Who will win the Palme at Cannes? (2009 edition)

God!

I dunno!

I'm so out of touch, didn't even know park had one in the hopper, a US co-pro no less

here are some fansubbed trailers... looks like twilight for adults

I sometimes get confused by the significance of opening/closing selections. In other words, is that Pixar movie in competition or not?

I don't think so.

In any case, touch 'em all Gaspar Noe!

while we're in the trailer business

Nop Pixar isn't in the competition.
As for the selection, when I first saw the names of the directors chosen I thought I'd happened onto a selection from a few years ago. Cannes is fucking weird, it always looks like they have a pool of thirty-fifty directors whose movies they can pick and as for the rest, weel too bad, you ain't on our list so fuck off. I think I knew like 80-90% of these movies would be chosen. But it looks quite good anyway.

Isabelle Huppert is head of the jury, so there's the Haneke connection and he's never won. So "The White Ribbon" maybe? Think we can discount Tarantino.

I'm voting Resnais, just on a whim.

I'd like to see a Noe/Tarantino interview.

I have heard of two of these, and I am quite sure neither of the two I have heard of will win.

Noe:
The visions described in the script are inspired partly by the accounts of people who have had near-death experiences, who describe a tunnel of light, seeing their lives flashing past them and "astral" visions, and partly by similar hallucinatory experiences obtained by consuming DMT, the molecule which the brain sometimes secretes at the moment of death and which, in small doses, enables us to dream at night. The film should sometimes scare the audience, make it cry and, as much as possible, hypnotise it.

I'm just looking forward to some aggressive imagery and even more aggressive Thomas Bangalter music.

i voted brillante mendoza, just for his name.

if i son he's getting called brillante.

i have a son even

dying to see Enter the Void

didn't intend to make a pun there, but hey

i have no idea what won last year

Me neither. Must've been too good to get distribution.

Wasn't it The Class?

it was The Class, and the Romanian abortion movie in '07. so they're trending IMPORTANT but good.

xp

and the Loach IRA movie in 06 (right on)

Yeah, though I'm rooting for Noe, there's no WAY a movie from him will ever get within earshot of anything more than a prix du camera or something.

assorted previewing:

http://www.ifc.com/blogs/thedaily/2009/05/cannes-513.php

"Gaspar Noé, whose feature 'Enter the Void' is screening in competition, is hatching a sex film," reports Geoffrey Macnab for Screen. "He says the as yet untitled film will be a 'a joyful porn movie - a joyful movie with explicit sex.'"

Surprisingly not excited by this news.

literally, a wanker.

thanks for the link morbs... a lot to sift through.

Didn't notice this before, but ...

"Looking for Eric," U.K.-France-Belgium-Italy, Ken Loach

Look in the audience for any movie not directed by Ken Loach, for starters HA!

oh you naturalism hata

Von trier in leaving-everyone-picking-jaws-and-colostomy-bags-up-off-the-floor non-shockah.

<3 that dude

pls

I am so so psyched about that.

Also curious about Mother.

Looks like Kinatay got booed. The clips look like nice HD video, though.

sounds like los bastardos

"I can offer no excuse for 'Antichrist' ... other than my absolute belief in the film -- the most important film of my entire career!"

von Trier needing kick in face more than ever. Won't be seeing that shit.

Voted Fish Tank, btw

But i should have voted A PROPHET, oops

Ang Lee told a Cannes news conference that he wanted to present "a romantic image of the late '60s, the last piece of innocence we had."

"Taking Woodstock" writer/producer James Schamus added that it was difficult casting young people today who looked like those in the documentary. "When you think about it, a generation of people who weren't fat, who weren't staring at themselves in the mirror all the time, and not shaving everything off down there, it captures the difference of 40 years right there."

Great irony in a boomer screenwriter writing yet another film that glorifies 60s youth culture and then saying that selflessness and a lack of solipsism is what made the boomers great (pubic hair also getting the nod).

what a moron

Noe has a tough act to follow now, after Von Trier.

seriously, dude must be like shiiiiiiit

MAN this is a big-hitting line-up. Y'all know who I'm rooting for but I don't think they'll give it to him.

seriously, dude must be like shiiiiiiit

I know, right? Not since Volker Schlöndorff was all WTF with the new Claude Lelouch has game been so changed.

