of town on business. Code Unknown branches from this moment, in mostly single-take scenes, cut off often mid-conversation, mid-scene.
So what is it about Code Unknown that places it above the middling garbage that utilizes the same narrative structure? It's not just Haneke's rawness and his formidable talent with actors (Binoche, as well as most of the others, are incredible), but the way in which he, and his subjects, approach the impossible truths of our and their world. In the policier film Anne auditions for, the killer wishes to her see "true face." Amadou's father (Djibril Kouyaté) tries to get the truth from his young son (or it grandson?) in regards to his teacher's claim that he had been smoking marijuana. Georges uses a not-so-hidden camera to photograph unwilling subjects on a subway train, after his friend Francine (Arsinée Khanjian) makes some critical remarks about his profession of photographing war. And, as nearly every entry on Girish' blog-a-thon mentioned, there's a striking resemblance to Haneke's later Caché when Anne receives a note under her door which may confirm her suspicions that a young girl is being abused in an adjacent apartment (and the girl may or may not be the deaf girl we see open the film).
What we're left with then is a singular understanding, that truth is what lies in between. This refers to what Haneke doesn't show us, between these récits incomplets de divers voyages, as well as in a broader narrative critique of expected cause-and-effect. Through clichéd narrative structure, reality becomes lost, and in a certain way, Haneke admits defeat in the similar searching his characters do but finds beauty in its endless pursuit. Forgive the images, as they were taken from Kino's subpar disc, with its burned-in subtitles and hideous PAL-to-NTSC transfer. (Also, does anyone know what the tagline, "Love Has a Language All Its Own," has to do with the film? I suspect nothing.)
With: Juliette Binoche, Luminiţa Gheorghiu, Thierry Neuvic, Ona Lu Yenke, Maimouna Hélène Diarra, Sepp Bierbichler, Alexandre Hamidi, Djibril Kouyaté, Crenguta Hariton Stoica, Bob Nicolescu, Bruno Todeschini, Arsinée Khanjian, Florence Loiret, Nathalie Richard, Andrée Tainsy, Carlo Brandt, Philippe Demarle, Maurice Bénichou, Walid Afkir Screenplay: Michael Haneke Cinematography: Jürgen Jürges Music: Giba Gonçalves Country of Origin: France/Germany/Romania US Distributor: Kino
Premiere: 19 May 2000 (Cannes Film Festival) US Premiere: 30 November 2001 (New York City)
Awards: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Cannes Film Festival)
Last week Canyon and I went to Paris for a few days, which is why this blog went into yet more hibernation (and why, if anyone reading this has tried to contact me in recent days, there has been little or no response. Many apologies; I'll catch up ASAP). We learned a lot about Paris, and French culture, and took photos. Here are some of them. Many of these can be enlargenated using a cursor click to activate the process, FYI.
One of the things we felt compelled to do was visit the bookshop called Shakespeare and Company, as it had featured so prominently in one of our favourite movies, Before Sunset.
I had hoped that we would be able to retrace Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's steps through Paris, but that would have involved even more walking than we already did, which made it untenable. Still, we had this as a consolation prize; a rare sighting of the Lesser-Praised Hawke-Novel.
Over the road from the world-renowned bookstore is the less well-known Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, named after a famous carpet and a popular US university football team.
Within the cathedral are the usual churchly accoutrements, such as pews and elaborate windows. There is also, for the conspiracy theorists and Da Vinci Code fans, the infamous Swarovski Stable Scene.
This crystalline rendering of the birth of Christ has been carbon-dated to 5000BC, which has sparked much speculation about the chronology of events in the Bible. Whatever the truth behind this mysterious artifact, I think we can agree it sure does look pretty!
Speaking of pretty, here's the Venus De Milo.
It is, of course, named after the song by Television, "Venus", from their album Marquee Moon, and the fictional genius Milo Rambaldi, from the beloved pre-Da-Vinci Code conspiracy theory show Alias. This picture was taken by Canyon inside the Louvre. Here is the exterior, inspired by the terrifying Silent Hill antagonist, Pyramid Head.
In addition to Venus de Milo, the Louvre also contains the painting known as the Mona Lisa.
Named after the beloved Neil Jordan movie, starring Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine, it's a lovely painting, the epitome of beauty and classiness. I was humbled in its presence, made to feel so insignificant in the scheme of things. I doubt I was the only one who felt he should have arrived in this room wearing a dinner jacket or something. My Lego Han Solo t-shirt was not right for the occasion, but at least I wasn't this guy.
That's right, it's a National Pornographic t-shirt. Well done, sir. Da Vinci would have been honoured to have you around, that child-of-Christ concealing, codec-creating maverick.
Paris is full of relics of famous and talented people. While searching for the gallery of famous comic artist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, I stumbled across this statue of Gaston Mangin, the inventor of the Mangina.
