Cannes 2014 Day 3 Recap: Ceylan’s Winter Sleep Receives Standing O, Amour Fou Delights

Cannes – May 16th

When the mind needs sleep, the body follows. I started off the day on the wrong foot, missing my 9:00 a.m. Catch Me Daddy (Directors’ Fortnight section) screening and promised myself to try and catch before it’s last showing, but was on hand for what some people are calling a triumph, potential Cannes Palme front-runner, and I’m which I’m calling, a notch below his last film, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s dialogue driven talkie piece (I had flashes of the style that Corneliu Porumboiu employs) and semiotics course on the male psyche, in particular, it features bruised male egos confronted by economically diverse brotherhood and female counterparts who know a thing or two. The collection of conversations (one I believe could be timed to a 20 minute mark) in Winter Sleep are polemic in nature. The inhospitable setting is filled with with belittlement, self-entitlement but doesn’t outclass some of his earlier works.

I followed this with director-producer Gabe Polsky’s (The Motel Life) first docu film (which had been picked up earlier by SPC) entitled Red Army which parallels Iron Curtain Soviet Union and one man’s journey (former Detroit Redwing D-man Slava Fetisov’s) against a lifetime’s worth of antagonistic forces. In the pic below, I ran into the Girlhood team – with it’s director on the far left and the film’s star in some shade of orange.

Finally, the day came to a personal close with Amour Fou, Jessica Hausner’s third showing in the Un Certain Regard showing section. Before Jung and Freud were setting a path for psychoanalysis, there were nutjobs playing doctor and comically here, a sort of grim reaper. Static shots, gorgeously researched era look beautifully detailed in each set piece and with matching mannerisms to boot, the Austrian helmer has a terrific funnybone. Watch out for the film: Doctor’s orders!