I don't think Noe is going for the same visceral horror thing this time, though. I'd back his picture to nail Trier's (having seen neither) as an artistic vision, rather than a mindfuck (although it'll probably do that as well)

This year's Palme d'Mindfuck goes to...

I think we might be underestimating Park's ability to mess with the head, albeit in quite a poetic, elegant way. Still can't split Oldboy and Irreversible as my favourite 00's movie.

MAN this is a big-hitting line-up. Y'all know who I'm rooting for but I don't think they'll give it to him.

― cumlord smedley (country matters), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:27 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i actually don't, really.

Not since Volker Schlöndorff was all WTF with the new Claude Lelouch has game been so changed.

srsly how do u remember this total nonsense

Willem Defoe is giving out the Grand Prix (that's not the Palme, right?)

Grand Prix: Un Prophète, by Audiard.

Shock! Upset! A Prophet gets the second-place award!

:-)

Yeah, most of the postmorts I've seen said it was either Resnais or Audiard FTW.

I guess that leaves Haneke, dammit.

The critics aren't always right at Cannes, far from it, if I remember correctly.

Palme time!

Haneke

2 ILXors got it right!

Yeah, no surprise after Audiard got shafted. Are people booing?

(Actually, I guess the White Ribbon got pretty good reviews, mostly. I just kinda hate Haneke in general.)

No booing at all, no.

Transmission just ended @ canalplus.fr

All told, I'm probably most excited for the gay Chinese one now. That's the only one I've heard reports of booing over.

The White Ribbon was bought by Sony Pictures Classics @ Cannes on Wednesday, apparently. (says someone at the forums @ imdb.com)

I'm sort of surprised that anything in competition at Cannes arrives without distribution ... or that anything at Cannes gets distributed at all.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149362/companycredits - that Sony thing was just for US markets

Theatrical only - so no US DVD forthcoming (at the moment)

Anti-Christ: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870984/companycredits (US: All Media -> DVD possible)

http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2009/05/24/haneke.jpg.250.jpg

Asshole.

such a lot of excitement over movies none of us have seen.

Time of the Wolf is just about the best Haneke I've seen, so if this is in that territory I might crumble and see it.

Ditto.

Isabelle Huppert is head of the jury, so there's the Haneke connection and he's never won. So "The White Ribbon" maybe? Think we can discount Tarantino.

― Number None, Thursday, 23 April 2009 19:46 (1 month ago) Bookmark

I thank yew.

great!

Didn't think Haneke would win because Huppert was on the jury. About time he did.

Shame that Resnais got some rubbish consolation prize.

haneke. woot! still <3

man, really?

think he's a priggish choad on the whole.

did think 'time of the wolf' was dece.

hidden and code unknown are masteful and i like or love the rest except the two funny games'.

masterful lol

i did like code unknown, not sure what i'd reckon now. it was definitely a more intelligent film than hidden.

which i think pandered to liberal guilt/70s film theory.

Good stories from Ebert:

Newcomers to screenings in the Auditorium Debussy may be puzzled by an event that frequently takes place just after the lights go down. A voice, sounding like a dog baying at the moon, cries out despairingly: "Raoul! Raooouuulll!"

It is possibly a different person every time. This is an ancient Cannes tradition. Legend had it that one day in the infancy of the festival, a guy was saving a seat for his pal Raoul. The screening was packed and he was having trouble defending the seat. In desperation, he called out.

The fact that this practice has survived for 35 years that I know about, kept alive by people who have never met one another, explained to each curious new festivalgoer, is an excellent demonstration of the Richard Dawkins theory of memes. A meme is an idea, phrase, cliché or tune that leaps from one mind to another in its attempt to survive, just as genes leap from body to body.

Someday years from now, somebody reading this will call out for Raoul at a festival. Who knows. Maybe it will be Scott Collette. Remember: Only the Debussy. Never the Lumiere. I can't begin to explain how gauche that would be.

