Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami brings his film Like Someone in Love
Senegalese director Moussa Touré and guest arrive for the screening of Like Someone in Love
From Allison Kilkenny, it's being called "a tale of two Nato's" from The Nation:
NATO has been a weird mix of two normally separate and entirely autonomous events: permitted marches, run usually by unions, and the black bloc’s runs, which are complete anarchy by anarchists who lead police on wild goose chases through the city.
First there was the event organized by National Nurses United at Daley Plaza, an entirely peaceful demonstration of around a thousand individuals, including rocker Tom Morello, who demanded the US government start properly funding health and stop funding death with an ever-expanding military budget. Also, the nurses were pushing the Robin Hood tax, a small trading tax on Wall Street that would raise badly needed revenue.
Contrast the totally adorable image of middle-aged nurses dancing around to James Brown in their red NNU shirts and Robin Hood green masks and hats with the chaos of the black bloc run Saturday night. Contrary to the stereotypical image of the property damaging anarchists presented by the media, this group appeared satisfied to merely race around the city, leading the Chicago police on an unending parade.
It was the police who first escalated the violence by clubbing protesters across their heads with billy clubs, roughly arresting activists, and acting extremely aggressively toward media. For example, shoving press back towards the sidewalk as they attempted to photograph arrests, whilst shouting “Back the fuck up!”
While this Gaspar Noé style video of a kid livestreaming as he otherwise aimlessly walks down the street captures a police van (filled with fully dressed armed cops) driving right down the middle of the street filled with marching protesters (What? There was no other way? What idiot chose this route?) running over a protester, with other protesters then trying to stop the van from getting away, coming at about 32:45 of the Video.
or here:
CNN video coverage of the police clubbing in action:
This blogger captures video of Chicago cops beating protesters relentlessly with their night sticks, which happened several times on and off all day Sunday, which I was able to view on extended ABC local news coverage, often under the eye of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who reported there was a miscommunication which explained why police in riot gear directly behind this line of officers were seen putting on gas masks immediately following several of these outbursts: Interesting one of these videos appears on the Ron Paul website:
while the ever vigilant blogger Kevin Kosztola has a photo of the undercover police informant known as "Mo": http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/
Cannes photos from The Guardian:
also here:
more photos from The Hollywood Reporter:
Cannes fashion photos from The London Telegraph:
Mike D'Angelo was so befuddled by the Kiarostami film, Like Someone in Love, that he couldn't even grade the film, offering instead a WTF:
And then we have Abbas Kiarostami’s Like Someone in Love, regarding which I have to just punt, I’m afraid. Not since Wild Grass three years ago have I been so completely bewildered by what on its surface would seem to be a fairly straightforward—even simple—narrative work. That Iran’s greatest director shot this film in Tokyo with an entirely Japanese cast isn’t the issue—it’s unmistakably his work, especially considering that roughly half of it takes place in a moving or parked car. And I can break the story down for you, no problem: a college student who moonlights as an escort (without her boyfriend’s knowledge) spends what appears to be a platonic night with an elderly professor, who drives her to an exam the next day, discusses the pros and cons of marriage with her boyfriend (who mistakenly assumes he’s her grandfather), and attempts to rescue her when the boyfriend discovers what’s actually going on.
What I don’t remotely understand is what the movie purports to be about, or why Kiarostami wanted to make it. It’s not a character study, as escort, professor, and boyfriend alike are defined exclusively by a few shallow behavioral tics. The narrative, which I’ve described almost in its entirety above, consists of dispassionate conversations that are 80% filler, pointlessly repeating what’s already been said or digressing into sheer banality. And there’s a startling, truncated conclusion that seems completely out of proportion with the lazy, anti-urgent meandering that precedes it. Even the few standout sequences, like a lengthy shot of the escort listening to an endless series of increasingly plaintive voicemails from her grandmother while being chauffeured to the professor’s home, seem bizarrely disconnected from everything else. If this were an unknown director, I’d just assume incompetence, but Kiarostami surely has some grand design here—it’s just utterly escaping me, and reading other critics’ reviews isn’t helping.
Karina Longworth at LA Weekly:
The great surprise of Cannes thus far, Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love, is identifiable as a Kiarostami joint in a couple of keys ways -- mainly, that it's conversation-based, and a big chunk of it consists of long takes of people riding in cars -- but in terms of tone and subject matter, it's nothing if not unexpected.
