LIKE SOME ONE IN LOVE
SYNOPSIS
CREDITS
ACTORS
Abbas Kiarostami was born on 22 June 1940 in Tehran, Iran.
He showed a keen interest
BAAD EL MAWKEAA (AFTER THE BATTLE)
ACTORS
In After the battle, he pays tribute to them by showing how the government exploited their anger. Nazlet is a poor district at the foot of the Gizeh pyramids, where the residents make a living by taking tourists on camel rides. In an attempt to rehabilitate this zone, the government had a wall built to prevent the tourists from gaining access and to push them to leave the zone. With the revolution, the situation became even worse for the residents of Nazlet, as there were no more tourists, and they started to break down the wall. It was at this moment that people close to Mubarak promised them that work would pick up again if they helped to push out the demonstrators.
After the Battle is nevertheless a fictional account, with the leitmotif of a romantic encounter between one of the cavaliers and a young demonstrator. This duality of perspectives between the man (who is on the side of power) and the woman (who is on the side of freedom) was already present in The Women of Cairo andInterieor/exterieor, one of ten short films in 18 Days, presented last year in a special screening.
MUD
ACTORS
SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
CREDITS
ACTORS
THOMAS VINTERBERG
ACTORS
SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
ACTORS
SYNOPSIS
ACTORS
Antoine d’Anthac brings the former actors in his play together to show them the filmed rehearsals of a young company. During the screening, the actors are overwhelmed by the memory of their lines (which Lambert Wilson really did act on stage in 1991) and they start to act together. The film is thus a movement back and forth between the new captation of Eurydice and the reactions that it stirs up amongst the spectators-actors. You ain't seen nothin' yet is thus an exploration of what film, theatre and actors are all about and a reflexion on life, death and love beyond the grave (the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice).
Beyond this device with its many twists, Alain Resnais wanted to push the game a little farther, by delegating the direction of the filmed rehearsals to Bruno Podalydes. Alain Resnais refused to give him any advice: "The game of the film is that I will not have anything to do with what you are going to do. The more different it is from what I have filmed myself, the closer it will be to the spirit of the project." This manner of giving the unknown its due is the reason that from one film to the next, Alain Resnais continues to surprise us. We ain't seen nothin' yet, Monsieur Resnais.
ACTORS
SYNOPSIS
Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are
cultivated, retired music teachers.
Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family.
One day, Anne has an attack.
The couple's bond of love is severely tested
ACTORS
Rust
and Bone
.jpg)
Paradise: Love
The
Paperboy
"The Paperboy" is a Millennium Films release, directed by Lee Danielsand is rated R for strong sexual content, violence and language.
The cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, John Cusack, Scott Glenn, David Oyelowo and Macy Gray.
For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Set in 1969, The Paperboy takes place in the small town of Lately, Florida where Ward James (Matthew McConaughey), a reporter for the "Miami Times", has come home to write a story on Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), a man convicted of killing a crooked town sheriff. Knowing the town the way he does, Ward believes Hillary was wrongly convicted of the crime based on insubstantial evidence and a judge just looking for someone to blame.
USA/UK/France/Brazil | Directed by Walter
Salles
Directed by : Abbas
KIAROSTAMI
Country FRANCE,
JAPAN
Year: 2012
Duration: 109.00 minutes
SYNOPSIS
An old man and a young woman meet in Tokyo. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.
this film is screened at canne 2012 in competition section.Last season he gave 'CERTIFIED COPY' which is a fantastic one in iffk2011.In this year we can expect such a amazing experience with his "like some one in love"
CREDITS
ACTORS
in drawing early on and, at age 18, entered a graphic-art
contest and won. He studied at the
ine arts school in Tehran whilst making ends meet as a
graphic designer, poster illustrator and
commercial ad director. In 1969, he founded the cinema
department of the Institute for the
Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults,
which is also where he directed his irst short
ilms.
In his irst ilm,
The Bread and The Alley
(1970), Abbas
Kiarostami explores the weight of images and
the relationship of realism and iction. His preferred theme,
the universe of childhood, is expressed
over a long series of short, medium length and feature ilms,
during which he has managed to
establish a subtle balance between narrative and documentary
style.
Homework
(1989), his last
childhood ilm, is a good example of warm and poetic cinema
that discreetly denounces the heavy
aspects of Iranian society.
With
Close-Up
(1990), he turned a
page. In less than one week, the director embraced a news story
and, with the participation of the real life protagonists,
made it a pretext to introduce reality into
the realm of iction.
Life And Nothing More
(1992) and
Through The Olive Trees
(1994) complete
a trilogy that began with
Where Is
My Friend’s House?
(1990). In the latter, the devastating effects
of an earthquake in northern Iran serve to uncover the lie
that is cinema.
Us
(1999), the story of
a group of city dwellers who go to ind something in a rural village,
is yet another example of his unique style. The ilm was also
his irst creative collaboration with
Marin Karmitz and MK2.
Taste Of Cherry
(1997) marked the director’s coming into his own, and his
entry into the ranks of
award winners. The ilm, which tells the story of a
50-year-old man’s obsession with suicide, is an
ode to individual freedom. The ilm was praised by critics
and denounced by religious authorities in
Iran. A slow and contemplative pace, limited intrigue, and
references to Persian poetry and Western
philosophy are the trademarks of this deeply original
director’s work. His taste for improvisation
is grounded in loosely written scripts, amateur
actors, and his own editing.
hopes for the repetition of last season .
BAAD EL MAWKEAA (AFTER THE BATTLE)
Last year we experiences The Arab spring actually this film is the follow up.
ACTORS
In After the battle, Yousry Nasrallah sheds new light on the attack of the horse and camel guard in Tahrir Square, on 2 February 2011, in a fictionalised work.
It was the 9th day of the Egyptian Revolution, and the image was broadcast around the world: on horseback and on camels, the militia charged the crowd of anti-Mubarak demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Later that night, there was a massacre with sniper fire, but that event had a much smaller media impact than the cavalry attack earlier that day.
It was the 9th day of the Egyptian Revolution, and the image was broadcast around the world: on horseback and on camels, the militia charged the crowd of anti-Mubarak demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Later that night, there was a massacre with sniper fire, but that event had a much smaller media impact than the cavalry attack earlier that day.
Yousry Nasrallah knew some of the camel and horse guards, men who lived in Nazlet El-Samman, whom he had filmed in On Boys, Girls and the Veil, and he refused to depict themas "the bad guys in the story".
In After the battle, he pays tribute to them by showing how the government exploited their anger. Nazlet is a poor district at the foot of the Gizeh pyramids, where the residents make a living by taking tourists on camel rides. In an attempt to rehabilitate this zone, the government had a wall built to prevent the tourists from gaining access and to push them to leave the zone. With the revolution, the situation became even worse for the residents of Nazlet, as there were no more tourists, and they started to break down the wall. It was at this moment that people close to Mubarak promised them that work would pick up again if they helped to push out the demonstrators.
