RAY BENNETT | movies • stage • TV • music

CANNES FILM REVIEW: James Gray’s ‘Two Lovers’

Posted on May 21, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – They don’t make pictures like James Gray’s “Two Lovers” anymore. It’s an old-fashioned love story in which the melodramatic trapdoors of shock and surprise never open. Joaquin Phoenix plays a rumpled innocent with two coins in the fountain of love and the only suspense is over which one the fountain will bless.

Shot, paced and scored like a 1950s kitchen-sink romance, the film spurns the school of Judd Apatow with a complete disdain for adolescent contrivance and stupid gags. Box office will depend on audiences in the “Grand Theft Auto” era deciding that the fate of three little people adds up to more than a hill of beans. Lacking a larger context such as a world war, odds are they won’t, but the film will please many and it may win awards.

The story asks the eternal question of whether it’s wiser to pursue the one you love or turn to the one who loves you. It is also a snapshot of the tribal ritual that pits the instinct for loyalty and continuity against the temptation to stride into the unknown.

In this case, the environment is the Jewish community in New York’s Brighton Beach in a deliberately fuzzy time period. Phoenix plays Leonard, the adopted son of Reuben Kraditor (Moni Moshonov) and his wife Ruth (Isabella Rossellini), who is suicidal after being forced to break off a planned marriage due to circumstances beyond his control.

Earnest and dutiful, Leonard works in his father’s dry cleaning business, which is about to be merged with a larger operation. In the process, he is encouraged to romance the potential partner’s lovely daughter Sandra (Vinessa Shaw, pictured top with Phoenix and with Gwyneth Paltrow) as much as anything out of fealty.

Leonard, however, has a freer spirit with a good eye for photography, and when he encounters shining blonde Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has moved into his parents’ apartment building, he is instantly smitten. Michelle comes with baggage, including an older married lover Ronald (Elias Koteas) and perhaps a taste for whatever gets you through the night, but Leonard doesn’t care.

Phoenix plays the romantic lead with great intelligence and enormous charm, making his character’s conflict utterly believable, and Paltrow positively glows as the radiant shiksa who dazzles him. As the other woman, though, Shaw (“3:10 to Yuma”) presents a small problem. She’s a very good actress and made to look slightly dowdy but she is so beautiful and graceful that you wonder what on earth Leonard is thinking.

But it works, and the script by director Gray and Richard Menello plays it straight throughout with Michael Clancy’s atmospheric production design and Joaquin Baca-Asay’s classic cinematography giving the film a sturdy look, never loud or gaudy.

The acting is similarly restrained. Moshonov and Rossellini play the parents as loving but world-weary; worried for their son but wishing him the best. Koteas gives the married lover added dimension and the rest of the cast is equally convincing.

Venue: Festival de Cannes, In Competition; Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini, Elias Koteas, Moni Moshonov; Director: James Gray; Screenwriters: James Gray & Richard Menello; Producers: Donna Gigliotti, James Gray, Anthony Katagas. Director of photography: Joaquin Baca-Asay. Production designer: Happy Massee. Music: Dana Sano. Costume designer: Michael Clancy. Editor: John Axelrad; Producers: Donna Gigliotti, James Gray, Anthony Katagas. Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Marc Butan. Sales: Wild Bunch; No MPAA rating, running time, 100 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Two Lovers', Elias Koteas, Festival de Cannes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, James Gray, Joaquin Phoenix, Moni Moshonov, Vinessa Shaw | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW: Emir Kusturica’s ‘Maradona’

Posted on May 21, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – Sarajevo filmmaker Emir Kusturica gives Argentine football legend Diego Maradona a big wet kiss in his Out of Competition documentary “Maradona by Kusturica”.

In thrall to the iconic soccer wizard, the director makes the film as much about his simplistic politics and idolizing fans as about his playing career.

Kusturica gets Maradona talking about his rags-to-riches rise to fame and the cocaine addiction that he says prevented him from being an even greater player, and shows him in the cocoon of a loving family. But the director puts himself in the film quite a bit and it leaves the impression that, as many men would, he just wanted to hang out with one of his sporting heroes and brag about it.