The film traces less-than a day in the life of Akiko, a college student/call girl who, in the film's first scene, tells both boyfriend and pimp that she can't do what they're asking of her because she needs to study and see her visiting grandmother. Much of the scene consists of a long tableau shot of a bar from Akiko's point of view -- immersing us in her world for awhile before we actually see her face. Once we do, it soon becomes evident that she lacks the ability to really stand up to the men in her life in any substantive way. And sure enough, soon she's in a cab on the way to a client's house, listening to a half dozen voicemail messages from her grandmother on the ride.
As much as it takes mistaken and appropriated identity as a subject (not unlike Kiarostami's last film, Certified Copy), Love's own enigmatic, constantly shifting generic identity is at least as compelling as any of its actual content (and I was pretty enraptured throughout, though sometimes mostly by aesthetics -- the look is gloriously polished). The movie, which gets its title from a song sung by Ella Fitzgerald which plays during Takeshi and Akiko's date, is infused with a jazzy melancholy, not least in the stunning taxi scene. But it's also a kind of screwball comedy, and kind of a noir -- both genres rich with playacting. I'm not going to pretend I fully "get" exactly what Kiarostami is up to here -- if anything I've seen here deserves more brain space than I have available to give it during in the middle of the festival marathon, it's this -- but I was pleasantly disoriented throughout, and I thought the film's final moment was thrilling.
Although some are predicting that Amour has the 2013 Best Foreign Language Oscar on lock, to measure Cannes selections such as Haneke's, Hong's and Kiarostami's for their Hollywood crossover potential is pretty misguided. All three films have and will continue to have detractors because they're so dedicated to scrambling an audience's expectations, and thereby redefining what a film can be or do. And that obliteration of expectations is exactly what we should expect to get at this festival.
Domenico La Porta from Cineuropa:
The image of the mirror is present throughout the film, mostly in a series of shots and reverse-shots used to film the two sides of many conversations. The director tirelessly repeats this stylistic device by varying the settings: dialogues shot from either side of a restaurant table, from a street then from the inside of a house through a window, from the inside of a car then from the pavement, from the back seat then from the front seat... Once again, it's a lesson in filmmaking that we see unfold before our eyes, as some shots are real gems of cinematic construction. After Italy for Certified Copy [trailer], Abbas Kiarostami travelled to Japan where he had been wanting to shoot a film for over 10 years. Directing a film in Japan, in Japanese, was for him the closest he could get to the experience of shooting a film in Iran. Watching his film, a European audience has to get used to a very different ethnic group and a very different-sounding language deciphered only by subtitles. But it's an experience that the director, who is currently prohibited from filming in Iran, wanted to re-create, and he has done it successfully.
In the end, some might think that the film's substance is too light a counterweight for its form, and its ending accentuates this feeling of a farce not quite corresponding to some viewers' expectations. But for others, the film will have been an amusing and surprising experience.
- - - - -
I almost hate to throw a monkey wrench into the these somewhat flustered points of view, but I think Cineuropa is onto something with his contention that this "was for him the closest he could get to the experience of shooting a film in Iran." The repetetive nature of the detached, emotionally uninvolving events happening onscreen may baffle the viewer and lead them to make false conclusions. What this reminds me of is Sleeping Beauty, an equally emotionally passive experience that's hard to read, where one can easily infer one's own views onto what's happening onscreen. It's another film about sex objectification where the sex client has amnesia about the actual sexual experience itself, as she's induced into sleep, thus the title, where due to her persistent curiosity afterwards, she insists on watching a video of the experience, which turns out to be anything but what she expected, leaving her in a state of abject horror, which is the underlying tone of the entire film.
There's a tendency to be repulsed by the "other" in this film, which is the idea of something foreign and unknown, which may reflect cultural sentiment in both Japan and Iran, among many other places, including ourselves, as if we're living inside a self-induced, protected bubble.
The buzz in the Hollywood realm at Cannes continues to insist Marion Cotillard from Jacques Audiard's well received Rust and Bones has a solid chance to win Best Actress, as of course, does Emmanuelle Riva from Haneke's Amour. If one wins the Palme d'Or, there's a chance the other will receive the Best Actress award, as was mentioned earlier, they tend to spread around the awards at Cannes. But films have won best film and best performance, such as Dancer in the Dark and Bjork, also Rosetta and Émilie Dequenne, Secrets and Lies and Brenda Blethyn, The Piano and Holly Hunter, to name a few. For men it may be more difficult, but it has been done, Sex, Lies, and Videotape and James Spader, Barton Fink and John Turturro, Missing and Jack Lemmon - - all American films, by the way.
