Cannes 2012 coverage.

[algroth]

I've been reading out and contributing in an ongoing thread on another forum regarding the Cannes film festival, where some users have been posting feedback on the films released thus far. I think it's an interesting discussion and though that some over here would be interested in it as well. Here's what's been covered so far, and I'll be updating every day or two with the new releases and perhaps one or two I'll be watching myself back here in Argentina.

Without further due:

Official Selection

* AMOUR (LOVE) directed by Michael HANEKE
* BAAD EL MAWKEAA (AFTER THE BATTLE) directed by Yousry NASRALLAH
* COSMOPOLIS directed by David CRONENBERG
* DA-REUN NA-RA-E-SUH (IN ANOTHER COUNTRY) directed by HONG Sangsoo
* DE ROUILLE ET D'OS (RUST AND BONE) directed by Jacques AUDIARD
* DO-NUI MAT (THE TASTE OF MONEY) directed by IM Sang-Soo
* DUPÃ DEALURI (BEYOND THE HILLS) directed by Cristian MUNGIU
* HOLY MOTORS directed by Leos CARAX
* JAGTEN (THE HUNT) directed by Thomas VINTERBERG
* KILLING THEM SOFTLY directed by Andrew DOMINIK
* LAWLESS directed by John HILLCOAT
* LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE directed by Abbas KIAROSTAMI
* MOONRISE KINGDOM directed by Wes ANDERSON
* MUD directed by Jeff NICHOLS
* ON THE ROAD directed by Walter SALLES
* PARADIES: LIEBE (PARADISE: LOVE) directed by Ulrich SEIDL
* POST TENEBRAS LUX directed by Carlos REYGADAS
* REALITY directed by Matteo GARRONE
* THE ANGELS' SHARE directed by Ken LOACH
* THE PAPERBOY directed by Lee DANIELS
* V TUMANE (IN THE FOG) directed by Sergei LOZNITSA
* VOUS N'AVEZ ENCORE RIEN VU (YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!) directed by Alain RESNAIS


Un Certain Regard

* 11.25 JIKETSU NO HI, MISHIMA YUKIO TO WAKAMONOTACHI (11/25 THE DAY MISHIMA CHOSE HIS OWN FATE) directed by Koji WAKAMATSU
* 7 DÍAS EN LA HABANA (7 DAYS IN HAVANA) directed by Benicio del TORO, Pablo TRAPERO, Julio MEDEM, Elia SULEIMAN, Gaspar NOÉ, Juan Carlos TABIO, Laurent CANTET
* À PERDRE LA RAISON directed by Joachim LAFOSSE
* ANTIVIRAL directed by Brandon CRONENBERG
* BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD directed by Benh ZEITLIN
* CONFESSION OF A CHILD OF THE CENTURY directed by Sylvie VERHEYDE
* DESPUÉS DE LUCIA directed by Michel FRANCO
* DJECA (CHILDREN OF SARAJEVO) directed by Aida BEGIC
* ELEFANTE BLANCO (WHITE ELEPHANT) directed by Pablo TRAPERO
* GIMME THE LOOT directed by Adam LEON
* LA PIROGUE (THE PIROGUE) directed by Moussa TOURÉ
* LA PLAYA D.C. directed by Juan Andrés ARANGO
* LAURENCE ANYWAYS directed by Xavier DOLAN
* LE GRAND SOIR directed by Benoît DELÉPINE, Gustave KERVERN
* LES CHEVAUX DE DIEU (GOD'S HORSES) directed by Nabil AYOUCH
* MISS LOVELY directed by Ashim AHLUWALIA
* MYSTERY directed by LOU Ye
* RENOIR directed by Gilles BOURDOS
* STUDENT directed by Darezhan OMIRBAYEV
* TROIS MONDES (THREE WORLDS) directed by Catherine CORSINI


Out of competition

* AI TO MAKOTO (FOR LOVE'S SAKE) directed by Takashi MIIKE
* DARIO ARGENTO DRACULA (DARIO ARGENTO'S DRACULA) directed by Dario ARGENTO
* HEMINGWAY & GELLHORN directed by Philip KAUFMAN
* IO E TE (ME AND YOU) directed by Bernardo BERTOLUCCI
* LE FILM ANNIVERSAIRE : UNE JOURNÉE PARTICULIÈRE - HISTOIRE(S) DE FESTIVAL N°4 (FILM ANNIVERSARY: A SPECIAL DAY) directed by Gilles JACOB
* MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED directed by Eric DARNELL, Tom MCGRATH, Conrad VERNON
* MANIAC directed by Franck KHALFOUN
* THE SAPPHIRES directed by Wayne BLAIR
* THERESE DESQUEYROUX directed by Claude MILLER

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MOONRISE KINGDOM, by Wes Anderson

Guy Lodge: MOONRISE KINGDOM (C+) Three courses of dessert, smothered in Desplat. Appealing blush, witty accents, but, as ever, all love and no passion.

Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html
"If its ending feels faintly messy and rushed, Moonrise Kingdom (the name Sam and Suzy give their secret hideaway) is a worthy addition to Anderson’s canon – his deadpan wit meshes nicely with a generous view of human imperfections. A mood elevator of a movie, it’s an ideal opener to a sunny, blue-skies Cannes... ****/*****"

Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian): A very charming, beautifully wrought, if somehow depthless film — eccentric but heartfelt and thought through to the tiniest, quirkiest detail in the classic Anderson style

Xan Brooks (The Guardian): The whole affair feels mannered and makeweight, and I could never shake the sense that [lead actors Jared] Gilman and [Kara] Hayward were acting for the director as opposed to talking to each other... cutesy, quirky and resolutely inconsequential. Cannes opens with a whimper not a roar.

Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... son-325507
"In other words, this is a Wes Anderson film -- more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others -- that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch. This Cannes Film Festival opening-night attraction and competition entry offers a raft of rarefied pleasures for the director's core fan base, but the Focus Features offering has scant hope of breaking through to a wider public upon its May 25 U.S. release."

