Last day at Cannes Film Festival 2016: Fri 20 May

Friday 20 May was our last day at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The Marché was pretty much like ghost town by then - almost all of the stands for the multitude of organisations had been packed up. Screenings continue but fewer - a much smaller selection of market films - but opportunities to catch up on some of the films from the official selections, as well as selection films premiering in the last couple of days. This was my chance to see the Competition films Aquarius and The Last Face, La larga noche de Francisco Sanchis (in Un Certain Regard) and the Cannes Classic Memorias del subdesarrollo/Memories of Underdevelopment.

Aquarius line-up make their statement on
Brazil's political situation (on the red carpet)

Aquarius ***** (Kleber Mendonça, France/Brazil, 2015). Great film about a woman's struggle to retain her home in the face of efforts by a powerful developer to oust her from her apartment after all her neighbours have been bought out. The film is in 3 acts, the first of which is set in the 1980s at a family gathering for an aunt's 70th birthday, just after Clara (Sonia Braga) has recovered from cancer; the second focuses on Clara's resistance to the developers in which she is presented as a determined and forthright woman. In a medium which is not renowned for a wealth of strong mature female roles, Aquarius offers a very positive model, in the strength of the character and the way in which sensitive (and rarely tackled) issues such as maturity and sexuality, feelings around the female body and the impact of surgery on (self-)perception and self-confidence are addressed. Sonia Braga's impressive performance - and the film - offer a very strong role model as well as a compelling narrative about an individual standing up for her rights in the face of the unscrupulous determination of a powerful organisation. Clip on YouTube here. Reviews from Indiewire, Variety, Screen Daily.

Memorias del subdesarrollo/Memories of Underdevelopment ***** (Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Cuba 1968) - in the Cannes Classics section. Great to have the opportunity to see this newly digitally restored classic from this great Cuban filmmaker. Sergio (  ) is a middle-class intellectual in his 40s who opts to stay in Cuba after the Revolution when his wife and parents leave for the US. An outsider, living off the compensation he received for property that has been expropriated by the government, he drifts through life and his relationship with a 16-year-old girl, taking a supercilious, pseudo-intellectual view of what he sees as Cuba's endemic underdevelopment and lack of culture, rejecting the past but also disengaged and cynical about the ambitions of the Revolution. The film follows his reflections as he tries to make sense of the past and present and his own life. Set between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, the film includes fascinating archive footage of those events and of the Havana of the period (fascinating to see these having recently been to Cuba). Cannes Classic. NY Times - review from 1973 here.

La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis/The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis *** (Andrea Testa, Francisco Márquez, Argentina 2016. Quite a short film (80m) set in Buenos Aires 1977 where Francisco, an ordinary family guy, is contacted by an old friend from his student days some 20 years before when he belonged to a radical group. She asks him to help warn a couple of people that they are in danger of being picked up that night (by the secret police). The request is in disturbing contrast to his uneventful and pedestrian home and work life but he feels he must do something to help. The film focuses on his quest, initially to find someone else who can deliver the message, following him through the dark and deserted streets and creating a chilling sense of the drab and fear-ridden atmosphere of the 1970s under the dictatorship, all the more disturbing for the lack of clarity about the nature of the threat which is in no way diminished by frustratingly enigmatic end of the film.
Reviews Slant and Variety. Trailer on YouTube here.

Sean Penn leaving the premiere
(on Croisette big screen)

The Last Face *** (Sean Penn, USA 2014). In Competition. The film ended up being a probably well-meaning but ill-judged attempt to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis of war and the critical role of international aid.  Javier Bardem is a doctor with a humanitarian aid organisation in war-torn Africa, working desperately to save lives. When the director of major fundraising organisation (Charlize Theron), who is also a trained doctor, rolls up her sleeves to help out, their romance takes front stage. As they wrestle with angst of their relationship, the realities of the humanitarian crisis are relegated to an - albeit harrowing - backdrop. The film was seriously panned as soon as comments from the press screening filled social media - see selection of comments gathered by Variety here. Trailer here. Cannes press conference here.

So that;s it for the Cannes Festival this year. Lots of interesting films! I guess my overall highlights of the festival were as follows but lots of other interesting films I've mentioned in the blog are really worth seeing when you get the chance.