There is an online Criterion Forum discussion on the films at Cannes:
Les étoiles de la critique is a scorecard of French critics, through Tuesday's edition, where Audiard's Rust and Bone and Haneke's Amour remain the best reviewed films so far: http://www.lefilmfrancais.com/109896/cannes-les-etoiles-de-la-critique
Incredibly, Kiarostami remains the favorite to win the Palme D'Or prize, despite the baffling reviews of his latest film, giving you some idea of the esteem with which he's held, Reygadas as 2nd prize, Audiard's Rust and Bone third, with Haneke winning both acting categories, Mungiu the best director, and Resnais the best screenplay, over at Neil Young with the current odds at Jigsaw Lounge: http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/reviews/cannes12odds/
3-1 : LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE - Kiarostami {prediction : Palme d’Or}
7-2 : AMOUR (aka LOVE) - Haneke {prediction : Best Actor & Actress}
4-1 : POST TENEBRAS LUX - Reygadas {prediction : Grand Prix}
6-1 : BEYOND THE HILLS - Mungiu {prediction : Best Director}
10-1 : RUST AND BONE - Audiard {prediction : Jury Prize}
10-1 : YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET! - Resnais {prediction : Best Screenplay}
11-1 : IN THE FOG - Loznitsa
12-1 : COSMOPOLIS - Cronenberg
16-1 : PARADISE : LOVE – Seidl
20-1 : ON THE ROAD - Salles
25-1 : KILLING THEM SOFTLY - Dominik
28-1 : HOLY MOTORS - Carax
33-1 : THE HUNT – Vinterberg
35-1 : THE TASTE OF MONEY - Im
35-1 : MOONRISE KINGDOM – Anderson
35-1 : IN ANOTHER COUNTRY – Hong
40-1 : REALITY - Garrone
50-1 : MUD - Nichols
50-1 : THE PAPERBOY – Daniels
66-1 : THE ANGELS’ SHARE - Loach
80-1 : LAWLESS – Hillcoat
80-1 : AFTER THE BATTLE - Nasrallah
7-2 : AMOUR (aka LOVE) - Haneke {prediction : Best Actor & Actress}
4-1 : POST TENEBRAS LUX - Reygadas {prediction : Grand Prix}
6-1 : BEYOND THE HILLS - Mungiu {prediction : Best Director}
10-1 : RUST AND BONE - Audiard {prediction : Jury Prize}
10-1 : YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET! - Resnais {prediction : Best Screenplay}
11-1 : IN THE FOG - Loznitsa
12-1 : COSMOPOLIS - Cronenberg
16-1 : PARADISE : LOVE – Seidl
20-1 : ON THE ROAD - Salles
25-1 : KILLING THEM SOFTLY - Dominik
28-1 : HOLY MOTORS - Carax
33-1 : THE HUNT – Vinterberg
35-1 : THE TASTE OF MONEY - Im
35-1 : MOONRISE KINGDOM – Anderson
35-1 : IN ANOTHER COUNTRY – Hong
40-1 : REALITY - Garrone
50-1 : MUD - Nichols
50-1 : THE PAPERBOY – Daniels
66-1 : THE ANGELS’ SHARE - Loach
80-1 : LAWLESS – Hillcoat
80-1 : AFTER THE BATTLE - Nasrallah
Shortening the list to just the basic necessities, Screendaily still has paywalls, but if you click on most reviews, they are open to the public, though some still remain mysteriously unavailable: http://www.screendaily.com
The Hollywood Reporter at Cannes:
David Hudson (formerly of Mubi) does all the links for each review at Fandor:
Variety at Cannes:
http://www.variety.com/festivals/cannes-film-festival/2012/
I’ve added a new link to the Sight & Sound blog (thanks Matt!!):
I’ve added a new link to the Sight & Sound blog (thanks Matt!!):
Matt Zoller Seitz and Kevin B. Lee at Press Play from indieWIRE
the indieWIRE Playlist:
indieWIRE reviews, with grades listed:
Robert Koehler from Filmjourney:
Daniel Kasman at Mubi:
The House Next Door at Cannes:
Drew McSweeny and Guy Lodge from HitFix:
Mike D'Angelo at The Onion AV Club:
The Film Center's Barbara Scharres from the Roger Ebert blog:
Richard Corliss from Time Magazine:
http://entertainment.time.com/tag/cannes-2012/
Karina Longworth at LA Weekly:
Cannes Fest at Time Out London:
Cannes Diary from Film Comment:
The Guardian Cannes commentary:
And, of course, George is back at Cannes this year, where he finds off the beaten track film fare:
Ralph and I were having our first fest pow-wow with film scholar extraordinaire Gary, one of the director's of the Telluride Film Fest, outside the Bunuel Theater after a screening of "Me and Me Dad" a documentary on John Boorman by his daughter, when a young man in a tuxedo recruited us back into the theater to contribute to an audience for a trailer for the latest Bond picture with the latest Bond girl in attendance. We looked at our watches and said we had 15 minutes to spare before our next screening.