Time Out: http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/914 ... ngdom.html
"But you can imagine ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ turning young kids on to cinema; it’s so full of a joyous love for the medium and smart without being clever-clever. Its childishness, sense of innocence and eye for fun all make it a very easy film to love. ****/*****"

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RUST AND BONE, by Jacques Audiard

Guardian review for Rust & Bone: "This is early days in the festival, but Rust and Bone has to be a real contender for prizes, and, the odds will be shortening to vanishing point for Cotillard getting the best actress award... its candour and force are matched by the commitment and intelligence of its two leading players. These factors, linked with the glowing sunlit images captured by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine and emotion-grabbing music from Alexandre Desplat make for a powerful spectacle. It is a passionate and moving love story which surges out of the screen like a flood tide." ****
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... MUSIMG9382

Evening Standard (pretty poor review imo, just a recap of Audiard's work, followed by a plot synopsis and a few lines of what he thought...): "Schoenaerts is as good as Cotillard at avoiding the trap of melodrama, and they sustain a film that’s not as obviously notable as A Prophet but, much more quietly, makes a considerable mark." ****
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/film ... 63022.html

Rope of Silicon: "This brings me to the film's exemplary achievement… the performances. Along with the visual storytelling of Audiard and cinematographer Stephane Fontaine who shot both Audiard's previous gems A Prophet and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, the kudos here go to Schoenaerts and Cotillard who simply radiate off the screen, be it in times of passion, rage, comfort or despair... As the film came to a close and the credits played over white I couldn't help but feel I had once again seen a true master at work and a pair of actors that will be entertaining us for years to come." A.
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/rust-and-b ... ival-2012/

Time Out "There are intense, violent and upending moments in which Audiard flexes his muscles as a master of gutter atmosphere and plays compellingly with textures and shadows, moving between the light and dark and revelling in half-seen events. It’s a film that vividly and confidently inhabits its own world. But, right from the off, you sense a director fighting to avoid melodrama, sentiment and predictability. It’s a valiant approach that makes for beautiful and strange-looking moments. Yet it also leaves us with a film that feels contrived, meandering and inert, as if the extreme events at its core – and these events constantly threaten to seem ridiculous in isolation – are mere excuses for a tourist excursion into the under regions of France and human experience." **
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/925 ... -bone.html

The Telegraph: "These are two towering performances in a film of genuine power. Rust and Bone may not be for everyone; but it’s a complex, assured, demanding work." ****
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... /9272299/C annes-2012-Rust-and-Bone-After-the-Battle-Woody-Allen-A-Documentary-reviews.html

Chicago Tribune: "Cowriter and director Audiard hits his theme over and over, like a punch-drunk middleweight: All of us are damaged. We're all animals under the skin. We all need love. And the entire picture feels like a poetic-grunge generality, with a penchant for jacked-up tension that feels applied to the situation, not pulled from within the people on screen. Cotillard's role is more a series of attitudes (she swings from suicidal desperation to can-do saint and revived sensualist in no time) than a three-dimensional human being."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... 788.column

Hollywood Reporter: "Gritty treatment of a rather conventional emotional dynamic yields a solid, involving drama."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... ard-326028

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AFTER THE BATTLE, by Yousry Nasrallah

Time Out: "The trouble with ‘After the Battle’ is that it feels like every idea and experience related to the Arab Spring in Egypt has been thrown into the one pot. The film was devised without a script, over the middle months of 2011, and it shows. Some of the acting is hysterical. Much of it is poor. There are too many stereotypes: the young, female, modern divorcee; the unreconstructed, simple and uneducated male; the pantomime villain community leader. The film feels like both a too-basic allegory of the country’s wider woes and a story far too steeped in barely comprehensible detail. It lurches from scenes of intense debate to scenes of soapy melodrama. The dial is mostly turned up to ‘shouty’." **
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/927 ... attle.html

Screen Daily: "Opting to funnel the polemic through the central character of Rim, a middle-class Cairo advertising executive turned impassioned NGO activist and Mahmoud, an impoverished and illiterate horse-rider from the Giza Pyramid village of Nazlet, Nasrallah never manages to lift his characters out of the plot schematic, despite a generous running time."
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the- ... entID=1479

Hollywood Reporter: "Resonating with layers of personal and political meaning, the messy aftermath of the Egyptian revolution is captured with immediacy and excitement in the story of a horseman who attacked the demonstrators."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-325895

Motion Captured: "That's the main point of the film, that idea that people in a conflict are rarely one-note, and that even in a situation where things seem to break upon very clear ideological lines, that's not the whole story. Nasrallah's goal is admirable, and there are scenes and moments in the film where the polemic falls aside and the film works as character study. Unfortunately, Nasrallah is still too close to these events, and there is very little subtlety to his art here."
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-capt ... rab-spring

The Telegraph: "This film’s main selling point is urgent topicality; it’s set in the aftermath of last year’s 'Arab Spring’ protests against the Mubarak regime. But its story feels oblique and over-extended." **
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... views.html

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PARADISE: LOVE, by Ulrich Seidl

The Hollywood Reporter: "Ulrich Seidl’s look at female sex tourism is compelling up to a point, and then just numbing."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... ove-326278

Varitey: "Ulrich Seidl's "Paradise: Love" is hardly the first film to explore the world of wealthy women and the young studs who service them; it's not even the first to do it in a sex-tourism context, having been beaten to the punch by 2006's "Heading South." But it sure as hell is the dirtiest. Full of explicit sex that will restrict it to niche distribution in only the most tolerant territories, it challenges auds throughout on a multitude of levels. Repulsive and sublimely beautiful, arguably celebratory and damning of its characters, it's hideous and masterful all at once, "Salo" with sunburn."
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947564/

Time Out: "Tiesel keeps Teresa’s motivations courageously opaque throughout: after losing her nerve during her first encounter with one of her resort’s infinite escorts, she continues to seek it with one unhappy, money-draining tryst after another. It’s her doomed, obtuse, are-we-having-fun-yet gumption that lends a sincere note of heartbreak to Seidl’s otherwise exquisitely austere, calculatedly claustrophobic construction." ***
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/927 ... -love.html