After the Battle is nevertheless a fictional account, with the leitmotif of a romantic encounter between one of the cavaliers and a young demonstrator. This duality of perspectives between the man (who is on the side of power) and the woman (who is on the side of freedom) was already present in The Women of Cairo andInterieor/exterieor, one of ten short films in 18 Days, presented last year in a special screening.
Videos
·
Jeff NICHOLS -
Director
·
Jeff NICHOLS -
Screenplay
·
Adam STONES -
Cinematography
·
David WINGO -
Music
·
Julie MONROE -
Film Editor
·
Ethan ANDRUS -
Sound
ACTORS
·
Matthew MCCONAUGHEY - MUD
·
Reese WHITHERSPOON - JUNIPER
·
Tye SHERIDAN -
ELLIS
·
Jacob LOFLAND - NECKBONE
·
Sam SHEPARD -
TOM BLANKENSHIP
·
Ray MCKINNON -
SENIOR
·
Sarah PAULSON - MARY LEE
·
Michael SHANNON - GALEN
SYNOPSIS
Mud is an adventure
about two boys, Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a man named Mud hiding
out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios - he
killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He
says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper, who
is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree
to help him. It isn’t long until Mud’s visions come true and their small town
is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow.
VIDEOS
JAGTEN (THE HUNT)
Directed by :
Country:
DENMARK
Year:
2012
SYNOPSIS
Following a tough
divorce, 40-year-old Lucas has a new girlfriend, a new job and is in the
process of reestablishing his relationship with his teenage son, Marcus. But
things go awry. Not a lot. Just a passing remark. A random lie. And as the snow
falls and the Christmas lights are lit, the lie spreads like an invisible
virus. The shock and mistrust gets out of hand, and the small community
suddenly finds itself in a collective state of hysteria, while Lucas fights a
lonely fight for his life and dignity.
CREDITS
·
Thomas VINTERBERG - Director
·
Tobias LINDHOLM - Screenplay
·
Thomas VINTERBERG - Screenplay
·
Charlotte BRUUS CHRISTENSEN - Cinematography
·
Torben STIG NIELSEN - Set Designer
·
Nikolaj EGELUND - Music
·
Janus BILLESKOV JANSEN - Film Editor
·
Anne ØSTERUD -
Film Editor
·
Kristian SELIN EIDNES ANDERSEN - Sound
ACTORS
·
Mads MIKKELSEN - Lucas
·
Thomas Bo LARSEN - Theo
·
Annika WEDDERKOPP - Klara
·
Lasse FOGELSTRØM - Marcus
·
Susse WOLD -
Grethe
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
On a dark winter’s night in 1999, there was a knock on my
door. A renowned Danish child-psychologist stood outside
in the snow with some documents raving about children
and their fantasies. He spoke about concepts such as
“repressed memory”, and even more disturbing, about his
theory that “thought is a virus”. I didn’t let him in.
Didn’t
read the documents. Went to bed.
Ten years later I needed a psychologist. I called him,
and
as a belated form of politeness, I read the documents.
And
was shocked. Spellbound. And I felt that here was a story
that needed to be told. A story of a modern-day
witch-hunt.
THE HUNT is the result of this reading.
THOMAS VINTERBERG
Director and Screenwriter
Celebrated director Thomas Vinterberg graduated from
the Danish Film School in 1993. His graduation film LAST
ROUND was an early example of his extraordinary talent
and reach; it won a string of awards and was nominated
for a student Oscar®. Immediately after came the
awardwinning
The Boy who walked backwards (1995)
which, among others, won at Clermont-Ferrand, and a
Robert for Best Short Film.
In 1996 Vinterberg directed his first feature The BIGGEST
Heroes. The film took home three Robert awards. In
1995 Vinterberg and Lars von Trier wrote the DOGME
95 manifesto. Vinterberg’s 1998 Dogme film, FESTEN
(The Celebration) was the first film of the movement. It
received a multitude of international awards including
the
special jury prize at Cannes and the Fassbinder Award
at the European Film Awards, as well as the award for
Best Foreign Language Film from both the Los Angeles
and the New York film critics. In addition, FESTEN won
seven Robert awards and three Bodil awards. In 2008,
Vinterberg and von Trier, along with their ‘Dogme
brothers’
Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, received the
EFA award for Outstanding European Achievement in
World Cinema.
Vinterberg has directed two English-language films, IT´S
ALL ABOUT LOVE (2003), with Joaquin Phoenix, Claire
Danes and Sean Penn, and DEAR WENDY (2005) starring
Jamie Bell which was written by Lars von Trier and won
the
Silver St. George at the Moscow Film Festival. He
returned
to the Danish language with the comedy, WHEN A Man
Comes Home (2007), followed by SUBMARINO (2010).
The latter was in the main competition at the Berlinale
in
February 2010. SUBMARINO was awarded the Nordic
CONFUSING SUCCESS
Vinterberg describes The Hunt as a return of sorts to the
purity of vision he had at the beginning of his career.
He
still considers his graduate film Last Round his best.
“After that I did The Biggest Heroes and FESTEN and
those films were all very close to me in the sense that I
can
see myself in a very naked way in them,” he explains.
The outsized success of FESTEN was confusing, he
explains. “It didn’t give me much. Artistically it took
away
my focus for quite some time. I was like a football
player
after a big goal and the camera was pointing at me for
way too long. Now, I feel I am back and actually looking
at my stories and looking at the world to find stories.
Now
I’m constantly trying to find this vulnerable pure
quality
from my graduate film, where there was no speculation
about the future and you are very honestly trying to
regard
people in certain situations.”
LIKE A BICYCLE TEAM
The film which grounded Vinterberg again was
Submarino, a gut wrenching study of two brothers
wracked by addiction. The film was selected for
competition
at Berlin 2010 and earned him his best reviews since
FESTEN. “With Submarino, I felt I sort of came back.
If you consider FESTEN like an explosion, the dust had to
settle for a bit and I felt I could continue with what I
was
doing before, knowing a little bit more about how things
worked.”
Submarino also saw him teamed up with hot new
Danish writer Tobias Lindholm on the screenplay. Lindholm
was fresh out of film school when he was drafted in to
write
the adaptation but has since co-written two seasons of
the
hit TV series Borgen and directed two of his own films R
(with Michael Noer) and the forthcoming A Hijacking. It
was only natural for Vinterberg to turn to Lindholm again
on The Hunt.
“We are like a bicycle team when we are writing,”
he smiles. “Sometimes he is in front and I am following
him and sometimes I am in front. We map out the story
for quite some time together. We do a 10-page version,
then a 20-page version and when we have an idea of the
whole story, we start writing. The front bicycle writes
10
pages very fast without looking back and then the other
one rewrites it. At the end you have a script which is a
Lindholm/Vinterberg script which I then change to make
my own.”