From Latin America: Neruda; Aquarius; Transit Havana; La ciénaga/Between sea and land

From Spain: Julieta

From other European countries: Les vies de Therese; Mal de piers; La pazza gioia/Like Crazy

From USA and Canada: Café Society; Two lovers and a bear

We celebrated our last night in Cannes this year
with our friend Charles Rubinstein
at a great restaurant he recommended -
we'll definitely be going there again....
Thanks, Charles!

Wed 18 - Thurs 19 May at Cannes Film Festival 2016

Interesting how the atmosphere changes from about midweek onwards as the Festival starts to run down - fewer Marché films and the Marché stands in the Palais start closing down. Still plenty of people on the Croisette though - and on the beach, of course. I really must try and find time to do that ...

I spent the last three days at the Festival mostly focusing on the Selection films. Unfortunately there were a few on my wish list that I didn't manage to get into: Toni Erdmann which became a really hot ticket by the beginning of the week - joined the queue for this on Thursday but sadly I was just behind the last few people to get in...  (See review here and trailer here). To add to the frustration, after queueing for an hour at the Soixantieme for La mort de Louis XIV Spanish (Hors Competition), I also failed to get into that (trailer here; review here)! All a bit infuriating but I did get to see some other great films.

So here come the highlights of Wednesday and Thursday:

La fille inconnue/ The Unknown Girl ***** (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France 2016). This Competition film was one of the ones that you had to apply for tickets to see in the Debussy cinema and fortunately that came good (both John and I got tickets for this) though you still have to queue to get a good seat! A really strong film - well worth the early rise (it started at 8.30am; in the queue at about 8!). This is a slow-burning thriller in vérité mode. Young doctor, Jenny (Adèle Haenel) works in a surgery in a deprived area on the outskirts of Liege. After a round black woman is murdered on the riverbank near her surgery, Jenny is driven by a sense of guilt to discover the identity victim, a young black woman whom, it seems, no-one recognises or cares about. A review of the close circuit TV in response to police enquiries reveals that the woman had rung the surgery bell in a state of panic just before she was killed. Although Jenny had heard the bell and Julien, her young intern (Oliver Bonnaud), wanted to respond, Jenny refused to go to the door because it was after hours and because (as she later recognises) she wanted to establish her authority over him. The fact that her criticism of Julien's work contributes to his decision to give up medicine increases her sense of self-approbation.  Jenny's quest to find the woman's identity and pay for a grave leads her to a closer engagement with the social realities of this community and a series of violent encounters. The heightened by naturalistic performances and pared down style throw the aggression of these encounters into striking relief and heighten the gradually building tension of the film.  Hollywood Reporter Cannes review here. Trailer here.

Voir du Pays/The Stopover **** (Delphine Cousin and Muriel Coulin, France/Greece 2016) In the Un certain regard selection. Voir du pays focuses on three women soldiers on leave from a tour in Afghanistan. The whole company is taken to a Greek holiday resort  complex (how likely is that??) for  three days of 'decompression' during which they review their experiences under the guidance of an army team including psychologists. Their reflections focus particularly on an exercise in which one of the women was wounded and several of their colleagues were killed in an ambush. The film explores stress and trauma and the different ways in which individuals within the company have responded to an extreme experience. The drama focuses around the shifting dynamics and building tension between members of the group as uncomfortable facts and perspectives on the exercise emerge, coming to the boil when some of them go 'awol' to a village fiesta with some locals.  The film grapples powerfully with gender relations and ingrained sexism within the male-dominated context of active service and poses searching questions about the institutionalised 'decompression' process. A very powerful and unusual film. Trailer here. Variety Cannes review here. Review and trailer in French here.

Two lovers and a bear**** (Kim Nguyen, Canada 2015) - in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Although it sounded quirkily interesting, I actually went to see this when I failed to get in to another film that was over-subscribed - and I loved it. In a tiny, isolated community in the North Pole Lucy Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane Dehaan) are lovers. Both have a troubled past in which they experienced childhood abuse by their fathers, the effects of which live on in Lucy's nightmares and Roman's alcoholic binges. When Lucy eventually decides to leave and go south to escape her demons, she and Roman embark on a journey across the frozen wastes which will become life-threatening. The tense drama which pervades this intriguing film is relieved by moments of great tenderness between the lovers, and unexpected humour as we discover that Roman can talk to bears...! Shame about the other film but this was a real bonus! Trailer here; review here.

