Severine Benzimra - French Cinema Correspondent -- Cannes 09

No Crisis in Cannes

Festival de Cannes 2009 Pictures, Images and Photos

The Cannes film festival (May 16th to 24th) this year was good but not exceptional, according to the happy few invited to the screenings. Don't forget this festival is intensely popular, and the seats are disputed over. The selected movies are presented in Cannes, exclusively, though some Parisian movie theaters can present them after their presentation at the festival. Some are barely finished, as it happened with some Wong-Kar Wai movies. Before the festival, they are only been seen by the selection team, directed by Thierry Fremaux, who watches about 1600 movies a year and selects about 20 of them. The selected movies are presented during the festival, and released after this first screening one year later sometimes. The invitations are given for one screening only; critics have to be accreditated to get invitations. Why? Necessity. Imagine discovering Inglorious Bastards on the seat next to Quentin Tarantino or Brad Pitt. Imagine being invited to the party that will follow the projection and being blessed with a smile of Angelina Jolie. So it takes pull.

The invited critics turn into glorious relays during the festival, especially since they tend to have blogs. Ordinary moviegoers share through these blogs: the privilege of hour-to-hour news and rumors, as if they had a drink with the author after every screening. Everyone can deliver prognostics, and people love the game. Of course, better see some of the movies... Los Abrazos rotos (Pedro Almodovar) was released during the festival, Antichrist (Lars von Trier) or Looking for Eric (Ken Loach) right after the initial screening, while the film still raises the general excitement. If they cant climb the stairs of the temple of the cinema, the first-to-see will still feel and be considered as secondary relays, which is not so bad given the reverence attached to the festival and the selection. Whether you like them or not, the movies are worth being talked about. For French people, there might be good festivals in Venise, Berlin or Locarno, but they only have leftovers or consecrate movies that missed the awards in Cannes. The selections of the Cannes festival are considered as the very best of the worlds cinematographic production.

The subjectivity of the jurys palmares is acknoledged, and undiscussed. The president chosen amongst personnalities of the world cinema choses the members of his team, amongst professionals of various continents and artistical fields linked somehow to cinema. Writers are accepted... at least if one of their works was adapted through a movie. The jury of the Palme dOr, as well as the juries of the other sections of the festival, are somehow considered as movie teams: they make a palmarès as they could work on a project, with their artistical sensitivity. After several presidents directors (Tarantino, Cronenberg, Eastwood, Sean Penn...), the president was this year an actress: Isabelle Huppert. Long career (cinema and theater), prestigious collaborations with some of the most important French directors and actors, daring but historical characters... Her dream team was well-balanced, featuring Italian actress Asia Argento, Turkish helmer Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-Dong, U.S. director James Gray, U.K. screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, Taiwanese actress Shu Qi, Indian actress Sharmilla Tagore and American actress Robin Wright Penn. They awarded Michael Hannekes White Ribbon with the Palme dOr, which disappointed a few people. Jacques Audiards Prophet was a favorite; but most of the journalists considered impossible that the Palme dOr was given to a French movie right after the palm given last year to Laurent Cantets Entre les murs.

Unhappy critics denunciate the links between Huppert and Haneke: she owes him her palm of the best actress... Huppert faced the risk, and presented the award to the director herself Audiard received the grand prix. Alain Resnais--who never received the palm despite a long, rich and applauded career--recived a special award for the whole of his work. Pedro Almodovar, who delivered this year a wonderful movie (Los Abrazos rotos), failed once more to get the supreme award.

The 2009 issue was, despite the usual critics, particularly various and good-spririted. Ken Loach presented an unexpected comedy the left-wing conscience awakener denunciates now the raising price of the seats for football (your soccer) games, with the hilarating participation of football star Eric Cantona. Grateful happy laughs, too, at the end of Almodovars magistral lesson of cinema. Laughs again during the projection of Park Chan-wooks Thirst (though they were not necessarily wanted). And many other laughs during the whole festival, with the opening movie Up (by Pete Docter), Tarantinos Inglorious Bastards (embarrassed laughs, as the movie shows Nazis, Jews and resistants), Terry Gilliams Imaginarium of the doctor Parnassus, Riad Sattoufs Les beaux gosses, I love you Philipp Morris (directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa), etc. The critics saluted the return of Jane Campion (Bright star), Souleymane Cissé (Min Ye), the confimartion of the vitality of Israeli or Romanian cinemas. Looking for a main line, some signaled the importance of personnal issues (sex, homosexuality, fathers and oedipian links) in many films. Maybe... but maybe pigeonholing and sweeping generalizations are just being transcended.

-Severine Benzimra, 6/09