The script of The Hunt approaches the story from an
unusual angle in that it sticks closely to the Lucas
character.
Scenes you’d expect in classic witch-hunt movies – the
townspeople getting together to fuel their rage, the
police
interrogation of the suspect – are not there.
“We tried to stay very close to the main character and
avoid making a case study,” he says. “This is fiction and
we communicate through the heart and then it goes to the
brain and back again. So we had to follow the emotional
story of this person.”
DEMONS AND VICTIMS
Also, it’s an unusual story in that, for all the drama,
everyone is innocent and thinking they are doing the
right
thing. Vinterberg is a parent himself and understands why
and how adults become so aggressively protective of their
children at the first whiff that they are in danger.
“The father of the little girl believes in his daughter
like
every parents should do, and I totally understand him,”
he muses. “Everybody has the feeling that you know your
child, but there is this cliché about kids that they
don’t lie
and in this film, we claim that they do: they invent
stories,
they often lie to make the grown-ups happy and in this
case
she is saying what is expected of her.”
“Imagine sitting in front of a policeman or a
psychologist or your parents who keep on asking you
the same questions. What did you see? Did you see
this? Did you see that? And imagine that after the third
time, it becomes part of your imagination that it
actually
happened. As a child especially, it is more difficult to
divide fiction from reality.
“So to some extent, the kids here are the demons of
the film because they destroy a man’s life, but it’s very
important for me to emphasise that in a case like this,
the
kids are also the victims. They are the ones we should
protect the most.”
REALITY
·
Matteo GARRONE - Director
·
Maurizio BRAUCCI - Screenplay
·
Ugo CHITI -
Screenplay
·
Matteo GARRONE - Screenplay
·
Massimo GAUDIOSO - Screenplay
·
Marco ONORATO - Cinematography
·
Paolo BONFINI - Set Designer
·
Alexandre DESPLAT - Music
·
Marco SPOLETINI - Film Editor
ACTORS
·
Aniello ARENA - Luciano
·
Loredana SIMIOLI - Maria
·
Nando PAONE -
Michele
·
Raffele FERRANTE - Enzo
SYNOPSIS
Luciano is a Neapolitan
fishmonger who supplements his modest income by pulling off little scams
together with his wife Maria. A likeable, entertaining guy, Luciano never
misses an opportunity to perform for his customers and countless relatives. One
day his family urge him to try out for Big Brother. In chasing this dream his
perception of reality begins to change.
videos
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
After
Gomorra
I wanted to make a different sort of film, to
switch registers, so I decided to try a comedy.
Reality
is born from a simple but true story that we
transformed in order to move through and reflect on
the landscape of today. It is a j
ourney of anticipation, of hopes and dr
external and geographical, the other internal and psychological. These levels are intimately connected,
and this cultural landscape is precisely what gives rise
to the characters who animate our story. This is
a film about how we perceive the real, the story of
a man who departs from reality and enters into his
own fictitious dimension. I think of Luciano, the
star of the film, as a modern-day Pinocchio, one of
childlike innocence and naïveté. I followed him wi
th my camera as if he were living a fantastic
adventure. During the shooting I wa
s constantly striving for that
delicate balance between dream and
reality, always searching, even figuratively, for a ce
rtain fable-like quality, a sort of magic realism.
MATTEO GARRONE - Director and Screenwriter
Matteo Garrone was born in Rome in 1968.
He graduated from the Art Lyceum in 1986 and work
ed as an assistant cameraman before focusing on
painting. He won the Sacher Festival with the short film
Silhouette
in 1996. The following year he
directed his first feature film
Terra di Mezzo
produced by his company Archimede, distributed by
Tandem. It won the Turin International Festival
of Young Cinema Jury Special Award and the Cipputi
Award. He directed the documentary
Oreste Pipolo
-
Wedding Photographer
in Naples in 1998 and in
the same year directed his second feature film
Guests,
which won the Kodak Award at the Venice Film
Festival.
Guests
also won the Angers European First Film Fe
stival European Jury Special Mention, the
Valencia International Golden Moon of Valencia Best Film Award and the Kodak Award at the Messina
Film Festival. He directed his third feature
Roman Summer
in 2000 and it was presented in the official
selection at the Venice Film Festival. In 2002 he directed
The Embalmer
which won public and critical
acclaim. It was presented in the Quinzane des Rea
lisateurs at the 55th Canne
s Film Festival and won
David di Donatello Awards for Best Screenplay and
Best Supporting Actor, the Silver Ribbon for Best
Editing, the Golden Clapperboard for Best Editing, the Fellini Award for Best Producer, Best Production
Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Distribution. It
also won the Pasolini Award Jury Special Prize.
In 2004 his film
First Love
premiered in Competition at the 54th Be
rlin Film Festival and won the Silver
Bear for Best Film Music as well as the Silver Ri
bbon at the David di Donatello Awards in the same
category. Garrone directed Gomorra in 2008. The f
ilm won the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes
Film Festival, as well as Best Film, Best Dire
ctor, Best Actor, Best Cinematographer, and Best
Screenplay at the European Film Awards that year.
It was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2009
Golden Globe Awards; won the Silver Hugo for Be
st Screenplay at the Chicago International Film
Festival in 2008, and was nominated for Best Fore
ign Film at the BAFTA and Cesar Awards in 2009.
Garrone also produced
Mid-August Lunch
by Gianni Di Gregorio, which won the Best First Film Award
at the Venice International Film Festival as
KILLING THEM SOFTLY
Directed by :
Country:
USA
Year:
2012
Duration:
104.00 minutes
SYNOPSIS
When their poker game is
knocked off by petty thieves, the Mob calls in their best enforcer, Jackie
Cogan, to make things right. Under the eye of a mysterious driver, Jackie must
track down and punish those responsible for the heist. His assignment is complicated
by those he comes up against along the way - an aging, drunken hit man, some
bumbling local gangsters, and the ladies’ man who ran the ill-fated game.
·
Andrew DOMINIK - Director
·
Andrew DOMINIK - Screenplay
·
Greig FRASER - Cinematography
·
Patricia NORRIS - Set Designer
·
Brian A. KATES - Film Editor
·
Kirk FRANCIS - Sound
ACTORS
·
Brad PITT - Jackie
·
Scoot MCNAIRY - Frankie
·
Ben MENDELSOHN - Russell
·
James GANDOLFINI - Mickey
·
Richard JENKINS - Driver
·
Vincent CURATOLA - Johnny Amato
·
Ray LIOTTA - Markie Trattman
VOUS N'AVEZ ENCORE RIEN VU (YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN'
YET!)