The Guardian: "Does the film tell us anything we didn't know already? And could anyone expect anything but the most straightforward irony in the title? The answer to both questions is no – but there is undoubted technique, and an authorial address to the audience. No other director could have created that weird vision of Kenyan men, as still as statues, waiting on the beach to stalk their pampered, sunburnt prey." ***
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... ove-review

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REALITY, by Matteo Garrone

Motion Captured: "This morning, his new film "Reality" made its debut, and it is a wildly different type of film, a biting social satire about the modern age and its media-driven obsession with fame. It is a Job story, at times quite funny, at other times painful, but always shot with a precise, masterful eye, and impeccably performed by the entire ensemble." A-
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-capt ... reality-tv

Indie Wire: ""Reality" may, in fact, put an end to the idea of Garrone as a traditional neorealist; his naturalism is intentionally misleading right up until the simultaneously haunting and wondrous finale. Critics were comparing it to Martin Scorsese's showbiz satire "King of Comedy" almost immediately after the first screening at Cannes, an apt reference point since both movies deal not with the pratfalls of fame but its impact on those obsessed with achieving it for the wrong reasons." A-
http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes ... obsessions

Time Out "Garrone just about keeps things under control long enough to make the surprisingly quiet coda emotionally satisfying and resonant. En route, by the way, he’s helped no end by a splendid cast, some of whom will be familiar from ‘Gomorrah ’." ***
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/92793/reality.html

Cine-Vue: "Although we can now look to Garrone as an established voice in contemporary Italian cinema, Reality is also firmly-rooted in the traditions of great Italian film. There are Fellini-esque touches of surrealism, but also nods to the neo-realist directors." *****
http://www.cine-vue.com/2012/05/cannes- ... ality.html

The Guardian: "It's a likable film played with gusto and heart — though fundamentally a little sentimental and predictable." ***
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... ity-review

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MEKONG HOTEL, by Apichatpong Weeresethakul

Indiewire: "Clocking in at 61 minutes, Mekong Hotel is Weerasethakul’s triumphal return to Cannes, just two years after his 2010 feature Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme D’Or. As with Moonrise Kingdom and Wes Anderson, Mekong Hotel is nothing new from Weerasethakul. In his Thailand, hungry ghosts, reincarnated animals and frank but casual discussions of sex and violence just . . . happen, unobtrusively. Thailand is Weerasethakul’s foremost concern, being the locus for Mekong Hotel’s impressionistic portrait of longing, both fulfilled and unrequited, and its most refreshingly beguiling protagonist."

Notebook: "The river floats by in the background of most shots—including the dynamically relaxing, entrancing final shot, reminiscent of recent Ernie Gehr New York harbor films, of the digitally-pulsating river motion and circulating vessels—each bare strand of the film is introduced and then, as if forgotten, left, and traces later recalled. Intestines are eaten by possessed ghosts in one section."

Hollywood Reporter: "As a segment of some grand overall design the sluggishly torpid Mekong Hotel, granted an out-of-competition berth at Cannes, might eventually find its place. But taken purely as a stand-alone, it's strictly for festivals, channels and galleries favoring the more impenetrable end of the high-art cinema scene -- and will likely baffle, frustrate and tax those unfamiliar with Weerasethakul's back-catalogue [...] and it's clear that Weerasethakul is even less concerned with conventional narrative considerations here than he was in the free-rangingly imaginative Uncle Boonmee."

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LAWLESS, by John Hillcoat

Motion Captured: "the most striking thing about it at first glance is that Hillcoat seems to have learned some new shades as a filmmaker, and for the first time in his career, it feels like he's actually having some fun. It helps that he's got Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeaouf, and Guy Pearce heading a strong ensemble cast, and that the based-on-a-true-story script by Nick Cave is a rowdy bit of hillbilly mythmaking, a purely American tale written in blood and bullet casings." B
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-capt ... ia-labeouf

Rope of Silicon: "Lawless is a great film and its great to see Hillcoat back in territory more along the lines of The Proposition rather than his disappointing and somewhat empty adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road." B+
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/lawless-mo ... ival-2012/

IndieWire: "Though it never elevates into anything more than great entertainment, if that's all we get out of "Lawless" it's hard to complain. This is the kind of material studios used to like making, bringing together an interesting story and an excellent collection of talent to tell the tale. We doubt "Lawless" will be gunning for any Oscars, but as far as top tier storytelling goes, it doesn't get much better than this." B
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... n-20120519

The Guardian: "Lawless is a handsome-looking film, with a reasonably winning lead performance from Shia LaBeouf. But it's basically a smug, empty exercise in macho-sentimental violence in which we are apparently expected to root for the lovable good ol' boys, as they mumble, shoot, punch and stab." **
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... ess-review

Time Out: "Hillcoat and Cave tell this tale from a perspective of blind fondness, like elderly relatives romanticising their ancestors around the fireplace. It makes for an oddly comfy experience considering the death and hurt at the film's core." ***
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/91999/lawless.html

The Telegraph: "Hillcoat's film wins its gasps and gulps honestly, but it doesn't remotely strain against the constraints of genre in the same way as last two equally Western-inflected films, The Proposition and The Road. As titles go, Lawless is a good one, but it could hardly be less appropriate." ***
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html

Wonderful Review from Guy Lodge for In Contention: "Acutely aware of how they look at themselves and how we look at them, the film is, by extension, a tangy exercise in movie-star gazing, the physical differences between its leading men reflecting opposed modes of maleness no less prevalent on today's Hollywood star ladder than in the earthier climes of Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, where "Lawless" spins its allegedly true tale. If that seems an esoteric way to approach an otherwise straightforward story of brothers defending their turf, their honor and their alcohol, that's because the film's sparse thriller structure, with its single villain, unconflicted heroes and straightforward series of shootouts, provides an awful lot of room for such subtextual speculation. The right to booze, after all, has been a stereotypical tenet of lad culture for eons; where better than a Prohibition drama, then, for a supposed lads' film to get a little self-reflexive?" B
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/in-contenti ... -cardigans

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BEYOND THE HILLS, by Cristian Mungiu

