Cannes 2010 lineup

Lots of good stuff.  Disappointed to see that Malick’s The Tree of Life apparently isn’t ready to be screened, and that Schnabel’s Miral was turned down and will be premiering at the Venice film fest instead.  But still, Cannes is always the best and most exciting festival, and I can’t wait to see a ton of the films on this list.  It’s also nice to see Mathieu Amalric and Diego Luna try their hand at directing.  Here’s the complete list:

Opening film
Ridley Scott – ROBIN HOOD (Out of Competition)

In Competition
Mathieu Amalric – TOURNÉE
Xavier Beauvois – DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX
Rachid Bouchareb – HORS LA LOI
Alejandro González Iñárritu – BIUTIFUL
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun – UN HOMME QUI CRIE (A Screaming Man)
IM Sangsoo – HOUSEMAID
Abbas Kiarostami – COPIE CONFORME
Takeshi Kitano – OUTRAGE
Lee Chang-dong – POETRY
Mike Leigh – ANOTHER YEAR
Doug Liman – FAIR GAME
Sergei Loznitsa – YOU. MY JOY
Daniele Luchetti – LA NOSTRA VITA
Nikita Mikhalkov – UTOMLYONNYE SOLNTSEM 2
Bertrand Tavernier – LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER
Apichatpong Weerasethakul – LOONG BOONMEE RALEUK CHAAT
(Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives)

Un Certain Regard
Derek Cianfrance – BLUE VALENTINE (1st film)
Manoel De Oliveira – O ESTRANHO CASO DE ANGÉLICA (Angelica)
Xavier Dolan – LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES (Heartbeats)
Ivan Fund, Santiago Loza – LOS LABIOS
Fabrice Gobert – SIMON WERNER A DISPARU… (1st film)
Jean-Luc Godard – FILM SOCIALISME
Christoph Hochhäusler – UNTER DIR DIE STADT (The City Below)
Lodge Kerrigan – REBECCA H. (RETURN TO THE DOGS)
Ágnes Kocsis – PÁL ADRIENN (Adrienn Pál)
Vikramaditya Motwane – UDAAN (1st film)
Radu Muntean – MARTI, DUPA CRACIUN (Tuesday, After Christmas)
Hideo Nakata – CHATROOM
Cristi Puiu – AURORA (Aurora)
Hong Sangsoo – HA HA HA
Oliver Schmitz – LIFE ABOVE ALL
Daniel Vega – OCTUBRE (1st film)
David Verbeek – R U THERE
Xiaoshuai Wang – RIZHAO CHONGQING (Chongqing Blues)

Out of Competition
Woody Allen – YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER
Stephen Frears – TAMARA DREWE
Oliver Stone – WALL STREET – MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

Midnight Screenings
Gregg Araki – KABOOM
Gilles Marchand – L’AUTRE MONDE (Blackhole)

Special Screenings
Charles Ferguson – INSIDE JOB
Sophie Fiennes – OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW
Patricio Guzman – NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ (Nostalgia For The Light)
Sabina Guzzanti – DRAQUILA – L’ITALIA CHE TREMA
Otar Iosseliani – CHANTRAPAS
Diego Luna – ABEL (1st film)

The White Ribbon

Michael Haneke finally won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year (I think he should have won for “Cache” in 2005) for this unsettling drama set in a remote German village just a few years before WWI, where mysterious and violent crimes are shaking up the townsfolk.  Haneke, who’s officially a master of allegory, touches on all kinds of bleak subjects such as patriarchy, crime, revenge, and of course death.  He’s a barrel of laughs, this guy. 

As expected, Haneke explores the dark side of human nature as only Haneke can, and it’s all the more disturbing being that the focus is mainly on the children.  Maliciously neglectful parenting has an obvious impact on the children, and in a way you get a glimpse at the origin of the Nazi party, or at least the origin of extremism with pre-Nazi Germany as the example.

 I also wanted to say that this whole film is absolutely beautiful to look at (it turns out that it was originally filmed in color and then changed to black and white in post-production) and that if it weren’t for Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist,” it would deserve to win every annual cinematography award there is (sadly both films are probably too controversial to win anything outside of the festivals). 

RATING:  9/10

Short Film – Jane Campion’s “Peel”

Peel Video by Jane Campion – MySpace Video

Jane Campion, director of the upcoming Bright Star, made this short film back in the mid ’80’s.  The film won the Palme d’Or for best short at Cannes.