Juste la fin du monde/It's only the end of the world **(Xavier Dolan, Canada/France 2016). In Competition. Gay writer, Antoine (Vincent Cassel), goes home to see his family after 12 years' absence. As they gather, the spirit of reunion is undermined by a range of emerging tensions which the film deftly builds between the various family members.  Their various feelings of awkwardness, apprehension, fear and resentment create an atmosphere in which it comes increasingly difficult for Antoine to fulfil his reason for returning: to 'announce his death' to his family.
Reviews here from Hollywood Reporter, trailer here.

Ma'Rosa *** (Brillante Mendoza, Phillippines 2016) In Competition.

A really interesting - though depressing - film in which Ma'Rosa (Jaclyn Jose) scratches out a living from her little convenience store with a little drug-dealing on the side. When she and her husband , Néstor (Julio Díaz),  are arrested, the whole family is drawn into the race to scrape together the funds to pay off the local drug squad. Police corruption, prostitution and betrayals paint a sordid portrayal of hand-to-mouth existence and survival amid the chaos and noise of this down-at-heel quarter of Manila. At the end of the film we are left with the impression of a cycle of corruption and survival that will just keep repeating itself. Very strong acting.  Screen Daily Cannes review here. Trailer here.

Resurección/Resurrection *** (Eugenio Polgovsky, Mexico 2016) - is Marché film. A fascinating - documentary about albeit not very tightly structured - about El Salto, the Juanacatlán Falls in Jalisco, near Guadalajara, Mexico. The film brings together images of El Salto from 1950s when it was a healthy and fertile farming area, rich in plants and wildlife, and a well-known beauty spot for tourists: 'the Niagara Falls of Mexico.' Images from fifties'  tourist films and brochures  are combined with interviews with locals, footage showing the decline in the quality of the water and farming from the 1970s onwards with the unregulated growth of industrialisation and powerful local companies. The film demonstrates how the waste from these has polluted the river and falls, resulting in huge loss of flora and fauna, the shrinking of the Falls and a huge increase in cases of cancer and skin diseases among the local population. A government campaign initiated in 1980s is shown to have failed to address these issues and local community groups have now taken matters into their own handset push for action, including mounting an environmental 'horror tour' of the area.   Website here.

A couple of other films from Wednesday and Thursday:

Fado ** (Jonas Rothlander, Germany/Portugal 2016) in the Marché. A relationship drama in which Fabián (Golo Euler), a German doctor follows his former girlfriend, Dora (Louise Heyer) to Lisbon after losing a patient who looks like her. Not long after they resume their relationship the reason for their previous split resurfaces: Fabián's jealousy. Only managed to see the first half of this due to screening times and clashes with one of my 'must see' films but it's one I'll probably try to catch again if/when it gets a UK release.

The Student/Uchenik (Krill Serebrennikov, Russia 2016)  In Un Certain Regard  Clearly others have seen qualities that escaped me - for me it was the most disappointing film I saw at the Festival. Veniamin (Peter Skvortsov), the student of the title, goes through a mounting moral, spiritual, and psychological crisis in which his bible-quoting religious mania reaches a level of fanaticism which leave his exhausted single mother desperate and cause chaos in his school - and take the film into the realms of farce. The teachers become overwhelmed by the situation, with the exception of his Sociology tutor who becomes almost equally obsessed with finding the biblical evidence to refute Veniamin's increasingly ranting declarations and his relationship with the hapless fellow student 'disciple' he acquires take the film full tilt into its soberingly dark conclusion. See Screen daily review here; and Variety here.  See trailer here.

Cannes bus station

More to come on our last day at the Festival in my next post....

Week of 16 May at Cannes Film Festival (Monday & Tuesday)

Strolling after supper

Sadly we weren't invited...

Saw 19 films between Monday 16 May and our last day at the Festival, Friday 20 May. A pretty full-on week,  so I'll cover just the films seen on the first couple of days in this blog.

There was still some time to appreciate Cannes between screenings, though!




