Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2008 > May > 15
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The scene in Cannes
Be sure to check out American-Statesman writer Charles Ealy’s reports on all of the happenings at the Cannes International Film Festival. And don’t forget to browse through our star-studded collection of photos.
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Our Man in Cannes: ‘Leonera’ and Martina Gusman
Argentine director Pablo Trapero planted a Latin American flag in the race for the Palme d’Or on Thursday morning with “The Lion’s Den,” or “Leonera” in Spanish.
The movie focuses on a young woman who wakes up in her apartment surrounded by the bloody bodies of two men, one of whom is still alive. As it turns out, both have been her lovers, and both men have been each other’s lover. And one has made her pregnant.
The woman takes the fall and ends up in prison, where she delivers her baby, only to face the prospect of having the child removed from her care.
Martina Gusman has the starring role, and she’s phenomenal. The movie has a bright future on the American arthouse circuit and is just the latest in a string of groundbreaking Latin American works.
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Our Man in Cannes: ‘Tree of Life’ shopped around
Director Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” which was filmed in Smithville, is being shopped for international distributors in Cannes. The movie isn’t finished, of course, so there are no screenings of footage being made available to critics. But Summit Entertainment is handling negotiations.
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Castro pic has Austin ties
Austin-based Artists Relations Group is fixing up with Oscar-touched producer Robert Moresco (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash”) to produce a biographical feature about Fidel Castro’s exiled daughter, Alina Fernandez.
The story is based on Fernandez’s book “Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba,” in which she describes her bizarre and ruptured relationship with her father and her split from Cuba to the U.S.
Financing for development of the flick comes from private Austin-based outfit the Lamy Group.
Fernandez and her book
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Our Man in Cannes: ‘Waltz with Bashir’
The “Kung Fu Panda” screening was the second animated feature premiere — as part of the official selections — in two days in Cannes, a rarity.
On Wednesday night, Israeli director Ari Folman showed “Waltz with Bashir,” a serious but non-traditional documentary looking back 25 years when Israel was involved in a war in Lebanon.
Folman said he didn’t want to do the documentary with a middle-aged guy looking into the camera, so he went with animation. But he didn’t use the Richard Linklater technique of rotoscoping, employed in the Austinite’s “A Scanner Darkly” and “Waking Life.”
In essence, the story revolves around a former Israeli soldier who begins to question what happened — and his involvement in — the massacre of Arabs in refugee camps in the early 1980s.
On the surface, the film may be seen as anti-Israeli, but that would be a limited reading of what’s on screen.
Instead, it’s passionately anti-war, questioning the point of sending soldiers into another country to shoot and kill. There’s no mistaking that Folman thinks such conduct is utterly banal.
The movie ends with actual documentary footage of the killings. And it’s a powerful moment, making this one of the contenders for the Palme d’Or.
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Our Man in Cannes: ‘Blindness’ celebrities
The director and cast of “Blindness” sat down with journalists Thursday at the Hotel Martinez, which is the site of some of the most serious star-gawking in town. Hundreds of people are usually lined up outside, hoping to get a glimpse of a celebrity, and even journalists with badges have to go through a checkpoint and questioning about why they want to enter.
Inside, director Fernando Meirelles and actors Julianne Moore, Alice Braga, Gael Garcia Bernal, Don McKellar and Danny Glover fielded questions on Thursday.
And as has been the case in past festivals, Meirelles and Glover were the most eloquent (although Bernal and Moore can hold their own.)
Meirelles tried to explain his comments Wednesday that he did not think “Blindness” was a good opening-night film for the fest.
“It’s the subject matter and the context,” he said. “The opening-night film is followed by dinner and a party, and this movie isn’t exactly a good lead-in for a party.”
“Blindness” focuses on a sudden outbreak of sightlessness in an unnamed city and tracks the disintegration of society inside a quarantined dormitory as well as in the world at large, where the virus cannot be contained.
Although several critics gave the movie good reviews, the main critics in the international press in Cannes gave “Blindness” mixed reviews, at best, on Thursday. Among the complaints: that Bernal’s character was too one-dimensional, that the script was too compressed, with too many shortcuts from the award-winning novel, and that the horror of the situation wasn’t fully conveyed.
Meirelles didn’t seem fazed by the reviews, at least not publicly. Instead, he focused on the movie’s main theme Thursday, that of people who wear blinders in order to get through the day, people who can see but don’t really see the person next to them. “We go blind to protect ourselves,” he said. But when an entire society goes literally blind, there’s no protection left.
So the movie is about rebuilding a society and rediscovering humanity amid an apocalypse, he said.
Glover, meanwhile, had a slightly different take, giving a personal example of why he wanted to do “Blindness.”
He talked about his young grandson who has fallen in love with a little girl who has Down’s syndrome. He said he and his daughter had talked about the situation but didn’t want to discourage the child. “He sees her inner beauty,” Glover said of his grandson. “Imagine it. If he keeps that sensibility throughout his life, there’s no telling what the possibilities will be.”
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Our Man in Cannes: Chatting with Angelina Jolie
CANNES, France — When so many great movies are screening, it’s mildly irritating to spend time focusing on the personal lives of celebrities. But hey, that’s part of the gig. So, without further ado, Angelina Jolie confirmed Thursday that she is indeed carrying twins and that she was feeling fine.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t,” she said.
At a press conference for the new animated DreamWorks flick “Kung Fu Panda,” Jolie said she was, in fact, thrilled to be in Cannes to promote two movies, the other being Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling.”
In “Kung Fu Panda,” she voices the role of Tigress, one of the legendary Furious Five who aspire to be the prophesied Dragon Warrior.
Jolie, who managed to keep a smile on her face for most of the conference, said she would walk up the red carpet with Brad Pitt for the “Kung Fu Panda” premiere. “He’s taking care of the kids right now.” (They already have four.)
She also said the two would attend the “Changeling” premiere.
When questioned about the workload, Jolie replied: “It’s not such hard work. I sit and talk and everyone is being very nice to me. … And it’s part of the job.”
She said she’d be wearing sensibly low-heeled Cole Haan shoes, with special Nike soles, for the red-carpet appearances.
As for the movie, it’s a throwback to the old Disney animated features. “It doesn’t talk down to kids,” said co-director John Stevenson. “It’s going to scare you, but it’s going to be OK in the end. … It’s the classic Disney formula.”
Jack Black voices Po, the panda who goes on to greatness, once he learns to believe in himself. He said he identified with the character because he’s like a bear who’s plump and soft and goes a little crazy at times. “I am Po.”
Dustin Hoffman voices Shifu, the Kung Fu master charged with teaching the roly-poly Po how to fight. (Hint: food is a motivator.)
Hoffman fielded almost as many questions as Jolie. At one point, he was asked what it was like to go from such classics as “The Graduate” and “Midnight Cowboy” to today’s “Kung Fu Panda.”
“It’s a decline in culture,” he deadpanned.
He then added: “I want everyone to know there was a point in time when Angelina could have chosen between me and Brad.”
When the cast was asked whether the movie would send a bad message to obese kids that it’s fine to be fat, Hoffman stepped up to the plate in more serious fashion.
“The superhero exists because of our need to idealize,” he said. “But the point of Po is to become a real hero … to realize that the superhero is within you, not outside.”
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