Such a small memorial to such a great man. However, that was more interesting than the Moebius gallery. Can someone alter his website to state that the building at 27 Rue Falguière is empty, so that no one else wastes half a day tromping through a really depressing series of backstreets? And can they go back in time to do it? For that, I'll side with Denzel Washington. Kirby Silver Surfer is definitely better than Moebius Silver Surfer.
Everywhere we went last week, we were watched by a train lady. Or, should I say, La Fille Du RER.
To put this into perspective, imagine a British movie called The Girl From The Docklands Light Railway. Actually, it does sound pretty good, though who knows if it will get a UK release. It doesn't happen that often. Still, there's an upside to that. At least we won't get to see Coco.
There were posters for this all over Paris as well, and after a day of seeing Gad Elmaleh's gurning face I began to quietly despair. I was almost tempted to see the damned thing just to exorcise myself, but without subtitles I doubt there would be much point. The trailer above is incomprehensible to me. I could have gone to see Marley Et Moi instead, with Jennifer Aniston as a private eye who dies and comes back as a dog.
It's silly to be annoyed at the posters for Coco. For all I know it's a highly sophisticated comedy, and Elmaleh is the natural successor to Jacques Tati's crown. It's just that it was everywhere, tainting the image of France as the cultural capital of Europe, home to great cinema, great food, great theatre.
Still, some parts of Paris were free from Coco. Paris is the city of romance, and so I felt compelled to visit the site of my favourite French romance, the Pont Neuf, immortalised in Leos Carax's notorious Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
Yes, at 0:43 you do indeed see a fleeting, silhouetted glimpse of Denis Lavant's enormous schlong. Ah, Les Amants. What a movie. While the majority of heterosexual man-dom fell for Juliette Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, my own crush was formed during Les Amants and Carax's previous movie, Mauvais Sang. Both are great. (N.B. If anyone fancies buying me this, please feel free.)
Of course, Carax was unable to film on the actual bridge, seen above, so instead he filmed on a set. While standing on this stunning piece of architecture, I tried to see how much the surroundings matched the set; a silly task considering it's been years since seeing the movie, and I can't remember the exact details. While I pirouetted in an attempt to recall something, poor Canyon got more and more tired. We did a lot of walking that day.
Funnily enough, it wasn't until our last night there that we walked the relatively tiny distance to the nearest tourist trap. The apartment we stayed at was so close to the Eiffel Tower that you could smell the puddled iron. I wasn't about to leave Paris until I'd seen it, so a couple of us wandered over after an excellent meal of roast duck with duck pate, duck stew, and duck cassoulet. Here is a photo of Alec Eiffel.
He is, of course, named after the song by The Pixies.
The view from the bottom of the tower made me feel like I was docking with the Death Star.
Here is a shot of the famous Eiffel Death Ray.
This is used to repel all of the threats from outer space that have reduced the tower to a heap of melted slag in several motion pictures, including War of the Worlds, Independence Day, and Zéro De Conduite. Those previous three pictures are by me, and are flukes. These next four are by Canyon.
Yes, I have been horribly glib throughout this post, but it's merely to disguise my true feelings about the trip. Have you ever visited a place and fallen for it the instant you leave the station/airport?
It happened the first time I came to London, home of my heart even now that the substandard infrastructure drives me to distraction (and not my desired destination, 99% of the time). I thought that feeling would be replicated when finally visiting New York, but while I very much like it and want to spend more time there, there wasn't the immediate blast of emotion I had expected.
Paris, on the other hand, completely won me over. Never have I seen a city containing such effortlessly beautiful buildings, nor have I been lucky enough to visit somewhere so busy and yet filled with such charming and polite people. It's often said there is an antagonism between the English and the French, but I think that's bullshit. Even though my command of French is minimal, I felt relaxed and welcomed by Paris. My next visit cannot come soon enough.
Tim Burton and the jury awarded Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives the Palme d'Or at Cannes today, marking the first Palme d'Or for the director and for Thailand. Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady (which still feels like a giant oversight by Quentin Tarantino and his jury that year, who gave the Palme d'Or to Fahrenheit 9/11) and the Un Certain Regard Award in 2002 for Blissfully Yours. You can watch A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, the director's fantastic 17-minute short which he expanded into the feature, on MUBI. In his fourth outing as a feature director, Mathieu Amalric took home the Best Director prize for Tournée [On Tour]. In a rare tie, Javier Bardem and Elio Germano were named the Best Actors for Biutiful and La nostra vita [Our Life] respectively, and Juliette Binoche won her first Best Actress prize at Cannes this year for Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme [Certified Copy]. Rounding out the rest of the awards: Lee Chang-dong won Best Screenplay for Poetry, Xavier Beauvois' Des hommes et des dieux [Of Gods and Men] was awarded the Grand Prix and Michael Rowe's Año bisiesto [Leap Year] won the Caméra d'Or (for best first film). Full awards below:
