One of the wonderful benefits of having a pass to Cannes is access to all the movies…. While a short film badge has its limitations, if you’re willing to pass on the red carpet stuff, many films are shown the next day at theaters around the Pavilion. (So, by the time we arrive Robin Hood which opened the festival is no longer circulating… but then again, it’s playing in town at the local theater.)
That said, being able to view film on the Pavilion screen, one of the largest screens I’ve every seen, is incredible – and the first film on the docket is a bit of neo-Italian Realism La Nostra Vita. It’s a quiet film in many ways and uses the now-ubiquitous-handheld-slightly-unsteady camera to give us a film full of close-ups and emotional reactions. The story is about a man who loses his wife and has to cope with both that loss and the economic realities in the housing market. In a strange way, it would be the perfect double bill for the film that closed out the Festival: The Tree where a woman faces the tragic death of her beloved husband and tries to cope with raising four children (as opposed to the La Nostra Vita’s three!)
The following day I saw Fair Game, the film about the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame case. I’ll leave my liberal rant on that for later.
The Producer and I landed different tickets for films on the third day when Security Officers were swarming the place. Turns out the film she was seeing Outside the Law was the French film that was causing all the hubbub… a revisiting of the question of France’s occupation of Algeria in the 50’s and 60’s, a topic which still rankles here. No sooner had the Red Carpet and press conference ended than everybody packed up their plastic shields and bulletproof vests and went home.
My own ticket was for Loong Boonmee raleuk chat, by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
The title translates to: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I think the name translates to: Maker of Oddly Beautiful Albeit Very Slow Movies.
It is a strange thing to be at a festival celebrating the diversity of film and watching people heading for the exits. Sure, these tuxedoes and sequined filmgoers probably had parties they could be at…. But with the director in attendance in the audience!, I was startled by the reaction to the film.
By the end of the film, my entire row in the balcony had cleared out.
The still I’ve posted above captures a bit of the eeriness of the film (though it’s not that eerie, more dreamlike). When this Sasquatch character is revealed later, the make-up job is so amateurish that many in the audience laughed; I'm still not sure if that was what the director intended. Perhaps he did.
And that is sort of at the heart of what I’m talking about with these movies…. If you just want to see what’s showing at your local Cineplex, why bother sitting here? Aren’t these supposed to be cinema aspiring to something greater?
The opening five minutes of the film features a farmer looking for a large ox that has gotten away into the deep forest…. I’m not sure but this may be a reference to an old Buddhist text that likens the taming of the mind with oxherding, I also could be completely wet on that idea. The film is a strange collection of images of a man at the end of his life, suffering from a kidney disease, visited by his dead wife’s ghost and taking a journey to a cave filled with lights glittering like stars.... There is no real explaining the story of the Princess who is ravished by a catfish... save for those who might know Thai mythology. Let's just say: intense.
And that is precisely the point: how much of any film must map to our immediate understanding? Aren't films -- like books -- sometimes improved with revisiting? (Nabokov claimed you had to read a book at least twice to truly "read" it... that your first experience was simply getting to know the countryside. (My metaphor, not his certainly.))
One of the reasons I love going back to Fellini or Tarkovsky or Lynch or Tarantino is that you find something you missed. Heck, I feel that way about the Wizard of Oz sometimes which is what makes it a great movie in my book. In this case, I know I missed a great deal but I have a hankering to know more and isn't that what it's like when you meet a good friend? You want to know a little more.
[Postscript: as you may have heard/read Uncle Boonmee won the Palme D'Or. It was a bit of a surprise to me --but with Tim Burton leading the jury I think everyone thought a dreamlike film might gain some greater attention -- and respect.]
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