problem. He wanted some salt for his sandwich, but didn't speak a word of French. Miming his needs, he pumped his hand up and down energetically at the befuddled waiter, emptying half the contents of an imaginary salt shaker onto After finally abandoning any hope for salt, the fellow turned to me and competition.
He was despairing, because he had seen the other movies from around the world that he was up against, and he felt he was out of his league. After hearing out his mini-blockbuster synopsis, I figured he was probably right. Not speaking French was the least of this guy's worries.
The tougher The language of the Cannes festival cuts across nationalities, but it is not easily acquired by those bred in the tried-and-true studio manner. To speak surrendering all accepted notions of time, image and telling a story. It also generally means giving up on any hope of making a buck, at least in the States.
One need only look at the last two winners of the festival's coveted top prize. Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" and the their Palme d'Or triumphs in 2006 and 2005 respectively, then proceeded to obsolescence, nonetheless receiving fawning treatment worthy of the inventory in the emperor's new clothes closet. Tortoise pacing, bloated lengths, of B la Tarr's "The Man From London" (long, brooding shots of a grizzled (long, brooding shots of a grizzled grave digger puffing on cigarette), Carlos Reygadas' "Stellet Licht" or "Silent Light" (long, brooding shots of grizzled Seidl's "Import Export" (long, brooding shots of a grizzled crone babbling the In this anesthetic school of existential drama, the filmmaker stretches an tedium and banality of quotidian life.
It works better in some hands than others; I admired "Stellet Licht" and "The Banishment" (which won, respectively, a jury prize and best leading actor) more than many of my colleagues for their woozy evocation of a rural life gone by. But the numbing One can always count on the Yanks, of course, to pump up the Cannes adrenaline. Despite its Cormac McCarthy bestseller roots, "No Country for Old Men" was the apotheosis of the Coen brothers' fast-acting crime jests, aided by a gleefully diabolical performance by resident evildoer Javier Bardem.
It's an extremely well-crafted film, certainly the strongest the Coens have finessed in years, but it feels more like a career summation than a new direction. If the Coens seem to repeat themselves, at least they are economically redundant. Quentin Tarantino inflated his stuntgirl thriller "Death Proof" by some 25 minutes, to no particular effect other than to make it seem even more puerile than it did in its American "Grindhouse" release.
The consensus in many luscious killer babes and grow up. But asking Tarantino to grow up would be signature effects and risk accusations of resting on their laurels, or they try Akin, who won the best screenplay prize but met with resistance in some mellower, more reflective "The Edge of Heaven." A tautly woven, elegantly acted nettlesome family members, "The Edge of Heaven" trafficked in a level of The luxuriant emotionalism of Julian Schnabel's third film, "Le Scaphandre et le Papillon," may have been blamed for a few turned-up European noses, or territory?
(Sofia Coppola didn't make many friends at Cannes last year with "Marie Antoinette," either.) Based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a one eye, Schnabel's French-language film has drawn obvious comparisons to "My Left Foot" and "The Sea Inside." But it's a far richer film than either, for eloquence with which it liberates us.
Schnabel was awarded the best director health-care salvo "Sicko") and Angelina Jolie (playing Mariane Pearl, wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, in "A Mighty Heart") - deservedly so. But the real visionary excitement, for this American's money, was coming out of Korea Sunshine," which wrings more emotional colors out of one of the drabbest towns ever captured on film. Korean star Do-Yeon Jeon (who was awarded the best teacher who moves back to the burg where her late husband was born, only to see her young son kidnapped.
The hand of God steps in to rescue her, then just as quickly yanks the rug out from under her again. Depressing? It would be, were Romania's Anamaria Marinca, playing a university student in 1987 Bucharest (two abortion nightmare.
The festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, went to Cristian Mungiu's brilliant and harrowing drama "4 Luni, 3 Saptamini si 2 Zile" ("Four Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"), which reasserts the Romanian juggernaut heralded Mr. Lazarescu" and by last year's Camera d'Or winner, Corneliu Porumboiu's "A If these hyper-realistic and uncompromising films are to be believed, it occasionally gives birth to today's cultural hope. You may not find the Romanians at the neighborhood multiplex anytime soon.
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