Hollywood Reporter: "Mungiu’s harshly beautiful depiction of destructive dogma and sacrificial female victims feels at times like vintage Lars Von Trier... Admittedly two and a half hours of thwarted love and spiritual torment is something of an endurance test, especially considering the action rarely ventures outside its single bleak location. The film’s mid section, especially, feels slow and repetitive. Only during the final act, mostly shot in snow, does Mungiu remind us of the tightly wound tension and crisp visual composition that made 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days such a powerful thriller. Beyond the Hills is less fun than any film about lesbian nuns and their psychotic ex-lovers ought to be. But it is an engrossingly serious work, and confirms Mungiu as a maturing talent with more universal stories to tell than those defined by Romania’s recent political past."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-326819

Screen Daily: "Spare, unadorned and strikingly shot, Cristian Mungiu’s film is an unusual rendering of a Romanian exorcism case and is bound to split both audience and critical opinions, some considering it a major achievement and others blaming it for overlong pretentious sensationalism. But it will certainly not pass unnoticed."
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the- ... entID=1479

IndieWire: "Gorgeously lensed, and executed with an exacting (some would argue dry) aesthetic in which there are minimal camera movements and long takes, "Beyond The Hills," running at two and a half hours, is an endurance test. But pace yourself and lean back, because the rewards are ample. Deceivingly complex, with an emotional center that peels away like an onion the longer it unfolds, this is a powerful effort from Mungiu in which love and faith are both different kinds of poison." B+
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... s-20120518

Variety: "Performances are excellent, led by the compelling Flutur, her mouth a razor-thin line of defiance, and Stratan, whose eyes become enormous as events play out to their ghastly conclusions. Remarkably, this is the first feature for both leads. Mungiu regular Andriuta presents the bearded priest as a figure of moral authority as well as discernible decency. The actresses cast as the other nuns are given little to work with besides stock scriptural maxims; indeed, the script's wall-to-wall dialogue often feels at odds with Mungiu's visual mastery."
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947575/

Sight and Sound: "While there’s an almost tragic inexorability to the events depicted, the film frequently surprises by providing small but telling details and ambiguities. In short, it has both substance and subtlety."
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/new ... -hills.php

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AMOUR, by Michael Haneke

Tweets about Haneke's Amour, courtesy of Jack_Bickle..

Wendy Ide: I cried so much in Haneke's Love, my shoulder blades turned into little tear reservoirs

Xan Brooks: Michael Haneke's Amour the best film at Cannes so far; a Cries & Whispers for the Dignitas generation. Rigorous, unsparing, superbly played

Robbie Collin: Haneke's LOVE is the consummate anti-weepie: assiduously cool-headed and even-tempered in the face of unbearable sadness.

Dave Calhoun: Not one to reduce to a Tweet, but Haneke's Amour is staggering. Incredible compassion, reserve, resolve. Trintignant is wonderful... After Amour, could any say again (there were always wrong) that Haneke's films lacked warmth, love, humanity, compassion?

Nick James: Haneke's emotionally unrestrained and very French chamber piece AMOUR shows Trintignant and Riva off as astonishing actors

Geoff Andrew: Fest's first masterpiece: Haneke's Love. Rich, honest, deeply moving study of coping with intimacy, illness, death. Perfection!

Peter Bradshaw: There was nothing ironic about the title of Amour (dir. Michael Haneke); this director's mastery resounds here like an orchestral chord

David Jenkins: LOVE (Haneke)Typically steely, meticulous look at decay and the prison of the human body.Unbearably sad, also perversely uplifting.

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ANTIVIRAL, directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Indiewire: "That inspiration is clear from the opening minutes, when "Antiviral" lays out its eerily dystopia in which companies extract non-infectious diseases from ill celebrities and harvest their blood for eager masses hoping to experience a famous person's malady, suggesting the fanaticism of TMZ culture taken to the ultimate grotesque extreme. [...] The movie looks as dour as the people wandering through it, shot against blank white backdrops and drab office spaces seemingly rented from the sets of "Minority Report" and "THX 1138." Thematically, however, "Antiviral" runs through the spectrum of Cronenberg's greatest hits, from "Videodrome" to "The Fly," "Scanners" and "The Brood." These are by no means terrible reference points, and Cronenberg occasionally does them proud, but never makes them gel together. Criticwire grade: C+

Film School Rejects: "The film is without doubt one of the most provocatively sensory films seen since the heyday of The Fly, with Cronenberg’s visuals amplified by a viscerally affecting score which devolves into raw white-noise after a while and makes for an uncomfortable experience. And even Syd’s bodily functions are amplified as part of that grotesque orchestral accompaniment, his breathing, chewing, swallowing, and spluttering all louder than a conventional mix would dare in order to encourage the audience’s disgust with the bodies emblazoned on screen.

Twitch Film: "The aims of Cronenberg's approach to the material are obvious, and while some will argue that he took the task of creating a soulless emotional void of a future a bit too seriously, I admired the film's conviction, including its reluctance to pander to the audience with pop-culture winks, or even cast any known actors in large roles. The ideas here are imaginative and often clever, but never actually mind-blowing, like the best work in this genre. "

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THE HUNT, by Thomas Vinterberg

Time Out: "questions inevitably diminish the film’s deeper impact, as do certain painfully predictable twists. (If you live alone and are under threat, better not let your much-loved dog out of doors on his own!) Still, Vinterberg, his cast and cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen manage to sustain a pleasingly edgy mood, making at least for intelligent, suspenseful entertainment." ***
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/92799/the-hunt.html

The Guardian: "Well, Vinterberg really has come storming back with this new movie, easily his best since Festen, and a reminder of his superb gift for unsettling collective drama: it is forthright, powerful, composed and directed with clarity and overwhelming force, yet capable of great subtlety and nuance. The theme is admittedly familiar, and so is the implied analysis of what is going on, and yet Vinterberg endows it with such urgency and his superbly constructed script, co-written with Tobias Lindholm, is a screenplay masterclass, completely upending your expectations as how the climactic scene is going to play out." ****
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... sfeed=true