First of all the highlights of the first two days of the week for me:

Les vies de Thérèse ***** directed by Sébastien Lifshitz, France 2016 (Quinzaine des Ralisateurs). A biopic of militant feminist Thérèse Clerc as she faces the end of her life. It opens with her reasons for making the documentary and the importance of creating a space to explore the subjects of old age and death which are rarely broached on screen.  Sensitively directed, the film intersperses the documentation of her advancing illness, archive footage and her own reflections on her life  and perspectives from her children.  In the late sixties her conventional life - childhood in a conservative, bourgeois catholic family, early marriage and motherhood -  changed dramatically as she discovered feminism, took the decision to end her unhappy marriage and became an activist. The film provides an intimate and moving tribute as she and her family face the end of her life. See Cineuropa review here. Trailer here.

Couldn't resist a 'selfie' 
(yes, I know - same dress!)

Julieta ***** Pedro Almodóvar, Spain 2015 (in Competition). Very exciting to manage to get a ticket for the evening première of Pedro Almodóvar's latest (yes - another red carpet comb for me!). It elicits excellent performances by Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as the older and younger Julieta, and brings back the inimitable Rossy de Palma as the quirkily sinister housekeeper for Xoan (Daniel Grao), a Galician fisherman with whom Julieta has a daughter, Antía.  Years after Xoan's tragic death, Antía, now a young adult, goes away on a retreat and disappears, severing all contact with her mother. Julieta never abandons the hope of finding Antía.

Pedro signing autographs outside the Palais
just before heading for the red carpet

After a chance encounter with a childhood friend who has seen Antía in Italy, Julieta abandons plans to move away from Madrid with her new partner, remains in the place where Antía can find her and renews efforts to contact her. A letter to her estranged daughter introduces a flashback to the past and their life together as a young family until Xoan's untimely death.  Pedro back on form with this sombre drama about motherhood and a poignant study of the grief, despair and incomprehension of loss.


La ciénaga: entre el mar y la tierra/Between sea and land **** (Carlos del Castillo, Colombia 2016). Market screening.
Brilliant performance by Manolo Cruz (who also wrote the script) as a severely disabled young man, Alberto. Living bed bound in a tiny shack with his mother, and dependent on an artificial respirator, Alberto paints and dreams. The films drama revolves around his mother's attempt to make his dream of being able to go to the sea come true. Extremely moving, the film deservedly won the Special Jury prize at the Sundance Festival. Trailer in Spanish  here and subtitled here. Variety Review from Sundance here.

Cinema novo **** (Eryk Rocha, Brazil, 2016) Shown in the Cannes Classics section of the Festival, this is a fascinating collage of images and sound from classic cinema novo filmmakers of this critical and influential movement of the 60s and 70s in Brazil by the son of one if its luminaries. Rocha's film shows how these filmmakers sought to find a new film language and aesthetics to bring art, poetry and politics together, and 'take film out onto the streets of Brazil'. Information from Festival here.Variety review - less enthusiastic - here.

Mimosas ** (Oliver Laxe, Spain/Morocco/France/Qatar, 2016). I have to say this film by Galician filmmaker, Laxe, is something of a Marmite experience... I found it disappointingly un-engaging although the cinematography is wonderful and worth seeing just for that. Others have waxed lyrical about it and it did win the Semaine de la Critique  Grand Prize. The project is interesting, set in the Moroccan Atlas as a caravan accompanies a dying sheik across the mountains and desert. When he dies and the caravaners want to dump the body, a couple of fellow travellers decide to take on the challenge of returning the sheik to his ancestral burial ground. Screen review here.


Santa y Andrés ***(Carlos Lechuga, Cuba/France/Colombia 2016) Market screening.  was very interested to see this film following our recent Cuba trip. The film is set in the eastern part of Cuba in 1983. When an international literary event is about to take place, a member of the local Party is assigned to keep watch over a non-conformist, gay writer (Eduardo Martínez) to ensure that he refrains from participating or making 'undesirable' comments. The job is given to the inexperienced Santa who takes the role extremely seriously and, in contrast to Andrés's relaxed style, keeps all conversation and interaction with him to a minimum.  When a downpour forces her to accept his offer of shelter, they begin to develop a deep friendship and understanding and, when Andrés is accused of more subversive writing, she risks her own safety and reputation to protect him. Interview with director here.

El charro de Toluquilla/The charro of Toluquilla *(José Villalobos Romero, Mexico 2016)  Market screening. A fairly conventional documentary about the mariachi singer, Jaime García Dominguez, speaking frankly about his colourful lifestyle, contracting HIV and reflecting on lifestyle options. Tribeca festival review here.