Dargis in the NYT on Friday:

Though he’s very slight and somewhat stooped, Mr. Resnais is as much a force off screen as on. In a far-ranging interview on Thursday, during which he discussed comic books (he’s a fan of both Frank Miller and Alan Moore); “the greatest French director” (his longtime friend Chris Marker); and the problem with flat-screen televisions (the color doesn’t pop), Mr. Resnais said, “I’m against illusion.” Although he likes watching documentaries, he prefers a level of exaggeration in his work, most evident in the new film’s vibrant use of red and blue. He doesn’t want the audience to think “I’m a cheat,” he said, as if we ever could.

Guys like him make one realize what a pig Tarantino is.

I'm sure that's why he said everything in that interview.

(Actually, I guess the White Ribbon got pretty good reviews, mostly. I just kinda hate Haneke in general.)

yeah i have to say my first reaction was, 'jesus, he'll be even more insufferable now.' but wtf, maybe it's actually good. the guy's a talented filmmaker in a lot of ways, it's mostly his fussy sadism and his moralizing that turn me off. and the fact that he always seems to think he's being terribly clever. (a fault i admit is shared by LVT, but i guess i just like LVT's cleverness more. he's funnier.)

LVT strikes me as funnier because he is stupid. You gotta laugh at Tarkovsky dedications and say you don't have to explain anything at a press conference. Its all good.

but... haneke is terribly clever. some posters really do like to go on how about how awful he is.

LVT is not necessarily stupid. If you listen to his various commentaries/interviews on the Europa DVD, the provocateur's facade drops and he occasionally offers misgivings about the direction his films have taken since the early '90s.

Tarkovsky dedication and "I am the greatest" both sound like intentional face-farts to me.

Brillante Mendoza took Best Director.

Full list:
Palme d'Or
The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke, Germany-France-Austria-Italy

Grand Prix
A Prophet, Jacques Audiard, France

Special Jury Prize
Alain Resnais, Wild Grass (France)

Director
Brillante Mendoza, Kinatay, Philippines

Jury Prize
Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold, UK
Thirst, Park Chan-wook, South Korea-U.S.

Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds, U.S.-Germany

Actress
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist, Denmark-Germany-France-Sweden-Italy-Poland

Screenplay
Mei Feng, Spring Fever, Hong Kong-France

Short Films Jury Prizes

Palme d'Or
Arena, Joao Salaviza, Portugal

Special Mention
The Six Dollar Fifty Man, Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland, New Zealand

Un Certain Regard Jury Awards
Main Prize
Dogtooth, Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece

Jury Prize
Police, Adjective, Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania

Special Prize
No One Knows About Persian Cats, Bahman Ghobadi, Iran
Father of My Children, Mia Hansen-Love, France

Other Main Jury Awards

Camera d'Or
Samson And Delilah, Warwick Thornton

Special Mention
Ajami, Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, Israel-Germany

Critics' Week Grand Prix
Farewell Gary, Nassim Amamouche, France

Fipresci Awards
Competition: The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke, Germany-Austria-France-Italy
Un Certain Regard: Police, Adjective, Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania
Directors' Fortnight: Amreeka, Cherien Dabis, Canada-Kuwait-U.S.

I know I am incredibly shallow, but the Huppert/Adjani catfight intrigues me more than the awards.

but... haneke is terribly clever.

fixed.

ok no i don't think he's terrible. i think he's talented and frustrating and aggressively shallow. (based solely on the 3 i've seen. this opinion is subject to amendment.)

J. Hoberman's top 10 worst-ever Palmes ...

http://filmlinc.com/fcm/ja09/palme.htm

1. A Man and a Woman Claude Lelouch, 1966
2. Barton Fink Joel & Ethan Coen, 1991
3. The Mission Roland Joffé, 1986
4. Paris, Texas Wim Wenders, 1984
5. Pelle the Conqueror Bille August, 1988
6. The Best Intentions Bille August, 1992
7. Black Orpheus Marcel Camus, 1959
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964
9. When Father Was Away on Business Emir Kusturica, 1985
10. The Wind that Shakes the Barley Ken Loach, 2006

pretty dece bunch of movies for a worst-ever list

Amazed Fahrenheit 9/11 didn't make it, but I guess J. Hoberman liked it or something.

Barton Fink is great!

Does that list mean that Fahrenheit 911 is a better movie than The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ? That's just silly.

Every time somebody mentions Fahrenheit 9/11 I unconsciously substitute Fahrenheit 451 and then wonder what the hell they're blathering at.