Correction: I was wrong about a thinner crowd at this year's Cannes. At yesterday's screening of a pretentious, portentous bit of mystification titled
Afterschool by
Antonio Campos (Un Certain Reqard), not a seat went unclaimed in the commodious Debussy theater. I was installed so far left, I effectively saw only half a film throughout. By the end, my eyes had migrated to the left of my face like in a Picasso portrait from his Cubist period ... i'm afraid it's mostly the Yanks who are in shorter supply this year. How I miss those heated confabs with other American journos in front of the mailboxes after the morning Competition screening.
So far no one has fallen in love here, and I'd be hard put to flag a Palmes d'Or contender. Maybe they're saving the best for last. Estimable, is how I'd descrbe the better films, such as
Un Conte de Noel (pictured) by
Arnaud Desplechin (nabbed by IFC). Toplined by
Catherine Deneuve and the ubiquitous
Mathieu Almaric -- plus a who's who of French actors -- film follows the chaotic holiday gathering of a family more fractured than most (the word dysfunctional has yet to penetrate the French lexicon). The death of a cherished first-born son forty years back has marked this group with festering scars. One high-strung sister despises her black sheep brother (Almaric), and has effectively banished him from the family after paying off his debts. Meanwhile her son is certifiable. A second brother seems never to have grown up and winks at his wife's affair with a family hanger-on.
The fractious bunch swirl around a mother (Deneuve) who is stricken with the same disease that carried off her first-born. The only possible remedy is a dangerous bone transplant from a compatible famiy member -- a medical detail with obvious wider resonance.
Un Conte de Noel feels long and windy at first, especially since Desplechin must set up so much backstory and entrenched hostility. But the longer you sit, the more you get roped in. The depressive sister is the only one seen consulting a shrink, but you wonder why the rest of them aren't getting a pharma fix. The dialogue is perfectly weird -- mother and son Deneuve and Almaric casually discuss their mutual dislike of each other. And the superb Deneuve conveys fear of her illness, wry bemusement, and irritation at her tiresome brood all at once. In a comic touch, her elderly husband, barely ambulatory, complains they can't have sex with all the kids around.
This won't win me many friends, but I have a beef against Almaric and how he always plays the same loony, no matter the film (and should consider washing his hair). I've also lost patience with
Emannuelle Devos (cast as his girlfriend), equally enamored of and always ... Emmanuelle. Doubtless, their smugness plays better with the French ... Though not to everyone's taste, there's magic to be found in
Conte. And now I must be off to one of the many posh events, including the Miss Vodka cocktail, that clamor for my presence.
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posted by Erica Abeel @ 5/19/2008 10:01:00 AM
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