Screen Daily: "Early plotting here is fast, so fast that it can sometimes feel false. But any initial doubts that this might prove to be simply a beautifully-crafted TV-movie are expertly laid waste as The Hunt, propelled by Mads Mikkelsen in an everyman role, hits home - and hits hard. Given the right critical backing, Trust Nordisk should see this expertly made film notch up strong international exposure; a Cannes prize would help, of course, and Mikkelson at least must be a contender for an outstanding performance as Vinterberg’s sacrificial lamb."
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the- ... 74.article

Hollywood Reporter: "Thomas Vinterberg’s best film since “Festen” is an unsettling psychological drama built around a harrowing performance from Mads Mikkelsen."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... erg-326887

Filmoria "The Hunt is a film that one knows will stay with me long after this review is written; it’ll haunt me for days with its uncompromising nature and I’m certain that’s just what Vinterberg intended to do. This is a bruising, greatly distressing but simply fascinating film that’s beautifully told, captured and performed. It’s Vinterberg’s best film since Festen no questions." 9/10
http://www.filmoria.co.uk/2012/05/cannes-film-festival-2012-the-hunt-review/?utm_campaign=Cannes%20Film%20Festival%202012:%20The%20Hut%20Review&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

[algroth]

So far I have to say that, if anything, Amour's looking even better than The White Ribbon. It'll certainly be a film to check out in the near future, and a strong early contender for the Palme d'Or.

The early comments for Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux are coming out and jusging by how baffling the reactions seem to be, it seems like this might be this year's The Tree of Life (assuming that title is not earned by Malick's own To the Wonder instead).

[Neige]

Thanks algroth.

I really appreciate this thread!

[algroth]

Cheers!

More today:

AMOUR, by Michael Haneke

Little White Lies: "While Riva has the more physically demanding performance, it’s Trintignant who has most of the heavy psychological lifting to do. Both, though, are towering, and without their commitment, there would simply be no film. Love is a very hard film to fault, shot with immaculate precision by Darius Khondji, rhythmically edited and overloaded with nuance and delicately metered emotion. If there’s any criticism to be had it’s that the film is a tad too neat and unambiguous, introducing and developing its themes with a single-minded precision that makes you miss the pristine conceptual messiness of Code: Unknown or the implacable cine-riddles of Hidden. Still, this is an exceptional work shows a world-class director still unafraid to lock horns with the profound mysteries of the universe."
http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/blog/a ... 2012-20417

The Playlist "Yes, there is an ending here that will once again have people talking, but it's not a stunt so much as a logical extension of the extreme emotional turmoil both Georges and Anne have been through. Beautifully lensed by Darius Khondji, masterfully directed by Haneke, boasting two great performances and a commitment to the narrative that might be too much for some, "Amour" is nevertheless the work of a filmmaker who isn't afraid to ask the big questions about human nature, and coming out of "Amour" it seems the director has hope for us yet." B+
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... t-20120520

IndieWire: "However, Haneke maintains such a confident grip on the material that it never drags from familiarity. In its closing scenes, "Amour" transcends its grim, matter-of-fact foundation and enters an enticing realm of ambiguity by exploring the fantasies of one character and leaving several fates open ended. Only Haneke could end a slow-burn movie about death with some odd semblance of hope." A-
http://www.indiewire.com/article/a-rest ... rama-amour

Irish Times "Love does, however, belong to the director. It is saying something to argue that this is the most austere film yet from the great Austrian director. Pictures such as The Piano Teacher and Hidden did, at least, have their moments of extravagant blood-letting. Shot in gunmetal shades by the great Iranian Darius Khondji, featuring a largely static camera, the film progresses entirely through small, desperate moments. When the inevitable catastrophe arrives it rushes by in a hurried flash."*****
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/screenw ... el-haneke/

The Hollywood Reporter "Consummate acting helps ease a painful watch, as Michael Haneke describes the ultimate test of love in a profoundly honest study of sickness and dying."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com//revie ... iew-326962

Time Out "'Amour' is a devastating, highly intelligent and astonishingly performed work. It's a masterpiece." *****
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/91577/amour.html

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LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE, by Abbas Kiarostami

Amusing tweets for Kiarostami's latest..

Alex Billington: Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love - I honestly really dug this. Has an interesting comical charm to it, incredibly refined direction.

Robbie Collin: Catcalls at the end of Kiarostami's LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE, and they were broadly deserved. Like a particularly dozy Ozu... I'm a huge Ozu fan, but dozy anything's not good.

ionCinema: Aptly titled Like Someone in Love might be a Japanese or I guess Iranian version of Mighty Aphrodite. Light, in need of ... the blue pill and more deadpan, more Kaurismaki in Kiarostami.

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LAURENCE ANYWAYS, by Xavier Dolan

Variety: "Fully immodest and intermittently astonishing, Xavier Dolan's epic melodrama "Laurence Anyways" charts a male-to-female transsexual's tumultuous relationship with a straight woman but stands to polarize more on the basis of its stylistic politics than its sexual ones. Indeed, the clearest achievement of Dolan's typically self-indulgent eye-popper comes in equating its gender-bending protagonist's metamorphoses with those in any relationship that lasts for years. Stunningly gorgeous leads prove more than capable of eliciting emotion over the near-three-hour haul, though the pic's exhausting length and intensity will try even lovers of love stories, to the detriment of exposure and acclaim."

Film School Rejects: "Dolan’s follow-up to the bright promise of Heartbeats is a provocative, self-indulgent mess, littered with 1980s pop references (even, curiously when the narrative advances well into the middle of the ’90s) and showing open disdain for both character performances and storyline thanks to the director’s inability to control his wayward artistic impulses. Grade C-"

Hollywood Reporter: "But however undercooked and overstuffed his story may be, Dolan excels as a visual stylist, framing almost every shot like a classic modern art canvas. Rain-slicked streets pulse with hot-pink nightclub neon. Clothes rain from the sky in slow-motion Pop Art blizzards. Every lavish costume and opulent interior appears art-directed to painstaking perfection.