Gary, Ralph and I had also been talking with the Scottish director of a documentary on Jack Cardiff that had played at Telluride and Chicago and River Run and quite a few festivals last year. He had helped with the Boorman documentary. He and I ended up sitting next to each other as we awaited the trailer. He raved how much he loved being at Telluride. He said that when he interviewed Scorcese and Terry Gilliam for his documentary they both had told him how lucky he would be if his film were invited to Telluride and what an exceptional experience that would be.
He said they hadn't exaggerated in the least. His first day at Telleuride he found himself in conversation with Peter Weir and couldn't believe his good fortune being among so many significant directors. I told him he ought to try to make it back next year for the 40th anniversary of Telluride as it would be an extra day long and many of the guest directors from fests back would be in attendance. He immediately took out his phone and made a notation to give that high priority for 2013.
Gary had all sorts of recommendations of films for Ralph and I to see. He said he had met with Boorman in London before Cannes at an annual get-together the Telluride directors have with English film-makers. It is no wonder they are so well-connected and put on the best film festival in the world.
After fifteen minutes there was no grand entrance from the Bond girl, so Ralph, Gary and I had to get to our next movie. For Gary it was a press screening for Ken Loach's latest film before it screens tomorrow in the Palais and for Ralph and I it was "White Elephant" at the Debussy next door for our ten pm Un Certain Regard screening. Gary had seen it earlier and said one critic said the movie was ten hours too short, as there was so much more he would have liked developed in this rich story of a Buenos Aires slum. It had the gritty realism that Ralph and I most appreciate. The film-maker truly knew his material. It becomes our favorite for the best in Un Certain Regard.
The title of Alan Resnais's Competition entry, "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" could have been applied to it. Resnais's film made a nice start to the day, a gathering of some notable French actors including Piccoli and Amalric, playing themselves gathered together at the bequest of a theater director friend who had died to watch a film of one of his plays that a group wished to stage. He wanted their opinion. They gathered to mourn as well as to celebrate his work. This made for a quaint and diverting premise.
"My Joan of Arc" is one of a couple of French travel documentaries in the festival. This one was by a young Canadian woman who came to retrace an eleven day horseback ride Joan of Arc took to deliver a message to the King of France in 1429 that he ought to go to war against the English. This combined my interest in France and history and travel and suited me very well.
I also received a history lesson form "The Third Half" a Macedonian feature a true story about a Macedonian soccer team and its Jewish coach during the Nazi era--combining two themes of quite a few films in the market, soccer and the Nazis. The coach was forced to wear a yellow star and forbidden from coaching as they approached the championship game. One of the star players has a Jewish girl friend. The Jews are in the process of being rounded up and sent to forced labor camps in Bulgaria. The film ends at a Macedonian Holocaust museum.
Another film with a message was "Harodim" with Peter Fonda playing the US mastermind of the downing of New York's Trade Towers on 9/11. This film validates the arguments of all those who go for that conspiracy theory.
And I squeezed in the "Code 37, The Movie" to make it my second seven film day after six films a day the first four days. Ralph had seen this Belgian feature about an attractive woman who heads a vice squad on Day One and recommended it. Even Belgians "multi-task," a phrase that seems to be a favorite of screenwriter's these days.
So the festival is half way over. I've seen 38 films, but only six in Competition. I have lots of catching up to do and two great films to look forward to based on Ralph's tastes which are quite similar to mine--Beyond the Hills and The Hunt. So far my favorite film is Rust and Bones, very good, but not great. Ralph has a higher echelon pass than mine, allowing him access to Palais invitations, the reason why he has seen more Competition films than I have. But there are an extra end of the festival screenings of all the Competition films this year on Thursday and Friday along with the usual Sunday slate, so I'm confident of catching up with all of them. And by neglecting them now, I've been able to see films of a subject matter that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to see. No regrets.