Directed by :
Country:
FRANCE, GERMANY
Year:
2012
Duration:
115.00 minutes
SYNOPSIS
From beyond the grave,
celebrated playwright Antoine d’Anthac gathers together all his friends who
have appeared over the years in his play "Eurydice". These actors
watch a recording of the work performed by a young acting company, La Compagnie
de la Colombe. Do love, life, death and love after death still have any place
on a theater stage? It’s up to them to decide. And the surprises have only just
begun...
·
Alain RESNAIS - Director
·
Laurent HERBIET - Screenplay
·
Alex RÉVAL - Screenplay
·
Eric GAUTIER - Cinematography
·
Jacques SAULNIER - Set Designer
·
Mark SNOW - Music
·
Hervé DE LUZE - Film Editor
·
Jean-Pierre DURET - Sound
·
Gérard HARDY - Sound
·
Gérard LAMPS - Sound
ACTORS
VIDEOS
Honoured with a special award for his whole career and for his
contribution to the history of film in 2009,Alain Resnais returns to Cannes with a film
enigmatically entitled, You ain't seen nothin' yet!, a very free
adaptation of two plays by Jean Anouilh: Eurydice and Cher Antoine.
Almost 90 years of age, Alain
Resnais bears witness to a spirit that is eternally young. Always on the
lookout for new experiences and new forms, the French filmmaker has his actors
play their own roles. Only Denis Podalydes plays a fictional character: Antoine
d’Anthac, a playwright who finds that he is the author of Eurydice!
Antoine d’Anthac brings the former actors in his play together to show them the filmed rehearsals of a young company. During the screening, the actors are overwhelmed by the memory of their lines (which Lambert Wilson really did act on stage in 1991) and they start to act together. The film is thus a movement back and forth between the new captation of Eurydice and the reactions that it stirs up amongst the spectators-actors. You ain't seen nothin' yet is thus an exploration of what film, theatre and actors are all about and a reflexion on life, death and love beyond the grave (the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice).
Beyond this device with its many twists, Alain Resnais wanted to push the game a little farther, by delegating the direction of the filmed rehearsals to Bruno Podalydes. Alain Resnais refused to give him any advice: "The game of the film is that I will not have anything to do with what you are going to do. The more different it is from what I have filmed myself, the closer it will be to the spirit of the project." This manner of giving the unknown its due is the reason that from one film to the next, Alain Resnais continues to surprise us. We ain't seen nothin' yet, Monsieur Resnais.
DO-NUI MAT (THE TASTE OF MONEY)
·
IM Sang-Soo -
Director
·
IM Sang-Soo - Screenplay
·
KIM Woo-Hyung - Cinematography
·
KIM June - Set Designer
·
KIM Young-Hee - Set Designer
·
KIM Hong-Jip - Music
·
LEE Eun-Soo - Film Editor
ACTORS
·
KIM Kang-Woo - Youngjak, le secrétaire privé
·
BAEK Yoon-Sik - Kyungsun, le père
·
YOUN Yuh-Jung - Keumok, la mère
·
KIM Hyo-Jin - Nami, la fille
·
Maui TAYLOR - Eva, la bonne
·
ON Ju-Wan - Chul, le fils
Videos
AMOUR (LOVE)
Directed by :
Country:
FRANCE, GERMANY, AUSTRIA
Year:
2012
Duration:
127.00 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are
cultivated, retired music teachers.Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family.
One day, Anne has an attack.
The couple's bond of love is severely tested
·
Michael HANEKE - Director
·
Michael HANEKE - Screenplay
·
Darius KHONDJI - Cinematography
·
Jean-Vincent PUZOS - Set Designer
·
Nadine MUSE - Film Editor
·
Monika WILLI - Film Editor
·
Jean-Pierre LAFORCE - Sound
·
Guillaume SCIAMA - Sound
ACTORS
·
Jean-Louis TRINTIGNANT - Georges
·
Emmanuelle RIVA - Anne
·
Isabelle HUPPERT - Eva
·
Alexandre THARAUD - Alexandre
THR sees
a film “executed with such clarity that there is never a false step or
superfluous scene,” believing “the great dignity of the film’s wrenching final
scenes soar high above any kind of moral or ethical debate.” The Playlist also notes that it’s a “tough,
harrowing picture but also one that, curiously, remains optimistic and full of
heart,” and Variety embraces the film’s “doubly powerful
statement about man's capacity for dignity and sensitivity when confronted with
the inevitable cruelty of nature.” The Guardian gets the last word in its five-star
review that praises the “breathtaking performances” of the universally praised
leads, as well as Haneke’s direction which is “everything that could have been
expected from him and more.... This is film-making at the highest pitch of
intelligence and insight.” The Palme d’Or winner will be distributed by Sony
Pictures Classics in the U.S., though no release date has been set.
Videos
Rust
and Bone
Drama |
France/Belgium | Directed by Jacques Audiard
1.
Production year: 2012
2.
Countries: Belgium, France
3.
Runtime: 120 mins
4.
Directors: Jacques Audiard
5.
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts
Summary: Put in charge of
his young son, Ali leaves the north of France for Antibes to live with his
sister and her husband as a family. Ali's bond with Stephanie, a killer whale
trainer, grows deeper after Stephanie suffers a horrible accident
Jacques Audiard’s A
Prophet 90 won
the Grand Prix in 2009, so expectations were high for his follow-up, and when
Marion Cotillard was announced as the star, well expectations in France shot
through the roof. The Guardian finds it to be “an utterly absorbing
love story” between Cotillard’s Stephanie who (spoiler alert) becomes a double
amputee early in the film and Matthias Schoenaerts’ (Bullhead) Ali, a bouncer with
hopes of kickboxing glory. Variety also
likes this “tender yet heavily de-romanticized love story,” as does the A.V. Club , calling both actors
“tremendous—especially Schoenaerts, in an amazingly tricky role” and welcoming
the film’s “inversion of genre expectations.” THR also
praises the performances of the two leads, as does the LA Weekly ’s Karina Longworth, who describes
Schoenaerts’ performance as “beautifully restrained” and Cotillard’s as
“equally impressive, but utterly transparent.” IndieWire makes
special mention of Cotillard’s “supremely raw performance” as well, but Michael
Phillips of theChicago Tribune isn’t buying the film as a whole,
writing, “The entire picture feels like a poetic-grunge generality, with a
penchant for jacked-up tension that feels applied to the situation, not pulled
from within the people on screen
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What
could have been simply bizarre, sentimental or contrived here becomes an
utterly absorbing love story; Rust
and Bone is a tale of
a miraculous friendship which evolves into an enthralling and movingromance,
wonderfully acted by Marion
Cotillard and Matthias
Schoenaerts. Jacques
Audiard directs, and
his screenplay, co-written with Thomas Bidegain, is freely adapted from
characters in the short story collection of the same title, by the American
author Craig Davidson. This is early days in the festival, but Rust and Bone
has to be a real contender for prizes, and, the odds will be shortening to
vanishing point for Cotillard getting the best actress award.