Also, as usual with Dolan, Laurence Anyways is absolutely saturated in music, from chansons to opera, Prokofiev to Celine Dion. Despite the story’s 1990s setting, the director can not resist the allure of 1980s electro-rockers Depeche Mode and Duran Duran. He even orchestrates a pivotal party scene around "We Fade to Grey," an obscure 1980 Euro-hit by the short-lived British cult band Visage."

“Titanic is one of the most ambitious love stories I’ve ever seen. When you watch it as a child you have to be inspired. Someone in absolute control of his craft, budget, and all the tools at his disposal tells you, “Dream on, everything is possible.” This movie gave me wings. It told me that cinema was about an epic journey. They say cinema is supposed to represent life. But then there’s life for living, and cinema for escaping; it’s allowed to be too much sometimes. Titanic guided me through the ambitious path of Laurence, although it’s a completely different type of movie—and a completely different budget as well.”

— Xavier Dolan on Titanic as an inspiration for his new film Laurence Anyways (via Slant Magazine)

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BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, by Behn Zeitlin

Irish Times: "The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Festival, is set in a near-prehistoric enclave of Louisiana called The Basin. Its protagonist, who shares a shack and a treehouse with her ailing dad, is an extraordinary young girl called Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis). Gifted a bush of hair and a preternaturally stubborn face, she narrates the film in the sleepy, poetic style of a voice-over from a Terrence Malick film. The Basin is so-called because it lies low in the ground and, as the waters rise, its very existence is threatened. "

Screen Comment: "There’s an eagerness concerning “Beasts,” the buzz in Cannes (Robert Ebert calls it “the best film I’ve seen all year”) echoing the positive response from the last Sundance Festival. It’s a sort of ritualistic admiration which often accompanies gutsy filmmakers as they unveil their first major feature film project. To be sure, Zeitlin accomplished a tour-de-force with “Beasts”—the visual effects and intricacy of certain scenes is incredible—but the movie will hold limited appeal for the experienced filmgoer "

Time: "A movie not of propulsive story power but of atmospheric vignettes, Beasts navigates its narrative with a child’s intense and wandering attention.

Beasts was relegated to the sidebar program called Un Certain Regard, though its artistic accomplishment is higher than that of any film we’ve seen so far. At Cannes in 1989, another first feature and Sundance prizewinner, Steve Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape, copped the Palme d’Or. Lately, though, few debut American indies have played in the Competition. (Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, an Oscar winner with a similar pedigree as Beasts, was also demoted to Un Certain Regard.) But the Cannes programmers like a main slate heavy on venerable auteurs, and the Palme d’Or is often a lifetime achievement award. No newcomers, thank you.
http://entertainment.time.com/2012/05/1 ... z1vUYXrTy5

[James R]

They're showing the new Argento at Cannes? Didn't think they were that desperate for stuff to show...

[algroth]

I'm not the biggest fan of his work, but he has gained a pretty big audience and a lot of respect in the film world, so it seems like a logical move. Better for it to be out of competition than in it, too.

[the masked man]

Modern film criticism is just a case of hunting in packs; reviewers, under pressure to come up with quick soundbites, just fall in line with the consensus. They're also so desperate to fuel the hype that frankly second-rate directors like Haneke and Weerasethakul get treated as if they're modern day versions of Welles or Godard. It's rather embarrassing.

Sad to see that the new Kiarostami didn't go down well. But that's to be expected; he's an incredibly subtle director whose films deserve close scrutiny of the sort that's impossible in the pressure-cooker environment of Cannes. This is the problem.

I'm intrigued by reports of the new Reygardas film, as he's a very awkward director, and I'm in two minds about his approach; yet, for all its faults, I was entranced by Battle In Heaven. I'll certainly try to see this one.

[Leg of lamb]

I loved The White Ribbon after being underwhelmed by Hidden, so I'm looking forward to Amour - not getting swept up in the hyperbole just yet, though...

Holy Motors sounds like a trip.

[algroth]

Modern film criticism is just a case of hunting in packs; reviewers, under pressure to come up with quick soundbites, just fall in line with the consensus. They're also so desperate to fuel the hype that frankly second-rate directors like Haneke and Weerasethakul get treated as if they're modern day versions of Welles or Godard. It's rather embarrassing.

To an extent I agree, but Haneke has only started achieving some sort of critical consensus in his latest period, and the kind which I'd adhere myself to as well. Before Caché he was always a rather divisive filmmaker. The White Ribbon particularly was a masterpiece, one of the finest films of last decade (and better than anything Godard did, mind ). I'm looking forward to this intently.

[algroth]

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE, by Abbas Kiarostami

Time Out "The ending is particularly surprising, and will leave some mystified, even frustrated by an openness that makes the mysterious final moments of ‘Certified Copy’ feel like proper closure. But the film is consistently engrossing, partly because in terms of its compositions, colours and sound design, it’s so elegant, and partly because one is constantly wondering not only what’s going to happen next but what it’s all about. Just a few ideas as to some of the themes Kiarostami touches on: the relationship between truth and falsehood; how and why people form relationships; what would happen if they made different choices; the pros and cons of youth versus age; the difference between observing and participating; and – in what might be occasional allusions to Ozu, a director Kiarostami admires – the value and dangers of accepting whatever life has to offer." ****
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/914 ... -love.html

The Guardian "Abbas Kiarostami can sometimes create challenging endings. The sign-off to his masterpiece A Taste of Cherry is still something to be pondered. But his latest movie, set in Tokyo, really is bafflingly and even exasperatingly truncated. There are some interesting ideas and sympathetic performances in a superbly shot and fascinatingly controlled exercise. There is potential. But the curtain comes down with an arbitrary crash just as the drama was becoming interesting." **
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... MUSTXT9384

ScreenDaily "The more you delve, the more resonance you find; the problem is that Kiarostami fails to embed the film’s visual, aural and symbolic games in a narrative that satisfies on the level of story and character."
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the- ... entID=1479

The Playlist " There is a fine line between meeting an audience halfway and witholding enough without falling into self-indulgence, but Kiarostami can't make that balance here. Enigmatic and dull to a maddening degree, "Like Someone In Love" finds Kiarostami spinning his wheels." C-
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... e-20120521