The film will do very well in parts of the world where soccer is king and among those who share its anti-British and anti-American sentiments. General sports fans will be disappointed by how little actual game footage there is with many goals shown but no information about when or where.

Except, that is for the two goals Maradona scored for Argentina against England on the way to winning the World Cup tournament in 1978. He scored one by cheating, using what he famously described as “the hand of God.” The second resulted from a mesmerizing drive past several defenders and is labeled in the film the goal of the 20th century. They are both repeated several times.

Kusturica joins Maradona in his view that handling the ball was poetic justice for all the sins of the colonial English and lets him ramble on about his love for Fidel Castro and hatred of George Bush.

The film includes footage of social protest in South America and the Balkans and there are five cartoons targeting such hated enemies as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan accompanied by the Sex Pistols’ track “God Save the Queen,” to what end it’s not entirely clear.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged Diego Maradona, Emir Kursturica, Festival de Cannes | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW: ‘Eldorado’ by Bouli Lanners

Posted on May 19, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – A couple of genial idiots in a beat-up Chevy hit the Belgian blacktops in Bouli Lanners’s funny and melancholy road picture “Eldorado” with widescreen images that suggest the American West and a soundtrack to match.

Wacky rural humor and a yearning for country roads run smack into urban decay and city nightmares as Lanners puts his getaway trip into a hard U-turn in a story of ultimately frustrated generosity.

Pleasing in its look and sound, and often very amusing, the picture could venture beyond French-language territories and English-language producers may well see remake potential.

Lanners wrote the script and stars in the film as Yvan, an overweight and unkempt car dealer who arrives home one night to discover that an incompetent young burglar named Elie (Fabrice Adde) has broken in.

Weary and philosophical, Yvan does not call the police and ends up consoling the intruder who says he only needed money to make his way home to see his mother (Francoise Chicery). Still grieving over the death by overdose of his younger brother, Yvan knows a smackhead when he sees one, and after a couple of mishaps he agrees to give Elie a ride.

Never has Belgium appeared so spacious as the two of them set off for the border (France), crossing vast areas of farmland and rushing waters. Along the way, they encounter some weird and wonderful characters including a man (Philippe Nahon) who collects cars that have dents in them caused by hitting pedestrians who were killed in the collisions.

When Yvan, who is drunk at the time, drives the Chevrolet off the road, the person in a camper who comes to their rescue says his name is Alain Delon (Didier Toupy) and gets out of his vehicle naked. No one bats an eye.

Later, at a drive-by food-stand, faced with a pair of ostentatious bikers (Jean-Jacques Rausin, Renaud Rutten), Yvan and Elie are startled by the explosive sound of a Doberman, which has been tossed from a bridge overhead, landing on the roof of their car.

The dog’s plight signals a downturn in the film’s mood but Lanners has a firm grasp on where he wants the story to go and it plays out as a road picture with no fixed destination should.

Venue: Festival de Cannes, Directors Fortnight; Cast: Bouli Lanners, Fabrice Adde, Philippe Nahon, Didier Toupy, Francoise Chichery, Jean-Jacques Rausin, Renaud Rutten; Director, screenwriter: Bouli Lanners; Director of photography: Jean-Paul de Zaeytijd. Set designer: Paul Rouschop. Music: Renaud Mayeur, An Pierle & Koen Gisen; Costumes: Elise Ancion; Editor: Ewin Ryckaert; Producer: Jacques-Henri Bronckart; No MPAA rating, running time, 81 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Eldorado', Bouli Lanners, Directors Fortnight, Fabrice Adde, Festival de Cannes | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW BRIEF: documentary ‘Modern Life’

Posted on May 19, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – Veteran French photographer Raymond Depardon’s documentary “Modern Life”, in Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes, is an elegy to ageing farmers and their fading way of life in remote but spectacular regions of France.

It’s a love-letter, really, made up of virtual still-life portraits of the grizzled and taciturn men and women who cling to their harsh profession.

