My Francophilia took a hit this morning when the femme de chambre at my hotel said to me, "You want more soap? But I gave you soap yesterday."
And nope, it's not my imagination, but the crowds on the Croisette really do seem thinner this year. Variety speaks of a Flee Market (and lagging sales), while my anecdotal evidence has turned up fewer American journos -- blame the deflated dollar and the forced retirement of many terrific print critics in the U.S.
This year's Cannes also felt a bit off-balance from the start, what with filmmakers like
Walter Salles pulling an all-nighter in Paris to get his
Linha de Passe in on time; and the last minute inclusion of
James Gray's Two Lovers. And are there fewer parties this year? Or is it just -- as I read in an email inadvertently sent my way -- "FYI: she's on the B-list." Well, I did get an invite to the Miss Vodka event, not to mention the Vodomania, Babelgum, and Macedonia Film Society bashes. Hey, Cannes is like downhill skiing, you have to really want to do it....
There are even good movies. Like
Waltz with Bashir by Israeli
Ari Folman (pictured). It's about how ex-soldier Folman's memory of witnessing a massacre in Lebanon vanished down a black hole, and his effort, through interviewing fellow combattans, to reconstruct what he experienced. Now, this could have been a deadly array of talking heads. But in an inspired move, Folman uses a distinctive style of animation -- one that captures facial quirks, so you're seeing the person almost better than in real life. And these guys are hot; I've never seen such sexy animation. In fact, they candidly explore the conflation of erotic drives with Israel's macho military. The animation in
Waltz is also less discombobulating than rotoscoped images. The film veers from the interviews into haunting surreal images to convey nightmarish fragments of the ex-soldiers' memories, one in particular of naked soldiers wading in from the sea. Courting controversy,
Waltz fingers Israeli authorities for turning a blind eye to the massacre -- so bring out your big guns, Israel Lobby!
Can't tell you much about
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody's latest. He's an icon around here, and the mobs were overwhelming. But my sources tell me its sexy, funny, and a boon to Barcelona tourism. I did manage to catch the 8:30 A.M. screening of
Linha, Walter Salles's look at the reduced options of Brazil's slum-dwellers through the lives of four boys living on the outskirts of Sao Paulo with their mother. For once we don't get the impoverished succumbing to violence and crime. The characters in this gritty yet poetic film struggle to reinvent themselves in varied ways, finding strength in fraternity. But
Linha has neither the panache of
City of God nor the box office muscle of
Motorcycle Diaries.
# posted by Erica Abeel @ 5/18/2008 05:27:00 AM
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