(What the critics are saying)
((++)) WaaHoo! / ((+)) Yea / ((=)) Mixed / ((-)) Ummm / ((--)) Uggghh
Filmmaker makes a revolutionary leap forward technically and narratively. 10 dazzling and perceptive snapshots of women with which femmes everywhere can identify. Using a small DV camera attached to the dashboard of a car and just two camera setups -- closeup of driver and closeup of passenger -- he creates a rich, believable emotional world around a young divorced Iranian woman grappling with her anxieties.Its radical nature will keep many viewers at bay, while the nonstop dialogue will sorely test viewers' subtitle reading skills. (Variety, Deborah Young)
Is a fascinating portrait of a society that is not that much different from our own. So rigorous and, for the eyes at least, wearying a film demands patience from an audience. It is well rewarded, but the concept does limit the film's theatrical life. (Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
24 Hour Party People - Michael Winterbottom - England ((+)) IN COMPETITION
The use of DV here seems to be absolutely justified, with the resultant flat, brownish patina giving a convincing period feel and also blurring the lines between re-created and actual docu footage. In the club scenes, you can almost smell the sweat, taste the beer and feel your brain cells dying as bands like Joy Division crash their way into musical history. (Variety, Derek Elley)
Joins an impressive list of rock & roll movies that have energized film over the decades, ranging from seminal entries like "The Girl Can't Help It" through biopics like "The Buddy Holly Story" and "What's Love Got to Do With It," to mention just a few. The film's faux-chaotic mannerisms may be too offbeat for mass audiences, but rock-film aficionados should cheer. (IndieWire, David Sterrit)
About Schmidt - Alexander Payne - USA ((+)) IN COMPETITION
The indisputable raison d'etre for "About Schmidt" is to showcase Jack Nicholson giving a master class in the art of screen acting. A bit slack in its first half before erupting into some fine character-based hilarity in the latter-going, Alexander Payne's look at an ordinary man's late-life crisis lacks the sharp satiric kick of his earlier efforts, especially "Election," but is marked by knowing observations about the Midwestern middle class and a generally sagacious posture. (Variety, Todd McCarthy)
An acutely observed tragicomedy navigating the uncharted boundaries of human behavior. Quite remarkable on its own considerable merits [but] it's a commanding Jack Nicholson lead performance that puts it into a sublime league of its own. (Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen)
All Or Nothing - Mike Leigh - England ((++)) IN COMPETITION
The husband works as a cab driver, the wife is a checkout girl at the local supermarket, the daughter cleans at an old people's home and the overweight, recalcitrant son is belligerently unemployed. Meet the family around whom Mike Leigh's All Or Nothing revolves. The result is another work to be remembered from a film-maker of whom the least you can say is that he is utterly unique. (The Guardian, Derek Malcolm)
It may lack the intrigue of "Secrets & Lies," but Leigh's in masterful control of his craft here. As is his trademark, Leigh again manages to mix some welcome, organic humor in with all the prevailing bleakness. (Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechstshaffen)
Ararat - Atom Egoyan - Canada ((=))
Deeply personal film which takes as its subject the wholesale massacre of Armenians by the Turks in Ottoman Turkey during the first world war. Unfortunately, Egoyan attempts too much in his film and stumbles with script, acting and an over-complicated structure. (The Guardian, Derek Malcolm)
Highly ambitious, intricately scripted, beautifully photographed meditation on redemption and reconciliation. But while obviously an extremely personal work, it remains inextricably stuck in an emotionally unavailable rut. (Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
Bemani - Dariush Mehrjui - Iran ((+))
"Bemani" is an extreme film detailing extreme acts of desperation that, like Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Kandahar," uses artistic license to make its point like a kick in the stomach. Though to a large extent pic schematizes its three young heroines -- who are depicted less as individuals than as horror stories -- it succeeds in conveying a strong feeling of anger against patriarchal society. (Variety, Deborah Young)
Bowling for Columbine - Michael Moore - USA ((+)) SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
Keeping the insolvable mystery of trigger-happiness in his sights, from Flint, Mich. to Littleton, Colo. and from Manhattan to Toronto, Moore both targets and indulges in specious reasoning about just what makes so many Yanks so violent. Is Moore objective? Absolutely not. But he has pertinent axes to grind and the sparks fly thanks to Moore's patented blend of curveball research, expedient juxtaposition, genuine satire and bottomless chutzpah. …[F]irst doc to compete at Cannes in 46 years lives up to the prestige of the slot. (Variety, Lisa Nesselson)
A flat-out brilliant cinematic essay on the issue of guns and violence in American society. (Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
Poorly structured and a half-hour too long—as well as increasingly self-congratulatory as Moore films himself hugging needy victims, and against all odds, succeeds in inspiring pity for doddering NRA flack Charlton Heston, whom he dupes into an at-home interview. (Village Voice, J Hoberman)
…what lingers longest is Moore's basic thesis -- that America, more than any other society, breeds a powerful paranoia among its population, fed mainly by the mainstream media and sensationalistic TV news reports, which makes trigger-happy citizens and the violence they perpetuate an inevitability. (IndieWire, Stephen Garrett)