There are some younger folk involved too, often reluctantly and out of obligation, but the prevailing mood is autumnal with winter coming on. The third in a trilogy by Depardon about peasant life, it’s a warm and affectionate film that will tap into nostalgia in its home territory but may not travel far beyond French borders.

Depardon has been photographing the hardy small-holders of French agriculture for a very long time and his admiration for these rugged characters and the wild terrain in which they live and farm shines through every image.

He visits several farmers in different seasons and captures their gruff charm, absence of pretense and stalwart determination. The younger ones tend to complain about the hard work while their elders are accepting and implacable.

Depardon’s camera gets much more out of these folk than his microphone does. They don’t say much, and sometimes you feel they wish he would just go away, but his lasting skill is in framing images that convey fully what the term salt of the earth really means.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Modern Life', Festival de Cannes, Raymond Depardon, Un Certain Regard | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW: James Toback’s ‘Tyson’

Posted on May 18, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – When he’s not pounding very large men to the ground, ex-fighter Mike Tyson speaks directly to the camera in James Toback’s film “Tyson” and it’s hard not to flinch.

More a testimony for the defense than a documentary, it’s a sympathetic portrait of a complex man driven by an anger that still bubbles beneath the surface.

The former world champion’s eyes, which were as devastating as his piston-fast fists in the boxing ring, reveal little but his self-serving words tell everything. His candor appears sometimes unwitting but the result is a powerful film that will appeal to sports fans and those who respond to the visceral clamor of the fight world.

Toback uses split screens, over-dubs and a mixture of interior close-ups and exterior long-shots, and he allows the boxer to portray himself as a gentle soul born on mean streets where constant bullying forced him to employ his brute strength to survive. A broken home, crime, correction facilities and finally the boxing ring, it’s a familiar tale.

Not so familiar were the fighter’s extraordinary dedication, steeped in the lessons of the great champions, and his unflinching impulse to drive toward and destroy his opponent. Toback shows nearly all of Tyson’s knockouts and tracks his rise to the big titles, big money and world fame, and then the falls from grace including failed marriages, a spell in prison on a rape conviction, and ultimately the loss of his titles and most of his money.

In every circumstance in his life, Tyson believes himself to be the innocent party. He became a ferocious fighter to avoid being humiliated. His marriage broke down because they were both kids. His rape charge was “false” and the victim was “a wretched swine of a woman.” A big-time boxing promoter was “a slimy reptilian motherfucker.” He bit opponent Evander Holyfield’s ear off because the man kept head-butting him and made him insane in the ring.

But Tyson says he made sure his six kids got some of all that money; he found Islam in prison; and he’s been through rehabilitation. Now, he says, his anger is directed only toward himself. “I’m not an animal anymore,” he says in his high-pitched lisp staring at the camera through a dramatic Maori facial tattoo.

For some reason, Toback never mentions Tyson’s voice, not that you can blame him.

Venue: Festival de Cannes, Un Certain Regard; Cast: Mike Tyson. Director: James Toback. Director of photography: Larry McConkey. Music: Salaam Remi. Editor: Aaron Yanes. Pproducers: James Toback, Damon Bingham. Executive producers: Mike Tyson, Harlan Werner, Nicholas Jarecki, Henry Jarecki, Bob Yari. Sales: Wild Bunch; No MPAA rating, running time, 90 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Tyson', Festival de Cannes, James Toback, Mike Tyson, Un Certain Regard | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW: ‘The Seven Days’

Posted on May 18, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – The rule imposed on the family spending a week in mourning in Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s “The Seven Days” requires a demonstration of pious grief lest people talk. But there is so much talk in the Israeli siblings’ sophomore outing as writers and directors that it’s hard to see how breaking the rules could make things worse.

Observed intensely, choreographed smartly and acted very well by a large ensemble cast, the film, which opened the Critics’ Week sidebar at the Festival de Cannes, will attract attention at festivals and in art houses but its lack of humor might test audiences’ patience.

About 20 members of the family, including six brothers and two sisters, are confined to the home of a widowed sister-in-law and nearly all of them fall out with one another in the claustrophobic and stultifying atmosphere. It becomes so relentless that you wish somebody would just slap someone, and then somebody does. It’s one of the few moments of comic relief in the picture.