Sharing Stella (Kiki Alvarez, Cuba/Colombia 2016) Set in Havana in 2014. A director is planning to stage A Streetcar Named Desire and is looking for an actor to play Stella. In the lead up to the casting  process, a group of actors reflect in filmed interviews and 'fly-on-the wall' observations on acting, sex and relationships and the changes which are taking place in Cuba. Interesting on the latter, but rather self-indulgent and less interesting otherwise. Teaser here.

Also attended the Doc Day conference on Global Awareness for Social Justice: Impact Making Documentaries which included an interesting interview with Gianfranco Rosi (El sicario; Fire at sea; - 2016 Golden Bear at Berlin FF). Unfortunately Laura Poitras  was unable to attend as still putting last finishing touches to her film, Risk (about Julian Assange), which premiered on Thursday at Cannes). Also opportunity to hear from Russian documentary filmmaker, Askov Kurov, who is currently making a film about a Ukranian film director arrested for suspected terrorism, and spoke about the difficulty of filmmaking in Russia at the moment. Also Gabo Arora who is based at the UN - awareness raising - and was talking about the use of virtual reality to make a new kind of film.  Unfortunately not enough time and opportunity was given to hearing from these filmmakers... See Screen Daily Report here.

More on the rest of the week in my next blog post...

Weekend of 13 May at Cannes Film Festival

Saw some 15 films over the first few days in Cannes - so here's an update on some of the highlights from the weekend of 13-15 May:

 Director and cast

Caught an early screening of Pablo Larraín's latest film about the Chilean poet and senator, Neruda *****(Quinzaine du Réalisateur section of the Festival), followed by a Q&A with the director and cast members. In a quite different aesthetic mode from his earlier movies, Neruda adopts a noirish style to focus on the period in which Neruda (Luis Gnecco) is impeached and pursued for his outspoken communist views and criticism of the González Videla regime. Unable to leave the country, in 1948 he goes into hiding, moving from one safe house to another prior to his eventual exile to Paris. The film is playfully positioned from the viewpoint of the fancifully arrogant Police Prefect, Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal). Neruda delights in taunting Peluchonneau, leaving him copies of his poetry as

Pablo Larraín

he narrowly evades his clutches, revelling in the heightening of his iconic status that the situation affords. The dreamlike quality of the images is underlined by the use of Peluchonneau's voiceover. Whilst the poet is a larger than life character, Larraín's representation pulls no punches in revealing the seamier aspects of his colourful life and sexual exploits and the fragility of the idealism of the moment. This is poignantly highlighted when Neruda is asked by a activist what kind of equality they will bring - equality with her lifestyle (she has been cleaning for the privileged for years) - or with Neruda's.  An excellent film and one of my tops from the Festival as a whole.


Other highlights over the weekend were the Italian film, Like Crazy, Mal de Pierres/From the Land of the Moon and La danseuse (in Certain Regard).

La pizza gioia/Like Crazy **** (in the Quinzaine) by director, Paolo Virzi - a very funny, sensitive and moving film, in which Beatrice (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), a long-term mental patient at the Casa Bondi clinic escapes with a new arrival, Donatella (Micaela Ramazzotti),  and the two women embark on a wacky adventure, reminiscent in some respects of Thelma and Louise. Beatrice's delusions of grandeur, oscillations between hyperactive excitement, outpourings of emotion and occasional explosions of outrageous bigotry contrast with Donatello's withdrawn and anxious who gradually emerges from her shell.

Virzi, Bruni-Tedeschi & Ramazzotti (on the right)

Their wacky journey takes in a visit to Beatrice's former husband and an attempt to track down Donatello's son who has been taken into adoption following traumatic incident in her past. As spectators we are drawn in to empathise and become complicit with the highs and lows of their escapades - Foucault would have appreciated this one! A hilariously engaging, but sensitive and moving picture which draws attention to contrasting mental health care institutions. In the interview with the director and cast at the Quinzaine screening, Virzi drew attention to the impact of recent closures of mental health centres in Italy and the importance
of maintaining places which can provide the kind of caring and responsive environment that we see in Casa Bondi (in contrast to more institutionalised hospital models which we also glimpse in the film).

