The Second Week
The Second Week
by Christoph Huber
And here comes the second week. Despite that short burst of greatness in the middle, it was – as predicted – not really good. (Since I had much more writing to do, I did miss out omn quite a few interesting ones in sidebars.) Here’s the rest. Hugs, Christoph.
Independencia. A followup of kinds to Raya’s (who reliably gives the finest introductions) Indio Nacional movie, film history reclaimed. Here, in the guise of artificial studio cinema, but subverting the imperialist politics. Great anti-American fun. Also: Best moustache of the festival.
Vincere. One of the most Ferronian films ever made and, thus, an astonishing masterpiece. From the self-reflexively daring opening – Mussollini challenging god in order to prove none exists – Bellocchio is at his peak, with audacious mise-en-scene and inventive historical reflection (with some sharp contemporary parallels). A sweeping women’s picture as grand opera folly as analysis of image politics and a history of ideals betrayed. Also a fantastic film using and deconstructing fascist aesthetics and, witharchive material and inspired juxtapositions, the power of cinema itself. At this point, the thought that another movie as good as this at the festival seems impossible. But it happens only two films later.
La pivellina. In the follow-up to their worthy, but boring traveling circus doc Babooska, filmmakers Covi and Frimmel manage to make an even less interesting film, despite resorting to (pointless) fiction, by having an unbelievably unproblematic little kid drop in the midst of the previous film’s protagonists. Again, a mysteriously well-liked film, though the kid is really incredibly cute, so maybe that explains it.
Les herbes folles. Let’s hear it for the old masters. First Bellocchio bulldozers over the competition, then Resnais tosses of this miraculous impossible object, disguised as some sort of light comedy that thanks to some secret alchemic process known only to serene old masters, doesn’t buckle under the weight of its bizarre touches, inexplicable mysteries and disturbing details. So it comes on as amiable farce, but at the same time it is also like all of the films of Resnais at his structuralist zenith rolled into one, maybe even containing the entire history of cinema. A work of absolute freedom, wisdom and pure joy, jaw-dropping in a shoulder-shrug way. Suddenly the festival seems so interesting I begin to doubt my sanity, but maybe just a side-effect of this happily, methodically insane film. Then things return to normal.
Inglourious Basterds. As usual, Tarantino manages some astonishing things, but his chattiness is becoming a huge problem – actually less in terms of his trademark dialogue excesses, but inflecting every aspect of the filmmaking, so that this at its heart rather touching (and pleasurable tactile) fantasy of how cinema saves the world gets bogged down under the weight of self-conscious references. Too bad, but still often enjoyable.
Drag Me to Hell. Raimi back in horror comedy mode (and great form), with one of the smartest movies at the festival, and certainly the most timely: a communist spin on the good old EC comics format, with lots of hilarious moments in its tale of a banker’s comeuppance through the curse of one of the disposessed (all hail the great Mrs. Ganush, by the way). Should have been in competition, but was probably rejected as too good or too entertaing or both.
Here. Interesting, if somewhat installationish feature debut by Ho Tzu Nyen, who has made some really great shorts. Probably let down heavily by looking rather wadding-like (a problem of the projection?), thus making it not very desirable to delve into the image, hence leaving a rather thin impression with its circular tale.
Le terre de la folie. By all rights, a Luc Moullet film about mad, murderous attacks should be a masterpiece, but unfortunately at 90 minutes it feels stretched out, because many of the interview subjects come across as interchangeable (maybe a brilliant, yet self-defeating subversive Moullet touch). Yet every so often, there are some really inspired bits. Still, in the end, only a curiosity, with a masterful Moullet short buried in it.
Das weiße Band. Haneke kind of returns to his early TV work (some of it much more interesting than his acclaimed features), but stumbles a few times, in alarmingly obvious ways – like the puzzling, because really badly done digital effect of a horse fall that opens it. Also, of course, an academic and heavy construct, but manages to conjure some immersive pre-World-War-I atmosphere, only to regularly deflate it with dialogues that heavy-handedly spell out the obvious, a few generally overdone scenes or anachronisms in the dialogue or a bad bit of dubbing, or generally, a very flat speech. (The Tarantino, the same morning, had made much better use of the German language, that Haneke does in his return to his mother tongue after 12 years, although this went completely over the heads of the mostly admiring international press: Maybe, because for all its hand-wringing and significance-claiming it is a rather easy watch.)
Min ye . . . Unfortunately the lack of sleep begins to take its toll, and I missed out on a sizeable part of what seemed like an intriguing, if atpyical comeback for Cisse, one however, that is also a rather tough watch. Meanwhile, I remember, I saw the nothing of an Amodovar movie already long before the fest, but it was so insubstantial and boring that I couldn’t have told you one thing about it even only the next day.
Enter the Void. (Of Noe’s Brain). Bigger, dumber, Gaspar: Irreversible, it turns out, was only the test-run for this interminable technical tour de force that takes 163 minutes to illustrate what one characters articulates in, like, 1,63 seconds of its badly improvised English dialogue (with heavy French accent): „Death is the ultimate trip.“ (Except, maybe, rebirth.) Ah, yes, it is also about how there is nothing that cannot be penetrated by a camera. Peranson, correctly, right after the screening: „Conceivably, the most stupid film ever made.“ It may also make for a great drinking game, in which you vote for the dumbest scene (I nominate the plane). Quite captivating in a wearisome way, but at the same time you painfully notice how your brain cells are dying one by one. Which is, in a way, the ultimate (and definitive) Cannes experience. I declare it a perfect ending and refuse to watch any further films (Very sorry, Joao Pedro Rodriguez, I had looked forward to yours.)
Foto: Rosa Martínez Rivero