Ronit Elkabetz (pictured) and Simon Abkarian play spouses Vivianne and Eliyau from the Elkabetz’s first film, “To Take a Wife,” although now they are fighting and on the verge of divorce. Vivianne is being pursued by the very eligible Ben (Gil Frank) and is inclined to respond.

They dance around their attraction while the rest of the family, cloistered unpleasantly day and night according to the rules of mourning, engage in a series of encounters having to do with money, envy and resentment.

The roundelay is well written and managed by the directors but the situation, which takes place in an Israel threatened by the first Gulf War, while profoundly serious, cries out for some satirical touches.

The depiction of familial devotion that puts up with religiously inspired regulations requiring that no one may bathe and everyone must sleep on the floor in one room for a week is fiercely conservative. Those of a more secular bent might be reminded of Sartre’s observation that hell is other people.

Venue: Festival de Cannes, Critics’ Week; Cast: Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian, Gil Frank, Keren Mor, Hanna Azoulay Hasfari. Directors, screenwriters: Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz. Producers: Jean-Philippe Reza, Eilon Ratzkovsky, Yochanan Kredo, Yossi Uzard, Guy Jacoel, Eric Cohen, Elie Meirovitz. Director of photography: Yaron Scharf. Production designer: Benny Arbitman. Music: Michael Korb, Sergio Leonardi. Costume designer: Laura Sheim. Editor: Joelle Alexis; Sales: Daniela Elstner, Lise Zipci, Agathe Valentin; No MPAA rating, running time, 115 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'The Seven Days', Festival de Cannes, Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian | Comments Off

CANNES: Woody goes Spanish for ‘Barcelona’ soundtrack

Posted on May 18, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – As usual, Woody Allen has scored his new movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (which stars Penelope Cruz, left) with synch tracks but instead of the American standards that accompany his Manhattan movies, this time he’s gone Spanish and it worked out just fine.

The title track, “Barcelona,” is by Giulia y Los Tellarini, Maik Alemany, Alejandro Mazzoni and Jens Neumaier and performed by Tellarini with Pablo Diaz-Reixas, Xavier Tort and Jordi Llobet. Allen says in the film’s production notes that the song came along out of the blue:

“People send me music all the time but I rarely get a chance to listen to anything. One morning, as I was running out to go to the set, I grabbed it without even opening it and listened to it in the car on the way to the location. And I said, ‘Hey, this is great! This is exactly what I want for the movie.’ And it worked out well for everyone. They were grateful we were using their music and my producer was happy that we weren’t using something that would cost a lot of money like a George Gerswin song!“

Tellarini performs another of his group’s songs, “La rey Del Retiro,” in the picture, which also features a couple of tracks by the Biel Ballester Trio with Leo Hipaucha & Graci Pedro, “When I Was a Boy” and “Your Shining Eyes.”

Other music includes “Gorrion” and “Entre Las Olas,” written and played by Juan Serrano; “Asturias,” written by Isaac Albeniz and played by Juan Quesada; “Entre Dos Aguas,” performed by Paco de Lucia and written by the artist and Jose Torregrosa; “El Noi de la Mare,” a traditional Catalonian folk song arranged for classical guitar by Miguel Llobet and Andres Segovia and performed by Muriel Anderson; “Big Brother,” written by Stephane Wrembel and performed by his trio with special guest David Grisman; and almost inevitably “Granada,” composed by Isaac Albeniz and performed by Emilio de Benito.

The film screened at the Festival de Cannes and is due for release in the fall.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Music, Notes, Places | Tagged Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen | 2 Comments

CANNES FILM REVIEW BRIEF: ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’

Posted on May 18, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – Woody Allen and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“The Sea Inside,” “The Others”) make the most of the scenery in the comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, which screened Out of Competition at the Festival de Cannes, but the best news is that Allen is back on form as a very funny filmmaker.

English actress Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson are fine as the best friends looking for fun and adventure in Spain. But it’s Spanish stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz who really deliver the comic goods.