1.
Rust and BoneMore on this
filmShe plays Stephanie, a young woman who trains huge orca whales
at the Marineland park; in response to theatrical gestures from Stephanie, the
mighty beasts loom out of the chlorinated water to perform undignified tricks
for the crowd. At a club one night, she runs into Ali (Schoenaerts), a Belgian
guy working as a bouncer, involved in bareknuckle fights, but with dreams of
making it big in kickboxing. Feckless and shiftless about his family
responsibilities, Ali is staying with his long-suffering sister Anna (Corinne
Masiero) and is more than content to let her and her neighbours look after his
six-year-old son Sam (Armand Verdure) from a previous relationship. Ali takes
Stephanie home from the club after she gets into a drunken fight, and clearly
hopes for sex, but nothing happens, Cotillard shows how Stephanie is touched by
the consideration and even delicacy which Ali shows for her.
Catastrophe strikes at
Marineland early on: Stephanie is horrifically injured when one of the whales
turns on her. She awakens in hospital to find that both her legs have been
amputated, and her response is not a thousand miles from that of Ronald Reagan
in Kings Row. Stifled by the pity and nervous condescension about her condition
from her family and colleagues, Stephanie finds that the only person she can
talk to is Ali — who is utterly unafraid and unembarrassed, and even suggests
that they sleep together, just to see if she is still capable of sex. Proud,
vulnerable, sad Stephanie begins to fall in love with Ali, but discovers that
he still wants one-night stands elsewhere, and that it was after all precisely
this casual, no-strings appetite for sex which gave birth to the miracle of
their relationship – if a relationship is what it is.
The metaphor of the whale might
have dragged the movie down, but doesn't: it could have been seen as the force
of nature and destiny which makes short work of humans and their puny plans for
the future. Ali could have been seen as the second mighty beast which Stephanie
fails to tame. And in fact both these ideas are present somewhere in the film's
fabric. But it is remarkable how matter-of-factly Stephanie's job and her
terrible fate is presented to us by Audiard; it is not freighted with
significance, nor with ostentatiously affectless, post-modern irony. As for
Ali, what is impressive about the movie and his performance is the fact that
his evolving relationship with his sister and his son is so convincing and
real, and at least as important as this love affair with Stephanie.
I have rather uneasy memories
of Bryan Forbes's interesting but excruciatingly well-intentioned movie The
Raging Moon, from 1971, about two wheelchair users who fall in love. Rust and
Bone is a very different proposition, and its candour and force are matched by
the commitment and intelligence of its two leading players. These factors,
linked with the glowing sunlit images captured by cinematographer Stéphane
Fontaine and emotion-grabbing music from Alexandre Desplat make for a powerful
spectacle. It is a passionate and moving love story which surges out of the
screen like a flood tide.
TRAILER
Post Tenebras Lux
Drama |
Mexico/France/Netherlands | Directed by Carlos Reygadas
1.
Production year: 2012
2.
Directors: Carlos Reygadas
Carlos Reygadas, the
controversial director of Japon 76, Battle in Heaven 56, and Silent
Light 79, won, to the surprise
of many, the best director prize for his latest film, Post
Tenebras Lux, a meditation on sin and temptation without a real
narrative structure and a film that IndieWire calls
his “weakest movie, but frequently awe-inspiring nonetheless.” The A.V. Club admits
to being “baffled... but rarely bored” by a film that has moments that show
Reygadas‘ “mastery” but not enough as “he continually veers back and forth
between the magnificently evocative and the willfully obscure, with the latter
ultimately prevailing.” Variety , like many, makes special mention of
the beauty of the opening, but can find little else to like, and THR believes
the director “commits hara-kiri on his own reputation” with “this offensively
self-indulgent cubist folly.” Slant ’s words aren’t much kinder (except for
the aforementioned opening shot) stating, “Carlos Reygadas's new film is a
textbook example of how to tell a basic story in the most complicated,
off-putting manner conceivable.” And we didn’t even get to someone ripping his
head off of his own neck.
This opaque and exasperating work is a major misfire from the
maverick Mexican director
No one
ever looked to Carlos Reygadas for a clear picture and straight story, but this
maverick Mexican director may have surpassed himself onPost
Tenebras Lux, a congealed Jungian stew that went down to a chorus of
boos at the Cannes
film festival. Upping the ante still further, Reygadas has elected
to shoot large portions of his film through a bevelled camera lens, which
refracts his figures, doubles the image and leaves the screen's borders
blurred. I have no doubt he is deliberately setting out to vex us.
1.
What is he saying? What does he mean? The festival has been an
ardent champion of this fiercely talented 40-year-old, who was nominated for
the Palme d'Or for 2005's Battle in Heaven and scooped the jury prize for the
mesmerising Silent Light back in 2007. And yet Post Tenebras Lux must surely
count as a major misfire, at once undercooked and overheated as it stirs its
fevered brew of dreams and memory, symbols and sex.
Juan (Adolfo Jiménez Castro) and Natalia (Nathalia Acevedo) are
an artistic middle-class couple with two adorable toddlers and a big house in
the mountains that is tended by a team of unruly rustic handymen who operate
out of a corrugated-iron hut in the valley below. At one stage, Juan and
Natalia jet off for an up-scale sex holiday in Europe, where the rooms in the
bath-house are named after Hegel and Duchamp. At another Juan hits his dog so
hard that the animal dies. He feels awful about this, though his wife is
sanguine. "You're doing it less and less," she assures him.
Along the way Reygadas throws in some arresting images and
haunting scenes, such as the daughter's dream of the waterlogged field, or the
CGI Satan, red as a tandoori chicken, who comes to spook the son. There is no
doubt the director is leading us somewhere, all the way to the deathbed, where
the light finally breaks through. If only the route wasn't quite so rocky and
circuitous. If only he'd take those damn beer glasses off the camera lens.
At its best, in glimmers, Post Tenebras Lux can be tender,
touching and even oddly thrilling in its bold imagery and determination to take
the path less travelled. But it's an opaque, unforthcoming, exasperating work
all the same. Reygadas's occasional child's-eye perspectives, together with the
unexplained cut-aways to rugby games at an English public school (the director
himself was schooled in England) suggest the story may be at least
partway-autobiographical, a working-through of personal issues. The effect,
however, is like sitting down in front of a stash of bespoke home-movies (beach
trip, family dinner, reader's-wife erotica) shown out of sequence and with no
context provided. Home movies, of course, are often out of focus too.
