Cannes Awards

As far as distribution goes, I’d like to see this get some cinema: Jia Zhangke: ‘Hai Shang Chuan Qi (I Wish I Knew)’

T, YES!!! YES! I want to see that badly! :D

Savvy

“I never really believe Mike Leigh could win. Having seen none of the films obviously, he just doesn’t belong in the league of two-time winners.”

You mean because he’s better that all the two-time winners?

Ah I wanted Kiarostami to win. Cannes is becoming like another Academy Awards… I haven’t seen the films yet, so I can’t really judge about films in competition but anyway this is what we get with a Burton jury.

in all honesty, a Kiarostami or a Leigh victory would have been really predictable (Loach’s too), notwithstanding Kiarostami is starting to go all-European and personally, that pisses me off.

we have Apichatpong, Haroun, Lee victories (Beauvois is a questionmark for me as of yet), sounds like a fine Cannes addition to me.

Agreed with Dimitris: Kiarostami would have been the most obvious choice because of the Panahi situation. Pretty curious about the Amalric film now. He’s dabbled in directing before, so this isn’t a complete shock. Has anyone seen Wimbledon Stage?

I’ve just listened to BBC Radio Five Live; their female reporter said Apichatpong is a lovely guy, she liked Uncle Boonmee and its award has been loved by critics, but nevertheless less so by hacks like herself, and it’s very slow, arthouse, with very little popular appeal, and the award was a big shock. The other big shock she said was Mike Leigh’s failure to win any award, as his film has been very well received not just by British critics but across the world. Oh and Tim Burton found the Eastern take on death very interesting and thought-provoking and it was noted he’d directed Planet of the Apes when there’s someone in an ape suit in Uncle Boonmee

Camera d’Or (first-time director): “Ano Bisiesto” by Michael Rowe (Mexico)
Best Actor: Javier Bardem, “Biutiful” (Mexico)
Awesome!

Closing Ceremony

I guess the bottom line is out with the old in with the new! (everybody knows that the good films are being produced in developing countries, with the exception of Japan)

Bollywood, Nollywood, Dhallywood. There’s still enough schlock in developing countries as well.

Yeah, but that has always been there. Im talking about quality films that can win Cannes.

“Bollywood, Nollywood, Dhallywood.”

quite so and assuming we can give kudos to some Bollywood and Hollywood periods UP UNTIL a certain era, it’s obvious that whatever disappointments or enthusiasms we produce from either world festivals, they still remain significantly superior to the typical pile of nominations / awards of Oscars, Cesars, Goyas etc etc etc…

The Oscars, Cesars and Goyas are still geared towards mainstream audiences. They’re industry awards, so they’ll undoubtedly focus on the fruits of the systems’ labours. What needs to be adjusted is the public perception that the Oscars, for instance, are given to the “best” films. Considering the limitations the Academy imposes on its entrants, the majority of the world’s films are kept out of competition every year.

“are being produced in developing countries, with the exception of Japan”

i didn’t know Japan was unaware on what means to be a developing country???? if so, i suppose Greece is next to Mali :P

Yeah and that’s why for many of us the most eagerly anticipated awards and the peak time for world cinema discoveries each year are festivals like Cannes.

“are festivals like Cannes.”

and Locarno and Cairo and Rotterdam (yeah, i’m a cheater, i’m mentioning festivals related to my industry, hehe)

Dimitris, believe Berjuan is claiming that Japan is the only developed country still producing quality works.

ah, developing = cinema relation, pardon me, i’m sometimes thinking in financial terms!

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee was wonderful, I mentioned it in a University film essay I wrote on aural imagery and different sound techniques.
I thought it was very tarkovskian, I hope it is the feature length is as good as the short.
I haven’t watch any of joe’s other films, I breifly started tropical malady, but had to go out and never picked it back up again.
What is essential from joe, joe fans?

I’ve seen only two of Weerasethakul’s films: Syndromes And A Century, which to me was mediocre at best, and Tropical Malady, an unconventional cinematic masterpiece. I’ll be more than glad to see a theatrical release of Uncle Boonmee,

I suggest just to watch them all, there are only four features.

Blissfully Yours is my favourite by the man of the moment. He’s a nature lover, of greenery and the trees, there’s a delightful freshness as well as time for contemplation in the film, which reminded me of the idyllic moments in Renoir’s Day in the Country. Syndromes and a Century may be his most admired by critics, featuring strongly in best of decade in auteurs/mubi. The short Letter to Uncle Boonmee is great, yes Tarkovskian, and Wordly Desires is a lovely short too.

Oh, and Lee Chang-dong won the best screenplay award for his Poetry, which has gotten mixed reviews, but is undoubtedly superbly written, as Lee was an accomplished novelist before he turned to filmmaking.