One flaw is the narration, which would probably work if Allen delivered it but the filmmaker has chosen a bland young American voice to set the scene and fill in the blanks. The film may not need a narration at all, but while the words are amusing now and then, and clearly Allen’s, it would have been so much better to hear the director’s voice.

It would have made the film sound like one of Allen’sshort stories and perhaps to use the voice of Patricia Clarkson, whose character in the film knows most of what takes place, also would also work. Still, audiences are going to like this picture and especially the knowing Spanish flare of Cruz and Bardem.

Posted in Comment, Festival de Cannes, Film | Tagged 'Vicky Christina Barcelona', Festival de Cannes, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen | Comments Off

CANNES FILM REVIEW: Steve McQueen’s ‘Hunger’

Posted on May 17, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

CANNES – Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen brings the key tenets required to win Britain’s top honor for modern art to directing his first film, “Hunger,” and so it is trite, grim and feebly provocative.

It tells of the last days of Bobby Sands, a Northern Irishman who died in 1981 in Belfast’s hellish Maze Prison following a 66-day hunger strike. The film, which opened the Festival de Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar, combines scenes more suited to an art installation with static theatrical encounters and clichéd flights of artistic fancy.

Violent, bleak and depressing, “Hunger” depicts lifelong Irish Republican Army fighter Sands (Michael Fassbender) as a martyr and may prosper where audiences are already inclined to that view with prospects slim elsewhere.

No context is provided beyond the steely but patronising words of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and there is no mention of the nature of the violent crimes perpetrated by Sands and his fellow inmates. Convicted on charges involving armed attacks and arson, Sands demanded the rights of a prisoner of war, which included wearing civilian clothes and the receipt of gift parcels.

Lacking any new insights on the fateful paradox that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter or that the imposition of punitive measures demeans all parties, the film adds nothing to the debate over broader issues involving places such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib.

McQueen and co-scripter Enda Walsh break the film into four uneven parts with first the introduction of a brutal prison guard (Stuart Graham) and his suburban home life, which is prosaic save for the constant threat of being bombed or shot.

A new prisoner (Brian Milligan) enters the cell of an entrenched convict (Liam McMahon) who teaches him the ways of IRA rebellion, which included smearing the walls with blood and feces, smuggling notes and small items using bodily orifices, and bracing for the malevolent treatment of the prison guards.

Attention then moves to Sands with a 22-minute scene in which he relates his ideals and plans to a weary priest (Liam Cunningham). The remainder of the film, in which Fassbender demonstrates a commitment to the demands of the role beyond the call of duty, shows in great detail the gruesome effect on a man’s body of completely rejecting nourishment. It’s not a pretty sight.

Venue: Festival de Cannes, Un Certain Regard; Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, Brian Milligan, Liam McMahon. Director: Steve McQueen. Screenwriters: Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen. Producers: Laura Hastings-Smith, Robin Glitch; Director of photography: Sean Bobbitt. Production designer: Tom McCullagh. Music: David Holmes, Leo Abrahams. Costume designer: Anushia Nieradzik. Editor: Joe Walker. Executive producers: Jan Younghusband, Peter Carlton, Linda James, Edmund Coulthard, Iain Canning. Sales: Icon Entertainment International; No MPAA rating, running time 100 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, Reviews | Tagged 'Hunger', Bobby Sands, Festival de Cannes, Michael Fassbender, Steve McQueen | Comments Off

RAY BENNETT | movies • stage • TV • music

CANNES FILM REVIEW: James Gray’s ‘Two Lovers’

CANNES FILM REVIEW: Emir Kusturica’s ‘Maradona’

CANNES FILM REVIEW: ‘Eldorado’ by Bouli Lanners

CANNES FILM REVIEW BRIEF: documentary ‘Modern Life’

CANNES FILM REVIEW: James Toback’s ‘Tyson’

CANNES FILM REVIEW: ‘The Seven Days’

CANNES: Woody goes Spanish for ‘Barcelona’ soundtrack

CANNES FILM REVIEW BRIEF: ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’

CANNES FILM REVIEW: Steve McQueen’s ‘Hunger’

Archives

Categories

Play it, Sam

Meta