Carlos Reygadas's new film is a
textbook example of how to tell a basic story in the most complicated,
off-putting manner conceivable. Stretching narrative means to their breaking
point and beyond, Post Tenebras Lux plays like an experimental short that just
happens to run 120 minutes, ample enough time for unsolicited (and unexplained)
flash-forwards, interpolated boys' rugby footage, and a sidebar into steamy,
seamy sex tourism. (What would a Reygadas film be without some unsimulated sex? Silent Light,
that's what.) Shooting for whatever reason in Academy ratio (though some of the
footage looks composed for Reygadas's preferred CinemaScope format), Reygadas
goes the unnatural next step and films most of the outdoors scenes with a
viscous gel-smeared lens, resulting in a blurry, refractive image that's liable
to induce headaches.
Admittedly,
the opening shot is breathtaking, on par with the opening and closing shots ofSilent Light:
A little girl (Rut Reygadas) wanders around a puddle-pocked field while cows
and dogs amble around her, naming the creatures and objects around her with the
purity of some Edenic callback. As night falls and thunderheads gather,
darkness and flashes of lightning become inseparable. Cut to a living room.
Amid peals of thunder, a glowing red, featureless figure enters the front door,
what appears to be a devil holding a toolbox, paterfamilias as petty demon. Or
maybe not. Like a lot of Post Tenebras Lux's other
"flourishes," the WTF factor here is stratospheric, and hoping for
any kind of context whatsoever, by which to frame your own explanation, is an
exercise in futility. If inscrutability were the measure of success, Post Tenebras Lux would be the
most successful film of all time.
At
its most basic level, Post Tenebras Lux contrasts two families living in rural Mexico.
Affluent landowner Juan (Adolfo Jimenez Castro) has anger-management issues. In
one gut-wrenching scene, he throttles and pummels one of his dogs for little
reason. His wife Natalia (Nathalia Acevedo) minds the children and tends to the
housework, when, that is, the couple isn't off visiting a Parisian bathhouse
for group sex in a steam-soaked inferno. And then there's a scene that leaps forward
a number of years, a family gathering that introduces Juan and Natalia's
now-adolescent children to their family, and offering a modicum of insight into
why they conduct their lives the way they do. Reygadas only introduces the
second family, belonging to a peon nicknamed Seven (Willebaldo Torres), within
the last few minutes, another shock tactic that throws the film seriously out
of balance. Alcoholic, with his own anger issues, Seven has committed a crime
of opportunity, and later proffers one of the most bizarre acts of repentance
ever filmed—if, again, that's even what it is.
What
all this adds up to, however, I can't quite say. Assessment seems a trifle
capricious when faced with such willfully impenetrable filmmaking. Of all the
unanswerable questions this film provokes, here's one that may well have an
answer: If a film falls flat on its face in the woods, does anybody hear it?
The audience does. And they'll likely want to tear their own heads off too.
Trailer
Paradise: Love
Drama |
Austria | Directed by Ulrich Seidl
Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise:
Love is the first in
what is now a planned trilogy (originally it was going to be a five-hour epic)
about three Austrian women. While the next two films will look at a Catholic
missionary (Faith) and a young
girl at a diet camp (Hope),
the first tackles the well-worn territory of sex-tourism, depicting the travels
and travails of Teresa (Margarethe Tiesel), a middle-aged woman looking for
love at a Kenyan resort. Karina Longworth of the LA
Weekly finds the
film “cheerfully vulgar” but unenlightening, and Mike D’Angelo of the A.V.
Club believes
it’s “interested only in making you wince, not in making you think.” Peter
Bradshaw of The
Guardian agrees,
wondering, “Does the film tell us anything we didn't know already?” and
answering with resounding “No” despite the technical skill on display. Slant also praises the film's “technical
virtues,” in addition to having more respect for the film as a whole, claiming
“there's more going on here than just shock tactics.” Variety also likes the film: “Repulsive and
sublimely beautiful, arguably celebratory and damning of its characters, it's
hideous and masterful all at once.”
·
2012, Austria, France, Germany, 130 mins, Drama, Dir: Ulrich
Seidl
With: Margarete
Tiesel, Peter Kazungu
Summary: A
middle-aged divorcee heads off to Kenya in search of sun and sex
There is a lot of what can only
be described as Lucian Freud nakedness in the new film from Austrian director
Ulrich Seidl, the first of a projected trilogy.
As ever, his tendency is
towards the confrontational grotesque, created with icy determination. He also
presents his audience with some disturbingly surreal tableaux. But I felt that
here his style is in danger of becoming a collection of mannerisms, even
cliches.
The
subject is one already approached by Laurent Cantet in his 2005 film Heading
South: rich, middle-aged white women who take sex-tourist jaunts to
developing-world countries to be with handsome, undemanding young men.
Margarethe Tiesel plays
divorcee Teresa, who packs her truculent teen daughter off to weight-loss camp
(the daughter's story is to be told in one of the other two films) before
heading off to Kenya where a friend has assured her that delicious sex is hers
for the taking. Soon she meets Munga (Peter Kazungu) and for a while, things
proceed satisfactorily: Teresa even believes he doesn't want money.
Of course, the situation is
every bit as degrading and humiliating for all parties as you might expect. The
women in Cantet's Heading South were under no illusions about the set-up: would
Teresa, here, really not understand what was going on? Perhaps not. Part of the
game is pretence – believing that this is a real romance, albeit with someone
who will shortly expect cash presents.
As in Import
Export, Seidl's previous film, there is an unwatchably extended improv
scene in which someone is humiliated in a hotel room. The gloating, jeering
women – cynical and casually racist – profess themselves disappointed that the
man in question can't get a full erection. (I have a feeling that the director
himself may also have been disappointed.)
Does the film tell us anything
we didn't know already? And could anyone expect anything but the most
straightforward irony in the title? The answer to both questions is no – but
there is undoubted technique, and an authorial address to the audience. No
other director could have created that weird vision of Kenyan men, as still as
statues, waiting on the beach to stalk their pampered, sunburnt prey.
The
Paperboy
Thriller |
USA | Directed by Lee Daniels
Lee Daniels' follow-up to Precious 79 might have been the most ridiculed film
that played in competition this year. Eric Kohn atIndieWire gave The Paperboy a “D+”,
calling it “a craptastic work of self-importance” and claiming “its stench will
always linger on the filmographies of everyone involved” including stars John
Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, and Nicole Kidman, who, as most reviewers couldn’t
avoid mentioning, pisses on Zac Efron, literally. Mike D’Angelo at the A.V.
Club isn’t any
kinder, giving this “unmitigated disaster” a “D-” and taking Daniels to task
for his “ham-fisted ‘social commentary’” and “relish for degradation.” The
Playlist also piles
on with an “F” grade of its own, describing the film as “a lurid, florid,
humid, flaccid and insipid waste of time and money for the audience and for
everyone who made it.” However, there were a few critics who gave the film a
modicum of credit. Giving it four stars out of five, Peter Bradshaw at The
Guardian embraces the “gripping, scary and queasily funny picture”
in which “a lazy, funny tone co-exists with menace and Nicole Kidman gives her
best performance since To Die For.” THR claims
the film’s “funky disreputability is part of the pleasure,” and Variety ,
splitting the difference, describes it as “a risibly overheated, not
unenjoyable slab of late-'60s Southern pulp trash, marked by a sticky, sweaty
atmosphere of delirium and sexual frustration that only partly excuses the
woozy ineptitude of the filmmaking.”
