Live from Cannes: IONCINEMA’s 2008 Coverage: Day 2

Yesterday night ended with a late showing for the sole documentary admitted into the main competition – and this is destined to get high marks from many critics, though in my estimation it won’t garner the top prize but will be a film that will further contribute to the new wave animated docu films (such as The Kid Stays in the Picture and the Oscar winning short film Ryan).

So Day 2 at the Cannes film festival is officially when the floodgates
open – meaning: every time-slot offers three, four and sometimes five
valid opportunities to see a worthy gem from established auteurs, to
the next generation of filmmakers to even popcorn fair like Kung Fu Panda.
It becomes a question of what you are willing to hold out on, combined
with who you are willing to revisit with time and time again and which
new film from a new filmmaker might be worth the gamble.

I was enticed into seeing the carnet of films offered in Tokyo!, the set of three stories that tell three separate
tales of the city by filmmakers like Gondry, Carax and the person behind the monster-smash monster film, The Host.

Where I feel as if I came out a winner is by checking out the opening film for the Un Certain Regard section and was overwhelmingly rewarded with the sort of filmic experience that feels like reeiving a medicine ball to the stomach – it hits you in your gut. The film ended with one of those deserving 10 minute ovations, with director Steve McQueen and the cast giving each other congradulatory hugs. Written by Enda Walsh, Hunger is an impressionistic
interpretation of the last six weeks in the life of Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger
striker who died in the Maze prison in 1981. If you think Christian Bale lost tons of weight for a pair of films, wait till you see this nasty reality of going without food for 66 days.    

Three Monkeys was my night capper and let’s just say I wasn’t expecting this kind of story from the Turkish filmmaker. Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes a different kind of approach to your normal detective story  – this involves a woman and three men, and shows how the heart ultimately complicates matters.

I could not wake up early enough to see the main competition selection of Lion’s Den
(Leonera) this morning – a film that I’m looking forward to catching up with somewhere down the line. Here are the other titles from the various sections.

Director’s Fortnight: They included a special screening for Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise and opened the section with Four Nights with
Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski)

Critic’s Week:

Moscow, Belgium

Opening film of the section: The Seven Days