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YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET!, by Alain Resnais

Time Out "There’s far more to it, of course; the movie isn’t just some shallow piece of clever formal flapdoodle. Like most of Resnais’s work, it concerns the constant, complex interplay between ‘reality’, memory, imagination and desire. Thanks to the choice of material, death also looms large, ­though not at all threateningly; the ghosts here are simply the feelings we have experienced. The film is touching, but more than that it’s wise, witty and thought-provoking." ****
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/927 ... n-yet.html

The Guardian "It is a movie about memory and the persistence of the past, and like a lot of Resnais's recent work it mounts an interesting challenge to the realist consensus of cinema, to the convention that we must pretend that what is being played out on screen is actually happening. But despite its moments of charm and caprice, the film is prolix, inert, indulgent and often just plain dull." **
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... MUSTXT9383

AwardsDaily "Alain Resnais’ You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet is a tribute to the director’s love of theater. More than that, it puts together his notion that film and theater are one in the same. He plays with structure and narrative here much the way he always has and that might be the film’s biggest problem. On the other hand, if you can dig Resnais, even now, you’ll probably love his latest."
http://www.awardsdaily.com/2012/05/cann ... thing-yet/

Hollywood Reporter "A playful, intellectual consideration of memory, theater and love lost and regained for strictly highbrow viewers."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... nes-327191

Slant "For the first 15 minutes or so, you're lulled into expecting another freewheeling cinematic lark like Wild Grass, which, whatever its other faults, never committed the capital sin of taking itself too seriously. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, conversely, casts a funereal pall with its earnestly intentioned performance of Anouilh's Eurydice. (If the audience isn't subjected to the entire play, it sure enough feels like it.) The kind of affected, willfully artificial artwork that was all the rage back in the 1940s, Eurydice now just seems stilted and protracted, which doesn't bode well for You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet's long-term vitality. Ultimately, it isn't hard to see the appeal of this material for Resnais, especially since You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet will stand as his curtain call. Near its own terminus, the film lays bare its raison d'être: The simulacrum of a stage death strengthens the bonds of solidarity among Antoine's friends, in stark preparation for an all-too-real event. As the old folios used to put it: exeunt omnia."
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2012 ... othin-yet/

[algroth]

I just realized that many of the ratings were incorrect, so I went ahead and fixed them.

[algroth]

HOLY MOTORS, by Leos Carax

Early tweets are singing praises, probably the strongest contender for the Palme d'Or alongside Haneke's Amour.


Guy Lodge: Rejoice! HOLY MOTORS is beautiful, inscrutable, frightening, idiotic, ecstatic, makes Pola X look like The King's Speech. Best in Comp? Oui.

Kate Muir: Peaks of bonkerness achieved by HOLY MOTORS

Peter Bradshaw: Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax) is just mad enough to win the Palme D'Or

Blake Williams: Holy Motors - so singularly weird and exhilaratingly cinematic that it doesn't even matter what it means. Awesome. (8.5)

David Jenkins: HOLY MOTORS (Carax) References MAX MON AMOUR & CARS within 2 mins. Like late Bunuel via Kaufman, but even more off the reservation

[algroth]

More on HOLY MOTORS:

The Guardian: "Leos Carax's Holy Motors is weird and wonderful, rich and strange – barking mad, in fact. It is wayward, kaleidoscopic, black comic and bizarre; there is in it a batsqueak of genius, dishevelment and derangement; it is captivating and compelling. This film may or may not be a prizewinner here – although I think it may actually get the Palme d'Or – but really this is what we have all come to Cannes for: for something different, experimental, a tilting at windmills, a great big pole-vault over the barrier of normality by someone who feels that the possibilities of cinema have not been exhausted by conventional realist drama. Some may find it affected or exasperating; I found it weightless and euphoric."

Hollywood Reporter: "Beyond a segment of the 2008 triptych Tokyo!, the elusive Carax hasn’t made a film since his cult Cannes competition entry Pola X 13 years ago. He’s obviously been bottling up some seriously wacky ideas and they all blow their lids at once in this avant-garde sci-fi concoction that represents – maybe – a scream in the night against our enslavement to the virtual world."

Indiewire: "Hilarious and dull, fascinating and pretentious, there is no doubt that Leos Carax's "Holy Motors" is memorable. Whether it's actually any good is up for debate. [C or more accurately WTF]

Timeout: "Weird, yes. But even at its most wilfully absurd (let’s just say chimpanzees are involved), there’s something fragile, tender and even truthful about Carax’s hall-of-mirrors irrationality, the sense of an artist so weary of decayed human realities that he has no choice but to twist them into the more beautiful shapes afforded by cinema. By the time the film ends with Scob subtly referencing the character she played 52 years ago in ‘Eyes Without a Face’, you might feel an involuntary shiver down the spine – it’s hard to say what forces are propelling this ecstatic, idiotic, fizzy, frightening provocation, but we’re moved by them too."

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ON THE ROAD, by Walter Salles

The Guardian: "Handsome shots and touching sadness don't compensate for the tedious air of self-congratulation in Walter Salles's road movie" **
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... oad-review

The Telegraph: "Many have speculated that On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s seminal beat novel, is unadaptable for the screen, and Walter Salles’s game attempt suggests that this may indeed be the case. Despite its pretty cast and sun-ripened colours, the film quickly settles into a tedious looping rhythm of Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) experiencing some kind of beatnik debauchery with co-wanderers Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) and Marylou (Kristen Stewart), before retiring to a shady corner and scribbling wildly in a notebook. Neither the journey nor the destination seems to matter a jot." **
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eview.html

Evening Standard: "Finally we get the film adaptation of this emblematic book, but it seems to lack the mad passion of Jack Kerouac's ferocious and extraordinary writing" ***
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/film ... 81923.html

Rope of Silicon: "Overall, this just isn't a very good movie. It's repetitive and tedious, one scene after another barely distinguishing itself from the last. As beautiful as it all looks and as well-acted as it is, the only way I was able to find much interest in it was to create my own interpretation of what it was trying to say and even then I don't really need to explore that any further either." C
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/on-the-roa ... ival-2012/