Lee Daniels has made something far afield from his 2009 sophomore effort, Precious, with The Paperboy, a somewhat campy, exploitative, '70s style feature with thematic hints of A Time to Killand To Kill a Mockingbird and a second half vibe that reminded me of Cape Fear. That narrative, however, can't support the weird mix of serious drama and over the top craziness that come together to create a story that never finds its footing.
Daniels' script, which he co-wrote with Peter Dexter based on Dexter's novel, tends to be throwing scenes at the wall just to see what will stick and while it's largely a messy production, the totally unexpected final act shows promise for how great this might have been with a little more focus.
'THE PAPERBOY'
REVIEW
REVIEW
GRADE: C+
"The Paperboy" is a Millennium Films release, directed by Lee Danielsand is rated R for strong sexual content, violence and language.The cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, John Cusack, Scott Glenn, David Oyelowo and Macy Gray.
For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
MORE ABOUT THIS MOVIE
Ward's father (Scott Glenn) runs the local newspaper and his baby brother Jack (Zac Efron) has found himself going nowhere fast, losing his swimming scholarship at the University of Florida after draining the school's pool and is now sitting home. With nothing else to do, Jack plays chauffeur for his brother while he's in town with his colleague Yardley (David Oyelowo), a man whose skin color adds to the on-and-off racial vibe the film is carrying.
Initially just excited to be around his brother, Jack's interest in Hillary's case takes a turn once he meets Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), a white trash woman who finds a particular interest in writing inmates and falling in love with them. Hillary is her current obsession, so much so she has already determined she's going to marry him. Jack, being a lovestruck young man without much world experience, falls at her feet as the film establishes its myriad of themes from Jack's odd sexual attraction to Charlotte, the race relations in Lately, why exactly Ward is working so closely with Yardley and a variety of other bits and bobs that surface throughout. Thing is, none of them really fit together into a cohesive narrative as much as they play like a collection of ideas.
Daniels, cinematographer Roberto Schaefer (Quantum of Solace) and editor Joe Klotz (Precious) take the '70s vibe and run with it, though that's all they seem to be doing, attempting to create a vibe. It's almost like you can see them trying too hard as one scene dissolves into the other and plays over another in a delirious cacophony of multiple exposure that ends up saying very little.
For the most part the film is shown from Jack's perspective, him being the titular and metaphorical "paperboy", and the presentation I'm describing here is largely used while he longingly stares at Charlotte, her words and face creating a blurred vision of his object of desire as she tramps around in her short skirt, bountiful eyeliner and bleach blonde wig. Kidman is certainly a sight, but not one to fawn over, and if her character's stupidity doesn't cause for disgust, the moment we watch her pee on Jack's face after he's stung by a jellyfish most likely will, though Kidman's line delivery is quite funny.
The problem here isn't the fact it's gross to watch a stream of urine land on Efron's face, but the fact we don't care about him, her, Ward or anyone in the film. Strangely, the closest we get to any character is the James family maid Anita (Macy Gray) who also, for whatever reason, narrates the film. The film isn't enough of a comment on anything to give Anita the narrative reigns as much as it feels like a crutch. Often enough she's just describing what's on the screen or giving information that could be taken care of in a brief expository shot. The characters are all kept at arm's length so when something good or bad happens we don't have much reason to care and it takes away a lot from the film, a film that grows increasingly exploitative and is always better when the story is seen rather than told.
Unfortunately, a lot is wasted as a result of the film's problems. The performances are actually quite good, some cringe-worthy such as Cusack as the jailed Van Wetter, a man I wouldn't want to have anything to do with. Kidman is highly entertaining as the inmate-loving, white trash sex kitten, willing to rip the crotch out of her stockings and simulate sex from a distance upon first meeting Van Wetter. Ugh, just the name Van Wetter gives me the willies and he never lets up.
Efron is solid, though nothing to write home about — no harm, no foul — and McConaughey is pretty much kept on a tight leash, not able to go explore his frequently charismatic self even though you can see him trying, which does hurt the performance a bit.
One character that is interesting and may have been a better focus of attention is David Oyelowo's Yardley. Considering the racial tension throughout much of the film, the curious relationship between Yardley and Ward and the circumstances that follow could have been something here. With where Yardley ends up and the story concludes, you could have had a down dirty in the swamp variation of The Godfather final montage that would have been one hell of a sight.
Overall it seems like a missed opportunity. Though I've never read the book, it almost seems as if they took too literal an approach to the material instead of getting creative in adapting it for the screen. Attempts at creativity seemed to largely focus on messing with the visual presentation where the gritty, old school photography was more than enough. While I did enjoy the film's ending, the journey there was a miss, but not one I'm entirely sorry I got to see.
On the Road
USA/UK/France/Brazil | Directed by Walter
Salles
Walter Salles’ adaptation of
Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel received a generally positive if unenthusiastic
response from critics. THR finds
the film to be “a beautiful and respectful adaptation ... that intermittently
leaves the ground to take flight.” The A.V.
Club also offers
faint praise, stating “this is pretty painless as prestige-lit adaptations go.” Variety echoes that sentiment by calling the
film “a gratifying but not exactly triumphant” adaptation that “feels overly
calculated in its bid for spontaneity.” IndieWire likes
the performances of Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund, and Kristen Stewart, and gives
the film a “B” despite being “overlong and unfocused in parts.” The
Guardian , on the other hand, can proffer only two stars out of
five, believing the film to be “a good-looking but directionless and
self-adoring road movie.”
Story
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." - Jack Kerouac.
Based on Jack Kerouc's beloved American novel, ON THE ROAD is the story of Sal Paradise, an aspiring New York writer, and Dean Moriarty, a devastatingly charming ex-con, married to the very liberated and seductive Marylou.
Sal and Dean bond instantly instantly upon meeting. Determined not to get locked in to a constricted life, the two friends cut their ties and take to the road with Marylou. Thirsting for freedom, the three young people head off in search of the world, of other encounters, and of themselves.
Kristen Stewart shows her free-spirited side in a new trailer for "On the Road". Married at 16 years old, Stewart's character is featured embarking on a wild journey with her ex-con husband and an aspiring writer. She can be seen doing some daring actions such as having a threesome with the two men, as well as dancing seductively at a jazz club.
Stewart plays Marylou, who is a far cry from her signature Bella Swan image from the "Twilight Saga" film series. Marylou, who has an affinity for sex and marijuana, meets New York writer Sal Paradise who decides to have a road trip soon after the death of his father.
