There are fewer triumphs at this year's festival, writes DONALD CLARKEin Cannes, with most of the action happening off screen, but thankfully a few films have conjured up some magic
THE MOST moving thing this writer has seen so far at Cannes was an appearance by veteran (for once the cliché is apt) film-maker Manoel de Oliveira at the opening of the Un Certain Regard strand. At 102, the Portuguese director, whose gently surreal The Strange Case of Angelicaplayed to deserved acclaim, can claim to be one of a minute handful of working directors who began their careers in the silent era. Well done, sir.
The funniest thing I've witnessed was Mike Leigh, never noted for his equable nature, tearing strips off Richard Brooks from the Sunday Times."I don't want to answer any of your questions and you know why," he scowled at the press conference for his new film Another Year. The long-running feud between the two men continues.
The oddest thing I’ve seen, however, involved (of all things) the recycling bin outside the pressroom. If you have a press pass of the appropriate colour, you will be granted a metal box within which – placed as if by faeries – a wad of invitations, entreaties and death threats (not really) appears daily. The first time I attempted to bung all this stuff in the recycling bin, I found my way impeded by a handful of odd people digging through the debris. Had they lost their keys? It soon occurred to me that these folk were scavenging for invitations to parties and information about upcoming screenings. Outside the Palais des Festivals, where most of the action takes place, hordes of hopefuls clutch crudely scrawled signs requesting tickets for that evening’s screenings. It seems that there is an unofficial, underground festival frequented by ingenious citizens who will use any means possible to become part of this strange event.
At the other extreme, the festival is teeming with attendees – all wearing official badges – who barely ever enter a cinema. On Saturday night, the Irish Film Board and Culture Ireland hosted a jolly event on the beach to celebrate “new Irish cinema”.
Simon Perry, chief executive officer of the Irish Film Board, opened the do with a generous tribute to Michael Dwyer, this newspaper’s late film correspondent, who covered Cannes diligently for over a quarter of a century. Later, while Kila played a raucous set, I heard the same refrain from a significant clutter of film-makers and financiers.
"I'm afraid I haven't seen anything, because I've been too busy taking meetings," one producer told me. "In fact, I don't think I've everseen a film at Cannes.
These genuinely diligent attendees are, in fact, living a sort of complementary existence to the busier film writers. If you catch every film in competition, a sprinkling from Un Certain Regard (official alternative) and the Directors’ Fortnight (semi-unofficial alternative) then you’re not going to have much time for meetings.
Did I say something about films? When the programme was unveiled a month or so ago, a great many commentators grumbled that it looked a wee bit thin. Sure, there were new films from Mike Leigh, Abbas Kiarostami and Takeshi Kitano, but where were the sexy horse-scarers such as last year's Antichristor Inglourious Basterds. It was hard to discern any potential masterpieces such as the same season's The White Ribbonand A Prophet.
Well, there had, by the end of the first weekend, been only one out-and-out triumph among the films competing for the Palme d'Or. Mind you, it would be hard to define Mike Leigh's Another Yearas "a revelation". The British film – in which Leigh regulars Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen care for a huddle of useless friends – does everything that Mike Leigh films usually do. The Cannes jury, headed by Tim Burton, may feel that the film is too familiar to deserve the Palme d'Or. If you like Mike then you'll like Another Year, but you are unlikely to be particularly surprised by it.
THERE WAS MUCH TO SAVOUR(and puzzle over) in Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid.
This strange amalgam of melodrama, social comedy and soft porn is a remake of Kim Ki-young’s famous Korean film from 1960. Im, also South Korean, retains the guts of the story – a newly hired housemaid introduces sexual tension to a comfortable household – but shifts the blame from the servant to her disreputable (not to say satanic) employer and, reflecting changes in Korean society, turns the house from a modest, middle-class home to a vast, marble-bedecked mansion. It’s an invigorating, diverting piece, but it might be a little too bananas to attract the attention of the jury. Then again, that jury is headed by Tim Burton, so you never can tell.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Un Homme qui Criecomes across like the sort of film that has a moral right to play in competition. Emerging from Chad, a former French colony, the picture concerns a hotel pool attendant, formerly a champion swimmer, who loses his job when the enterprise is taken over by a Chinese company.
Unfolding without any music, at a pace that rarely makes it to leisurely, the film features studied, nuanced performances from Youssouf Djaoro in the lead role and from Diouc Koma as the attendant's son. For all its integrity, however, the film is handicapped by its wilful obscurity. The swimming pool drama has some sort of metaphorical purpose. But what exactly? There were diverting films in the Un Certain Regard section. Hideo Nakata's Chatroom, an adaptation of Enda Walsh's play concerning dangerous chatter on the internet, was hammered by many critics, but, for all its messiness, it has a uniquely creepy tone to it. Cristi Puiu's Aurora, the director's follow-up to The Death of Mr Lazarescu, made a virtue of its length and determined oppressiveness.
Yet, as the second week loomed, the festival's main strands had still to offer anything to rattle the bones or hammer the solar plexus. Then, on Monday night, Beat Takeshi delivered Outrage. (See review.) It is disgusting, invigorating and relentless. And it made the official competition really come alive.