Funny, I have been thinking about Apichatpong’s films all day in relation to Tarkovsky, and other than some superficial resemblance, I don’t see them as very much alike at all. Tarkovsky’s films are rather dour and filled with doubt, guilt, and a deep self-consciousness whereas Apichatpong’s have none of that. His films are almost pantheistic in their regard for man’s space in the universe. He doesn’t spend time trying to puzzle out the purpose of his existence and how to get through a life in his films, they seem to merely have man as an additional part of the world. They strike me as far more about experiencing than thinking. Tarkovsky’s films are also very word oriented or philosophical/literary in their methods of structuring ideas to me. (Which may seem odd to say given the richness of his imagery, but their is also often a lot of concepts being brought up to digest as well.) Apichatpong’s films,

in terms how they present themselves to the viewer or ask us to relate to them, they are, by far, the least word/concept oriented or literary films I’ve seen. I was trying to think of comparable directors, and Renoir sprung to mind for some aspects of how the people in the films are viewed, Sjostrom a little for the way he handled nature, maybe someone like Imamura for those things as well, but I couldn’t think of any really great matches, whereas for Tarkovsy, there is Bresson and Bergman and others with a stringent view, or that give the feeling of life being a great interior struggle between self and god. nature and other humans. Apichatpong’s films don’t, to me, carry any of that tone, weight or emotional/psychological baggage. It’s hard to find words to describe the emotions associated with Apichatpong’s films, they are far more elusive than any other films I can think of. There is a sort of top layer of joy in all his works that colors everything underneath it making for a hard to place feel to everything he does. Add to that his lack of concern about the audience building an intense individual bond with any particular character and there is sort of a feeling of being a benign ghostly presence looking over his world with some interest and care but without much worry over conflict and tension since that kind of emphasis just isn’t much a part of his world. Any tensions that do exist are between what man is doing/has done and how that shifts the tone of the world in a new direction, leaving a sort of buzz of warning in the air.

As usual, I don’t know if that makes a lot of sense or not, but those are some rough ideas to kick around anyway. Oh, and I haven’t seen Letter to Uncle Boonmee yet though, so maybe that will further change my thinking on the matter. (I bet y’all can’t wait to find out the answer to that question if it’ll mean more long posts like this one.)

Yes, Renoir has that warm pantheism, i think Letter to Uncle Boonmee has a Tarkovskian feel to it in its slow camera moves within a home looking out on nature, and family images, memories, trees, an ethereal sense, regard for the elements, but without the deep searching spiritual angst, though it does raise wider issues of concern; Mirror/Zerkalo was the one that came to my mind. Apichatpong is apparently more easy-going and good natured, there’s a lightness to his breeze (without being shallow), Tarkovsky more inward and self-consciously weighty. I also think of Keats with Apichatpong, but Keats was more fragile-mortal autumnal romantic as well as a summery romantic. Apichatpong is dealing with death too.

The still image of Uncle Boonmee Who Recalls his Past Lives here on auteurs/mubi also reminds me a bit of Tarkovsky’s dachas and also of looking out from under eaves, e.g in Sacrifice too

Tarkovsky has a contemplative pacing and strangeness, eg levitation, reverie, and i’ll be interested to see if Apichatpong’s latest has something of that with ghostly apparitions.. Apichatpong no doubt more witty

Greg X, i agree with what you say, and could have never found such precise words. I never can, when talking about Weerasethakul! As you said it, it’s about experiencing and not thinking. And so I find it extremely hard to verbalise the feelings I get when watching his movies.

But, I have to say and admit that when I saw Letter to Uncle Boonmee ( watch it! ) I thought of Tarkovsky, as well. But not in the speech lying behind or the ideas, but the tone and the way camera approaches to space and time. The way it moves, its pace, its lyrical regard.

Yes, Zerkalo is a little different from Tarkovsky’s other films in some ways that make it a closer fit, although still somewhat more pained than is Apichatpong’s wont, and I agree on some of the surface elements of their work, which would have been a better word to use than the more prejudicial superficial.

I think the lightness/heaviness comparison was a little bit of what I was searching for, but as you suggest light but not shallow and heavy or weighty without being stodgy. Perhaps the differences are more acute to me since I tend not to like Tarkovsky nearly as much as many others do, although neither do I dislike his films, whereas I feel very much more connected to Apichatpong’s so for me there is a more pressing need to figure out why the one and not the other, especially when they are spoken of as complimenting each other.

As well as Renoir, there’s something of Rohmer’s freshness and lightness of touch and feeling for colour and summer, and interest in relationships in Apichatpong. Anyway, i rate very highly both Frenchmen as well as Tarkovsky, and he’s on the right lines, i’m starting to think the best we have now from a younger generation (ignoring the surviving oldie masters) if not yet quite ready for the pantheon bigtime.

“if not yet quite ready for the pantheon bigtime.”

can’t fully agree to that because i can mention a lot more “unknown regions” names that will never receive as much popularity as Apichatpong’s case (or Haneke’s last year) and i don’t mean post-2000’s names, rather our “old” century, hehe.