Gary, Ralph and I had also been talking with the Scottish director of a documentary on Jack Cardiff that had played at Telluride and Chicago and River Run and quite a few festivals last year. He had helped with the Boorman documentary. He and I ended up sitting next to each other as we awaited the trailer. He raved how much he loved being at Telluride. He said that when he interviewed Scorcese and Terry Gilliam for his documentary they both had told him how lucky he would be if his film were invited to Telluride and what an exceptional experience that would be.
He said they hadn't exaggerated in the least. His first day at Telleuride he found himself in conversation with Peter Weir and couldn't believe his good fortune being among so many significant directors. I told him he ought to try to make it back next year for the 40th anniversary of Telluride as it would be an extra day long and many of the guest directors from fests back would be in attendance. He immediately took out his phone and made a notation to give that high priority for 2013.
Gary had all sorts of recommendations of films for Ralph and I to see. He said he had met with Boorman in London before Cannes at an annual get-together the Telluride directors have with English film-makers. It is no wonder they are so well-connected and put on the best film festival in the world.
After fifteen minutes there was no grand entrance from the Bond girl, so Ralph, Gary and I had to get to our next movie. For Gary it was a press screening for Ken Loach's latest film before it screens tomorrow in the Palais and for Ralph and I it was "White Elephant" at the Debussy next door for our ten pm Un Certain Regard screening. Gary had seen it earlier and said one critic said the movie was ten hours too short, as there was so much more he would have liked developed in this rich story of a Buenos Aires slum. It had the gritty realism that Ralph and I most appreciate. The film-maker truly knew his material. It becomes our favorite for the best in Un Certain Regard.
The title of Alan Resnais's Competition entry, "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" could have been applied to it. Resnais's film made a nice start to the day, a gathering of some notable French actors including Piccoli and Amalric, playing themselves gathered together at the bequest of a theater director friend who had died to watch a film of one of his plays that a group wished to stage. He wanted their opinion. They gathered to mourn as well as to celebrate his work. This made for a quaint and diverting premise.
"My Joan of Arc" is one of a couple of French travel documentaries in the festival. This one was by a young Canadian woman who came to retrace an eleven day horseback ride Joan of Arc took to deliver a message to the King of France in 1429 that he ought to go to war against the English. This combined my interest in France and history and travel and suited me very well.
I also received a history lesson form "The Third Half" a Macedonian feature a true story about a Macedonian soccer team and its Jewish coach during the Nazi era--combining two themes of quite a few films in the market, soccer and the Nazis. The coach was forced to wear a yellow star and forbidden from coaching as they approached the championship game. One of the star players has a Jewish girl friend. The Jews are in the process of being rounded up and sent to forced labor camps in Bulgaria. The film ends at a Macedonian Holocaust museum.
Another film with a message was "Harodim" with Peter Fonda playing the US mastermind of the downing of New York's Trade Towers on 9/11. This film validates the arguments of all those who go for that conspiracy theory.
And I squeezed in the "Code 37, The Movie" to make it my second seven film day after six films a day the first four days. Ralph had seen this Belgian feature about an attractive woman who heads a vice squad on Day One and recommended it. Even Belgians "multi-task," a phrase that seems to be a favorite of screenwriter's these days.
So the festival is half way over. I've seen 38 films, but only six in Competition. I have lots of catching up to do and two great films to look forward to based on Ralph's tastes which are quite similar to mine--Beyond the Hills and The Hunt. So far my favorite film is Rust and Bones, very good, but not great. Ralph has a higher echelon pass than mine, allowing him access to Palais invitations, the reason why he has seen more Competition films than I have. But there are an extra end of the festival screenings of all the Competition films this year on Thursday and Friday along with the usual Sunday slate, so I'm confident of catching up with all of them. And by neglecting them now, I've been able to see films of a subject matter that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to see. No regrets.
I notice that Neil Young's odds have had Kiarostami's film at the top spot since March when the title was 'The End'. Sounds like whoever made these odds is sticking to his guns. Last year the odds were in favor of 'Hanezu'. Remember that film? Yeah, either do I. I find it odd that they would put odds on a film solely based on who made it rather than how it actually plays. It's like making a prediction on a horse race based on the rider of the horse but not the actual horse.
ReplyDeleteLast year his #1 pick quickly shifted to Kaurismaki's "Le Havre," which ended up winning a FIPRESCI award. Yeah, the Japanese film faded into obscurity, but he dropped it as well after it screened. I like the way he makes the picks early on, however, which does add an element of suspense to the proceedings, and not just for the Palme D'Or, but for all the major categories, as many of us tend to play along at home in much the same way.
ReplyDelete