Marion Cotillard & Nicole García arriving at the Lumiere

Mal de Pierres/From the Land of the Moon **** (in Competition) is a haunting story set in 1950s. Gabrielle (Marion Cotillard - brilliant again) is a imaginative, 'free-spirited' and libidinal young woman whose unrequited obsession with, and public pursuit of, her (married) teacher causes something of a scandal, leaving her distraught and her exasperated and despairing family determined to marry her off. Spanish Civil War veteran José is up for the challenge, despite her determination not to consummate the marriage. When 

she is diagnosed with kidney stones ('mal de pierres') Gabrielle is sent to 'take the waters' in a sanatorium where she meets and falls for a sick soldier, André (Louis Garrel) - their passionate affair filmed in a hauntingly dreamlike register. Great performances by the two leads. See Hollywood Reporter Cannes review here and trailer here.

John and I were lucky enough to attend the evening première of Mal de Pierres/From the Land of the Moon on Sunday in the main Lumière theatre there all the films in Competition are shown. Here we are caught by the paparazzi in our tenue de soirée finery just after seeing the film!

Another impressive film from this weekend's crop (so many!) was La danseuse/The dancer *** (in the Certain Regard category). Directed by Stéphanie de Giusto, it is a stunning bio of the Belle Époque dancer Loie Fuller (Soko) who leaves her mid-west US home  with her drunken father to join her temperance-committed mother in Paris where she starts trying to develop a career in acting. After she seedy assignments, she joins a cabaret and creates her own unique butterfly dance. Review and trailer here.

Other films caught over the weekend were:  

Jodorowsky being interviewed at the Quinzaine screening
(Jodorowsky on the right)

Poesía sin fin/Endless Poetry ** (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chile/France 2016) (Quinzaine section) -  very much a carnivalesque arthouse movie, the second of his autobiographical films in which his relationship with his father whose machismo and arch-conservativism are at odds with his development as a a cinematographic poet/artist. Jodorowsky's two sons play the roles of himself and his father. The film creates some interesting and powerful imagery, e.g. his early childhood home in Buenos Aires is reconstructed through the superimposition of billboard photos; cardboard cutouts of key figures; circus motifs.  See Screen review here. 

After Love/L'économie du couple *** (Joaquin Lafosse, France 2015)  (Quinzaine des réalisateurs category) dealing with the tensions and contradictions of separation.  Marie and Boris have been together for 10 years and have 2 young daughters but their relationship has hit the rocks and they are in the process of separating though Boris is still living in the house prior to Marie buying him out. The film is a low-key but compellingly tense study of their broken relationship: recriminations about money (Boris's work as an architect is erratic whilst Marie 's family and job have kept them afloat economically whilst Boris is aggrieved at the lack of recognition of the improvements he has made to the house); both seeking (though often failing) to protect the girls from their arguments; moments of regret, family togetherness and even passionate lapses and a moment of crisis - all of these draw in the spectator to root for a reconciliation against which the odds are stacked.  Review and trailer here.

El rey del once ** (Daniel Burman, Argentina 2016) plunges the spectator into the Jewish quarter of Buenos Aires when Ari (Alan Sabbath) returns from his current New York life to visit his family (initially with the plan of introducing them to his girlfriend). Back in Buenos Aires he is plunged immediately back into the family's tireless and chaotic work funning a Jewish Aide Foundation ('El once') which supplies local families with recycled clothes, medicines, kosher food and general moral support. Unable to touch base with his elusive father, Usher, who runs the Foundation, Ari begins to explore the cultural and religious rituals he finds initially finds quite mystifying from his secular viewpoint.  See Hollywood Reporter review from Berlin FF here.

La madre/The Mother ** (Alberto Morais, Spain/Romania/France 2016) Morais's 14-year-old protagonist (Javier Mendo) is about to be sent to a Centre for Minors as his mother is incapable of providing a stable home and looking after him. The structure and pace of the film position us to experience the boy's frustration, alienation and disillusionment as he moves from pillar to post, initially inclined to trust his mother's reassurances that she will resolve the pending issue of the court order and seek a job, but gradually recognising that his mother's lack of response to his calls and eventual disappearance leave him alone to resolve his situation. Unsentimentally moving.  El olivo films website info here. Cineuropa info

Kóblic (Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina/Spain 2016)  ** An uneven thriller with Ricardo Darín in the title role of a military pilot in 1970s. Unable to stomach the regime's adoption of the 'vuelos de la muerte' (the practice of dropping political detainees out of planes and into the sea) he refuses a direct order and goes into hiding in a backwater job flying pesticide planes, grappling with the nightmare flashbacks which plague his conscience.  The suspicions of the local police combine with jealousies aroused by his affair with a local woman combine to close in on him. Some really strong moments (Darín) but rather narratively uneven - some strands insufficiently developed to convince.  Hollywood Reporter review. Trailer here.