The Playlist "Cinematographer Eric Gautier ("Into the Wild," "A Christmas Tale") does incredible work, but after a while the film feels like any other roadtrip -- no matter how beautiful the scenery flickering by through the window, eventually you just want to get out of the goddamn car. Salles may have pulled off the achievement of faithfully adapting Kerouac's novel, but as episodes blur and bleed between each other with scenery as punctuation, you might find yourself wishing for a little less literary fidelity and a little more cinematic storytelling." B
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... c-20120523

Time Out: "The film is characterised by quick and frenetic storytelling, an energetic jazz soundtrack, a free and unobtrusive attitude to sex and drugs and performances that are zesty and immediate. Yet still 'On the Road' entombs its era's zeitgeist more than it lives it. It feels long and tedious, as if we've dropped in on someone else's party without knowing or caring who these folks are, knocking back the whisky and barbiturates as regularly as they're knocking off each other." ***
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/914 ... -road.html

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POST TENEBRAS LUX, by Carlos Reygadas

Timeout: "Some of today’s top Mexican directors refer to Carlos Reygadas as ‘the maestro’, and undoubtedly he aims high. His 2002 debut ‘Japon’ reminded many of Tarkovsky; ‘Battle in Heaven’ was proudly metaphorical and provocative; ‘Silent Light’ borrowed blatantly from Dreyer’s ‘Ordet’. His latest continues in the same emphatically serious vein: some claim it alludes to the films of the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and to Sokurov. The Latin title (‘after the darkness, the light’) evokes some sort of parable, and the overall thrust of the narrative, with its elements of crime and punishment, waywardness and redemption, dysfunctionality and diabolical intervention, verges on the spiritual and moralistic. There are moments that impress (most to do with the weather and landscape), but just as many that feel faintly absurd: a self-decapitation, especially. Yet again, one senses that Reygadas – instead of simply getting on with the job of making a film – has opted instead to go for an opus magnum that reminds us of cinema’s greats. And once again what is finally communicated is vaunting ambition and somewhat frustratingly vague achievement.

Hollywood Reporter: "Suspicions that the critically-lauded, award-laden Mexican is, in artistic terms, an emperor clad in exquisitely invisible garments will only crystallize further thanks to Post Tenebras Lux - which at its worst exudes the sort of smug pretentiousness that gives art-cinema a bad name in many quarters. Apart from all but the most rarefied coterie, the ticket-buying public is likely to dismiss it as a waste of time - or, as Reygas might put it, temporis iactura."

The Guardian: "The effect, however, is like sitting down in front of a stash of bespoke home-movies (beach trip, family dinner, reader's-wife erotica) shown out of sequence and with no context provided. Home movies, of course, are often out of focus too."

Indiewire: "That vague, wishy-washy philosophy is ironic considering that Reygadas’ approach to his latest idiosyncratically deranged theological drama is often oppressively heavy-handed."

[algroth]

Reygadas on an interview yesterday:

"My film is not a riddle. There's no latent symbolism, it is was is shown. You journalists intellectualize and judge before feeling, and what you write is nonsense."

Sounds like someone is not happy with his film's reception.

[algroth]

COSMOPOLIS, by David Cronenberg

Time Out: "That said, there's a consistent air of charged, end-of-days menace running through the film, which Cronenberg handles with an unbroken sense of precision and confidence. He's well-served, too, by a leering, disintegrating Pattinson, giving a commanding, sympathetic portrait of a man being consumed by his own vanity and power."
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/914 ... polis.html

The Guardian: "David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, adapted by the director from the Don DeLillo novella, is stilted, self-important and dismayingly shallow, featuring an egg-laying cameo from Juliette Binoche, among others — although Paul Giamatti and Mathieu Amalric put some recognisable human life into theirs. As the star, Robert Pattinson's face is set in an immobile semi-sneer of super-cool unshockability."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may ... MUSTXT9383

The Hollywood Reporter: "After a strong run of films over the past decade, David Cronenberg blows a tire with Cosmopolis.Lifeless, stagey and lacking a palpable subversive pulse despite the ready opportunities offered by the material, this stillborn adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel will initially attract some Robert Pattinson fans but will be widely met with audience indifference."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... nes-329230

Screen Daily: "The cerebral postmodern novels of US writer Don DeLillo have so far proved immune to screen adaptation. It’s not difficult to understand why as we watch David Cronenberg’s arid stab at Cosmopolis, DeLillo’s 2003 yarn about a multi-millionaire asset manager crossing New York in a stretch limo to get a haircut as his investments plummet. Cut and pasted almost verbatim into the script, the novelist’s mannered dialogue and shallow characters (many of whom are simply mouthpieces for ideas) make for an anemic, dramatically flat viewing experience."
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the- ... entID=1479

The Playlist " Everything matters in Cronenberg’s "Cosmopolis," but not everything is necessarily the same as DeLillo’s book. And that makes the film, as a series of discussions about inter-related money-minded contradictions, insanely rich and maddeningly complex. We can’t wait to rewatch it." A
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... e-20120525

[Cage Free Brown]

normally "egg laying cameo" would seem a catty choice of words. with Cronenberg, you just can't be too sure!

[algroth]

WINNERS:


Palme d-Or Prize
* "Amour" (dir. Michael Haneke)

Grand Prix
* "Reality" (dir. Matteo Garrone)

Best Actress
* Cosmina Straten and * Cristina Flutur, "Beyond the Hills" (dir. Cristian Mungiu)

Best Actor
* Mads Mikkelsen, "Vinterberg's Jagten (The Hunt)" (dir. Thomas Vinterberg)

Mise-en-Scene Prize (Best Director)
* "Post Tenebras Lux" (dir. Carlos Reygadas)

Prix de Scenario (Best Screenplay)
* "Beyond The Hills" (dir. Cristian Mungiu)

Jury Prize
* "The Angel's Share" (dir. Ken Loach)

Un Certain Regard
* "Después de Lucía (After Lucía)" (dir. Michel Franco)

Camera d'Or
* "Beasts of the Southern Wild" (dir. Behn Zeitlin)