"[In this Catalonian film] a handful of relentlessly uninteresting characters meander through a virtually plotless interlude linked only by the apparent suicide of the brother of one character. He in turn links up with several others involved with his brother during the last few months of his mysterious life.." Hollywood Reporter Kirt Honeycutt
"Austrian director Michael Haneke is back at the film festival confronting them with sexual perversion....stars French actress Isabelle Huppert as the cold, emotionally repressed heroine Erika, whose sexuality is reduced to morbid voyeurism and self-mutilation." - Reuters
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"Very powerful stuff indeed. Best film so far in festival? I think so. Roundly booed by those who hate the Austrian director's work. Don't they even realise that it dealt with classical music better than any other film I've seen? Schubert died of syphilis and Schumann went mad. So the music wasn't just beautiful. It was pretty tough too." Guardian, Derek Malcolm
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"Taking sexual repression to increasingly creepy depths of depravity, Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher" is the kind of audacious film that teeters on a very fine line between seat-shifting uneasiness and flat out silliness." Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen
"The electoral process resembles that of the movie-going process: they choose candidates as they choose movies. It's something that we grow to accept." He raised a laugh when he added: "But did I get on a boat with a big sign saying 'Save Our Movie' as I came to Europe? Absolutely." Sean Penn from Film Unlimited
"brutally inaccessible anti-epic about the advent of firearms in the early 16th century, is a battle in itself." Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen
"...veteran Italian director Ermanno Olmi's most accomplished and cogent work in years. Demanding, difficult and almost impenetrable at first due to its dense salvo of historical figures and events, this atmospheric drama slowly evolves into a fascinating character portrait and a deeply humanistic meditation on war and death."Variety, David Rooney
"...describes in meticulous detail the true-life lethal rampage of an Italian sociopath in France, traveling back and forth between the Mediterranean coast and the mountains of Savoy, in the late 1980s. Ultimately, the film feels empty, devoid of purpose just as Succo's crimes were devoid of reason." Hollywood Reporter, Kirt Honeycutt
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" A French movie about a psychotic who escapes from an asylum and kills two cops has enraged policemen in Cannes, who held a symbolic protest outside the festival's headquarters. - Reuters
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"Perhaps the most roundly disliked of the official entries so far is "Roberto Succo," by Cedric Kahn of France, who follows the adventures of an Italian serial killer as he murders his way through the French countryside". - Roger Ebert
"Complicated technology and vast sums of money are harnessed for a simple story about inner beauty and affection. Throw in some scatological humour, and you have a studio system showing itself as an essentially benign and artistic enterprise." The Times of India, Meenakshi Shedde
"While the actors find inventive ways to replay the same action....The film fails on many levels. Take something as simple as the story's theatrical background. Corsini has a cast populated, naturally, with actors yet cannot stage one single convincing scene of a rehearsal or performance.." Hollywood Reporter, Kirt Honeycutt
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"Emmanuelle Béart's unbearably narcissistic performance doesn't help this visually flat and wooden tale of dishonesty in friendship and/or love. Too much!" NRC, The Netherlands,Hans Beerekamp
"A delicate drama of pain and grief in the wake of a family tragedy...this refined, uncharactersitic work cuts deep...reflecting a new maturity in the director (Moretti) and an emotional resonance that lasts well beyond the end credits." Variety David Rooney
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"...could win the Palme d'Or, seems destined for commercial success because it tells a deeply touching story in a bright, perceptive way; one is reminded of "Kramer vs. Kramer" or "Ordinary People." - Roger Ebert
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"Simply the most modest and beautiful film of the festival." Jean Roy, L'Humanité, France
"...It has become clear, sadly, that Sokurov no longer cares very much about his audience; this entirely hermetic, and for the most part unrevealing, film seems to have been conceived entirely without regard for anyone who would pay money to see it. The desaturated, soft-focus, green-tinged look of the film, which the director photographed himself, looks mannered and drab." Variety David Stratton
"It seems impossible to over-praise this beautifully made, sophisticated, and finally, quite staggering film." Indiewire, Patrick C. McGavin
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"An amusing sexual roundelay involving members of a touring Italian theater company who have brought their staging of Pirandello's "Come tu Mi Vuoi" to Paris, the film, buoyed by a superb cast, manages to overcome an awfully slow start and sprint spryly to a highly satisfying finale." Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen
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"Jacques Rivette -- a renowned New Wave director -- delighted audiences this week with his movie ``Va Savoir,'' a refreshing comedy that leaves behind France's obsession with existential angst." Reuters, Lee Yanowitch
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"...this is as perfectly made a movie as you can possibly imagine, a paean to romance and to humanity's wonderful foibles." Orange Country Register, Henry Sheehan
"Pic is the latest in a series of films by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang that are loosely based on the same family from "Rebels of the Neon God," "Vive l'Amour" and "The River," and the familiarity should please helmer's fans. Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme's very refined lighting, often from a single source, is a joy to behold as it bathes Yip Kam-tim's sets in a play of light and shadows and contrasts the gaudy electronic world of Taiwan with romantic Paris." Variety Deborah Young
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"...about a Taiwanese watchseller who becomes fixated on a girl who has bought a watch from him before traveling to Paris.... [A] droll drama/comedy that is perhaps [Ming-liang's] best film to date. His characteristic, trying method of holding his camera stock still, during one low-key nothing-happens vignette after another, is not to everyone's taste, but the patient viewer is always amply rewarded." Film.com, Peter Burnett