Transit Havana (Daniel Abma, Netherlands/Germany 2016) Very competent documentary about transsexuals in Cuba and the impact of a programme championed by Mariela Castro (daughter of President Raúl Castro) to support trans-gender care, raise awareness and combat homophobia.  The programme presents equality in gender and sexuality as the next step in Cuba's socialist programme, under the slogan 'Homophobia no; socialism sí'. The documentary focuses on three transgender people - Juani, Manú and Odette - who are hoping to be selected for sex change operations this year as part of a rolling programme which brings over two specialist plastic surgeons from Holland and Belgium to work with a Cuban team in Havana to operate on 5 cases each year. Through interviews and 'fly-on-the-wall' footage as they discuss their situation, feelings and aspirations, the film explores the community and family reactions, issues around religious belief, the economic situation, etc. Filming was in train when the news of a rapprochement between Cuba and US was announced by Raúl Castro and Obama and captures reactions to this. Trailer here. IMDb link here. 

Along the Croisette outside the Palais du Festival

Hi there! Here's my first post from Cannes 2016 - half way through the Festival!

It seems really busy this year with a lot of time taken up with working out the screening schedule for the day and queuing to get in to the more popular films - and I'm trying to see 3-4 films a day. Fortunately the weather has been great - sunny but not too hot (and only a little rain this afternoon).

As before, I'm focusing mainly on Spanish and Latin American films and the films from the main selection - see the Cannes Film Festival website for details of the different categories and films in these sections.



A great start to the Festival with Woody Allen's Café Society which I caught in the 'séance du lendemain' screening on Thursday 12th at the Salle du Soixantième. The film takes a critical look at the glitzy, shallow, gossip-ridden, name-dropping Hollywood society of the 1930s at the same time as luxuriating in the look and style of the period and revisiting many familiar Allen themes.
Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves his New York family home to seek new career opportunities in LA with the initially reluctant help of his uncle, a big-shot agent in Hollywood and immediately falls for his uncle's assistant (Kirstin Stewart). The shifting relationship between these three provides the focal point for the narrative.  Review: Screen Daily Cannes.


Thursday's other highlight was Victoria/In bed with Victoria (N.B. title translation differences!!) , directed by Justine Triet and in the Semaine de la Critique section at the Festival. A compelling, if sometimes slightly muddled, comedy/drama around the interplay between the professional and personal life of  criminal lawyer and single mother, Victoria, and a 'warts and all' portrayal of a self-absorbed workaholic with a chaotic home life and unsatisfying string of sexual encounters effectively presented without descending into voyeurism or eroticism  (great performance by Virginie Efira). Review: Variety.


Virginie Elfira, Justine Triet and Vincent Lacoste at 
Semaine de la Critique screening  of Victoria, 12 May 2016

 Also took in a couple of Spanish films: Toro, directed by Kike Maíllo, is a gangster movie set in Torremolinos where brothers José López (Luis Tosar) and Toro (Mario Casas) are locked in an increasingly violent battle with the the powerful and sadistic gangster Romano and his henchmen. A gripping movie as long as you can stomach the violence.  Review: Hollywood Reporter.  El destierro/The Exile, directed by Arturo Ruiz offers a period piece set during the Spanish Civil War in a Nationalist mountain outpost in winter where Silverio, a hardy rough diamond (who found himself on the side of the military uprising by being in the wrong place at the wrong time) and his new fellow guard, Teo, a fervently religious  Nationalist unexpectedly find themselves in custody of Zoska, a young woman who is a volunteer Republican soldier from eastern Europe. The resulting ménage à trois poses some uncomfortable issues around gender and sexuality which the film fails to effectively address, although it provides an interesting and thought-provoking reflection on loyalty and solidarity in conflict. Trailer: Cineuropa.

More about the following days in my next post!