Determined to avoid the pitfalls of a narrow, prescribed life, Paradise joins Marylou and her husband Dean Moriarty on what evolves into a life-changing physical and emotional odyssey. Thirsting for freedom, they discover the world, the ecstasy of experience, the connectedness of humanity, and ultimately themselves.
An adaptation from a novel by famous Beat generation poet Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" is directed by Walter Salles with Jose Rivera penning the script. Joining Stewart in the cast ensemble are Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams andTom Sturridge.
Stewart once revealed that the upcoming film would feature herself nude. "It's kind of insane to watch now. I'm like, 'Who is that?' But I think - as every actress says when they do this is - it just felt so right," so she told MTV when discussing the explicit scenes. She added that she never regretted playing a sexually promiscuous character, stating, "I have kind of no qualms about it either. I think people are a little uptight."
"On the Road" will be released in the U.S. on December 21. The drama was first screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, where Stewart was supported by Robert Pattinson during the premiere event.
Stewart plays Marylou, who is a far cry from her signature Bella Swan image from the "Twilight Saga" film series. Marylou, who has an affinity for sex and marijuana, meets New York writer Sal Paradise who decides to have a road trip soon after the death of his father.
Determined to avoid the pitfalls of a narrow, prescribed life, Paradise joins Marylou and her husband Dean Moriarty on what evolves into a life-changing physical and emotional odyssey. Thirsting for freedom, they discover the world, the ecstasy of experience, the connectedness of humanity, and ultimately themselves.
An adaptation from a novel by famous Beat generation poet Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" is directed by Walter Salles with Jose Rivera penning the script. Joining Stewart in the cast ensemble are Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams andTom Sturridge.
Stewart once revealed that the upcoming film would feature herself nude. "It's kind of insane to watch now. I'm like, 'Who is that?' But I think - as every actress says when they do this is - it just felt so right," so she told MTV when discussing the explicit scenes. She added that she never regretted playing a sexually promiscuous character, stating, "I have kind of no qualms about it either. I think people are a little uptight."
"On the Road" will be released in the U.S. on December 21. The drama was first screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, where Stewart was supported by Robert Pattinson during the premiere event.
No
| Chile | Directed by Pablo Larraín
Winner of the top prize in the
Directors’ Fortnight and picked up by Sony Classics, Pablo Larrain’s No tells the true story of a Chilean ad
executive, played by Gael Garcia Bernal, who designed an election campaign that
helped bring down the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet. Shot with period video
cameras that made it possible to blend archival footage into his fictionalized
account, Larrain’s final film in his Pinochet trilogy that began with Tony Manero 72 and Post Mortem 72 is a triumph. IndieWire and The
Playlist both give
the film an “A” noting that the formerly “brooding” director has “crafted an
inherently optimistic” film with a “superb” performance by Bernal. LA
Weekly ’s Karina Longworth agrees, stating, “No is both a crowd-pleasing, satisfying
narrative entertainment and a highly sophisticated conceptual object,” and
Michael Phillips of the Chicago
Tribune believes “No is a terrific film about advertising,
politics and the human desire to be coerced, gently or forcefully, around
election time.” Variety points out the film’s humor, as does
Mike D’Angelo at the A.V.
Club , who describes the film as “an uproarious examination of
how the methods used to sell soft drinks and soap operas can also be used to
sell…not a candidate, understand (the actual election was a year later), but
just the idea ‘freakin’ anybody but this guy.”
With one of the first critical and popular hits of the Cannes festival, Chilean director Pablo Larraín returned to the Directors’ Fortnight with No, the film that completes his important trilogy about the reign of Augusto Pinochet. Acquired Tuesday by Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. and Canadian distribution, No differs greatly from the first two films in the trilogy, Tony Manero and Post Mortem, blistering black satires that feature the Nosferatu-looking actor Alfredo Castro.
Both disco and Dantean inferno, Tony Manero portrays a dead-eyed survivor who is “stayin’ alive” during Pinochet’s repressive regime. Set in Santiago in 1978, the yearSaturday Night Fever was released in Chile and half a decade after Pinochet seized power, Manero turns one man’s obsession with popular culture into a scary, airless study in the psychosis of fascism, the violence of the impassive and disappointed, the horrors of history played out as performance.
Director Larraín, who hails from a right-wing family of wealth and political power, often employs overbearing metaphor to make his points. In Post Mortem, relentless sunlight turns Chile into a nation of wraiths. “Nothing can escape the wheel of history,” someone proclaims early on, but the film’s two self-absorbed protagonists do their best to ignore the imminence of history. A sallow, lank-haired morgue assistant (creepy Castro again) takes up with the anorexic cabaret dancer from across the street, their apolitical indifference protecting them for a short while, until the chaos of Pinochet’ putsch engulfs their cadaverous romance.
No completes the Pinochet trilogy even as it departs markedly from the tone, theme, and visual style of its predecessors. Working for the first time with a major bankable star, Gael García Bernal, Larraín delegates the ever pallid Alfredo Castro to second billing as Bernal’s boss and political nemesis. More nuanced and talkative, and depending less on metaphor and atmosphere, No replaces Tony Manero’s frantic compositions and the implacably controlled widescreen images of Post Mortem with an approach that risks aesthetic affront.
Chronicling the national referendum that brought the downfall of Pinochet in 1988, the film is shot in the lowest of lo-tech video, as if made with U-matic equipment of that period. The overlit images, presented in square television format, have a washed-out, swimmy quality that dissolves outlines and distorts color. Once again experimenting with outdated technology — Post Mortem used antique Russian camera lens to achieve its pale lighting — Larraín employs his grubby look not just for documentary “authenticity” and period ambience, but to suggest that harsh truth requires harsh methods.
No centres on a young, upcoming advertising producer (Bernal) who takes on the television campaign to depose Pinochet. At once a brilliant character and social portrait, the film limns the “pragmatic” character of the adman who believes that the same methods used to sell a soft drink called Free (pop music, happy faces, mimes) can be used to spur Chileans to vote No against Pinochet. Arguing for jingles instead of anthems, humour and uplift instead of dire facts about disappearances, torture, and murder, the clever exec subdues the old-liners who find his tactics distasteful, amounting to a Pinochet-like repression of history. His former wife, a political activist, argues that he is abetting the regime by participating in a masquerade.
Larraín maintains a studiously ambiguous attitude toward the No campaign, celebrating its success in winning the referendum — though the outcome is known from history, the film still manages to be tense, suspenseful — while asking what was sacrificed in that victory. Politics become product, the suppression of facts in favor of anodyne, idealized images, ideas replaced by slogans, history rendered silent: the director seems to situate the debased state of contemporary politics in this transformation. The No of his title takes on ominous new meaning in that light.
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