Cannes 06: Massive Preview III

Following up on a Screen Daily piece written moments after the Berlin film festival, we’ve decided to go with that list and make a full breakdown of the pictures that we might find at this year’s Cannes film festival. At this point its just speculation – but hell its fun to speculate and after what many consider a long wait for quality projects – I think that buyers and sellers might find themselves in a real frenzy at the Croisette.

With the opening of what will be a massive blockbuster hit (hear those cash registers ring) in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, and by the looks of the names there might be plenty of items to look forward to in the Autumn and be sure there will be plenty of leftovers for both Venice & Toronto (remember: Ang Lee avoided traffic and showcased Brokeback Mountain at Venice. Without further ado, here’s what Cannes 2006 and Jury president Wong Kar-wai may possibly be watching this coming May. Here is part III of our 5-day preview.

The host
Dir: Bong Joon-ho
Gist: Part of the South Korean slew of fantasy films, this is about a mutant emerges from Seoul’s Han River and focuses its attention on attacking people.

How To Get Rid Of The Others
Dir: Anders Ronnow Klarlund
Gist: What’s a festival without a Danish film? From the young helmer comes a satirical drama revealing the consequences of the Danish government’s “New Copenhagen Criteria”, a new policy aiming at securing the nation’s survival. Citizens who fail to meet the criteria – those who have received more from society than what they have contributed – are eliminated.

I Am The Other Woman
Dir: Margarethe von Trotta
Gist: Coming off the success of Rosenstrasse, von Trotta delivers another drama.

Infamous
Dir: Doug McGrath
Gist: Unfortunately, this might be known as Capote II, but (Nicholas Nickleby) McGrath’s fourth film might be forever referred to as an interesting film comparison study – how two films from 2 visions get transferred onto the screen. It would make better sense to push this the furthest away from Capote hype- hence a Toronto film fest premiere. Based on George Plimpton’s 1997 oral biography “Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career”, the film will focus on the relationship that developed between Capote and convicted murderers Dick Hickock and, in particular, Smith while the pair awaited execution on death row. Impressive ensemble cast sees Sandra Bullock, Hope Davis, Toby Jones, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo and Sigourney Weaver.

Inland Empire
Dir: David Lynch
Gist: The French love Lynch. Lynch appreciates production money from France. It’s been a long wait since Mulholland Drive – but for the 60 year-old director this may be a new page in his career – he has fallen for digital video. This sees a woman in trouble with the title refering to the bleak residential area on the edge of the desert near L.A. — the antithesis of the tony locale of his last movie. Actors Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton and Justin Theroux from Lynch’s filmography have come abroad for the shot in Poland feature.

Jindabyne
Dir: Ray Lawrence
Gist: Speaking of long waits…how is it that Lawrence had too wait an eternity for production money after the super smooth Lantana? Answer: Home-grown (Australian) productions take forever with the financing. Written by Beatrix Christian, this is an adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story set in Australia. The drama revolves around a group of men who notice the body of an Aborigine girl at the bottom of their fishing hole. Rather than report the murder immediately, they wait until they’ve filled their coolers with fish, resulting in a scandal that tears through the men’s relationships. Thesps Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney star.

The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen
Dir: Zacharias Kunuk & Norman Kohn
Gist: A chilly film from near the artic circle will most likely not get a “cold” reception. Following his brilliant directorial debut Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner – winner of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, this is an epic tragedy set in and around Igloolik in the 1920s, as the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter struggle to survive the sweep of civilization that brought Christianity and commerce to the arctic and irrevocably changed Inuit life. Witnesses to their story are Danish ethnographer and explorer Knud Rasmussen and his traveling companions Therkel Mathiassen and Peter Freuchen.

Lady Chatterley
Dir: Pascale Ferran
Gist: The story starts in 1921. The young couple having set up house a year earlier in Wragby, on Chatterley land. Left to her own devices, rendered sad and indifferent by most everything, Constance (Lady Chatterley) finds refuge in Parkin’s symbolic territory. Parkin is the domain’s game-keeper. Parkin lives in a house situated in the middle of the woods. He lives a solitary life. Constance has no liking for the man in the woods. His solitude is too extreme. Parkin in turn is wary of Lady Chatterley.

Lights In The Dusk
Who: Aki Kaurismaki
Gist: I heart Kaurismaki! This this concludes the trilogy that started with Drifting Clouds (Kauas pilvet karkaavat, 1996) and continued with The Man Without a Past, 2002). Where the trilogy´s first film was about unemployment and the second about homelessness, the theme of Lights in the Dusk is loneliness.

Luxury Car
Dir: Wang Chao
Gist: The director of the 2004 film Night and Day now makes it three films to his filmography.

Madonnas
Dir: Maria Speth
Gist: The German helmer makes her second feature film. Rita gives birth to her own six children and forces her mother to take the role of a mother for her grandchildren. A portrait of a woman who claims that her mother was never a mother for her.

The Man Of My Life
Dir: Zabou Breitman
Gist: This is about a man who falls for…another man.

Marie-Antoinette
Dir: Sofia Coppola
Gist: Like father like daughter? I wouldn’t put it past the folks at Cannes for making it “2” on the reservation list for both members of the Coppola family, especially after how Lost in Translation left an impression on cinephiles. Her Dunst returns to the fold (The Virgin Suicides) and Sofia’s cousin Jason Schwartzman stars in the soundtrack-friendly tale of the young Austrian princess, who, as a teenager, becomes Queen of France. Jason Schwartzman portrays her indifferent husband Louis XVI. Other members of the elitist court of Versailles include Rip Torn (in the role of King Louis XV), Judy Davis (as the Comtesse de Noailles), Steve Coogan (as Mercy), Asia Argento (playing the Comtesse du Barry), Marianne Faithful (Maria-Teresa), Aurore Clement (Duchesse de Chartres), Molly Shannon (Aunt Victoire) and Shirley Henderson (Aunt Sophie).

The Missing Star
Dir: Gianni Amelio

Gist: Veteran filmmaker (The Keys to the House) chooses Sergio Castellitto in the lead role as labourer Vincenzo travels from Italy to China in search of a machine with a deficiency that was produced in the now defunct establishment at which Vincenzo worked for years.