Carnage - Delphine Gleize - France/Spain ((-))
Journeying into prime Almodovar territory with a wannabe-"Magnolia" multi-story ensemble drama, the pic invests heavily in meticulously designed visuals during its self-consciously enigmatic exploration of themes that touch on everything and nothing. French helmer, attempts to corral the unwieldy elements into some kind of whole, the pretentiousness and preposterousness of the arcane exercise becomes increasingly offensive. (Variety, David Rooney)
A surreal fable.... Having gored a popular torero, the beast is slaughtered and disembowelled in grisly close-up. Various bits of him are parcelled out to unsuspecting recipients, causing death and chaos wherever they turn up. A lab researcher, who is sent the eyeballs, fathers five unwanted daughters. A demented taxidermist gets the horns and his batty mother dies. It drivels on like a film infected with mad-cow disease. (The Times- UK, James Christopher)
Chihwaseon - Im Kwon-taek – South Korea ((+)) BEST DIRECTOR (TIE)
It's a film of an astonishing harmony and of an overwhelming beauty. a biopic, based on the life of a painter called Ohwon who lived in the last period of the long-lasting, powerful and influential Chosun dynasty. [Film Festivals.com, Klaus Eder)
City of God - Fernando Meirelles - Brazil ((++))
A devastating look at the cycle of poverty and despair in a suburb of Rio. [It] garnered excellent reviews and immediate status as this year's puzzler: why in heaven's name wasn't it selected for the main competition? (IndieWire, Michael Giltz)
Unsparingly, operatically violent and often starkly shocking. [Director] puts a distinctly Brazilian spin on a paradox that has become a staple of American popular culture by taking extreme, unsettling real-life subject matter and turning it into irresistible, infectious entertainment. (NY Times, AO Scott)
Compelling…As cool Brazilian rhythms punctuate the dusty, sun-drenched landscape and blood soaks into the ground, you suddenly realize that this must be how hell looks. (Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
The Clay Bird –Tareque Masud – Bangladesh ((+))
This charming, gentle film is one of the real finds of the festival. It is about the experience of childhood, but draws upon unexpected reserves of drama and emotional disquiet to shed light on the world of adults, too. Set in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in the late 1960s, writer-director Tareque Masud's film tells the story of Anu, a boy whose father, Kazi, has abandoned the sophisticated European-British ways of his own youth to immerse himself in Islam. [The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw]
Deux - Werner Schroeter - France ((-))
Two hours of pointless self-indulgence, we get to see [Isabelle} Huppert [playing a pair of seriously messed up twins separated at birth] having meaningless sex with pretty young things of both sexes, burying herself alive, getting viciously attacked by a pet fox and, last but certainly not least, devouring her twin sister's vomit. (Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechstshaffen)
Demonlover- Olivier Assayas - France ((=)) IN COMPETITION
A futuristic, sexy thriller about spies in the adult-entertainment business. It's full of American actors speaking in bad French, has the look of a Prada commercial, makes completely no sense half the time, has an aggressive soundtrack that mixes Japan pop with Sonic Youth, has more gadgets than Mission: Impossible and even dares to have a few scenes of cat-fighting, torture and people playing videogames. Well, what can I say, I loved it. (Film Festival.com, Diego Lerer)
This is the world of industrial spies and counterintelligence no different than any Cold War thriller with its double-crosses, double agents and double agents who double back.This is a French film that -- to put the best possible spin on it -- seeks to graft European sensibility onto Hollywood exploitation and exhibitionism. It's a hybrid product that probably will satisfy neither camp but is fascinating in its failure.
(Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
So awful that I can scarcely bear writing about it. (The Guardian, Derek Malcolm)
A high-tech headscratcher. Starts out as a moody and intriguing corporate thriller but eventually spins off into uncharted realms of cyberhell. Brilliantly made ...will likely snag cult support from fans of techno-oriented fare, Japanime and the outre, but is sure to turn off general viewers due to its emotional inaccessibility, multitude of narrative problems and preoccupation with a torture Web site. (Variety, Todd McCarthy)
Devdas - Sanjay Leela Bhansali - India ((+))
A soap opera story of true love thwarted by indecision, scheming women and family pride. With its opulent production design, gorgeous costumes and elaborate choreography, this is the kind of spectacular fairy tale musical no one else is making anymore. (LA Times, Turan)
Divine Intervention - Elia Suleiman - Palestine ((+)) JURY PRIZE
Using very few camera movements, he constructs short, rigorous visual jokes, the links between them becoming apparent only gradually. Most of the gags, which like all slapstick have an undercurrent of mayhem. (NY Times, AO Scott)
It concerns a people trapped in a land that denies them basic human rights who must lead quiet, desperate lives. In the laughter Suleiman creates from such bleakness, he and the viewer experience a euphoric sensation of triumph in the face of adversity. Unfolds somewhat like a film by the late, great Jacques Tati. (Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt)
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