Cannes: "Blindness," "Waltz With Bashir," "Leonora," "Four Nights With Anna."

Those of you who were with me at Cannes last year will notice a change in blogging format; instead of posts on individual films I'm going to do them in bunches. As it happens, my residence has no Wi-Fi—well, Airport can pickup a signal from a nearby motel, but said signal goes out so frequently that spending the money to get login access it would be tantamount to throwing said money out the window. So I've got to blog from the Orange Wi-Fi hotspot in the Marche du Film. Which, among other things, limits my blogging hours. So I've got to work with more alacrity than I'm comfortable with. Let's see how it goes.

Blindness

I haven't read the Jose Saramago novel on which this picture is based, because, you know, you can't read everything, but I have to say I was never crazy about its premise: the residents in an unnamed city in an unnamed country all start to go inexplicably blind, and bad stuff happens. As metaphors go, I find that one a trifle, well, overstated. Something right up Innarittu's alley, when you think of it, but this adaptation was directed by Fernando Meirelles, who runs with the concept as earnestly as Innarittu would have. The movie opens with Danny Glover's wise-man voiceover: "I don't think we went blind; I think we always were." Get it?

A lot of people have more of a stomach for this sort of thing than I do, but I couldn't help wondering just what there was here to admire as the metaphor gave way to an allegory, wherein the herded-up (by an Orwell-esque government) blind ones are left to fend for themselves in a ruinous former medical facility, with one sighted resident—Julianne Moore, tagging along with her (now-former) optometrist husband Mark Ruffalo—among them. Think Lord of the Flies with impairment rather than youth as the novel story element. Yes, Meirelles and cinematographer Cesar Charlone get a lot of staggering beautiful/ugly imagery out of their multiple locations (Toronto and Sao Paolo are parts of the film's composite unnamed city), and much of the cast does yeoman work, although Moore's limnings of a loving wife indulging an indifferent husband are starting to feel like schtick. The conclusion moved me rather unexpectedly—Meirelles intimations of grace always come in unexpected ways, which make them work.

Atlantis is one of this international co-production's backers, so Don McKellar's participation in the film was mandated by Canadian law. He acts in the film and wrote the screenplay as well.

Waltz With Bashir

Israeli director Ari Folman had to grapple with certain of what we pros call "problems of representation" in creating his autobiographical documentary about the 1982 war in Lebanon...details of his participation in which he found himself having trouble remembering a couple of years ago. "You can draw me all you like, but don't film me," said a still-agonized friend he solicited for memories. Taking that cue, and perhaps one from Art Spiegelman as well, Folman made an animated film, featuring recreated scenes from his life, interviews, and depictions of the awful warfare he was part of. Animation, of course, solves the problem of recreating with real bodies scenes that should never be recreated (see Gilbert Adair on Schindler's List in his book Flickers). It also gives Folman imaginative opportunities to ruminate, both sardonically and agonizedly, on a form of Israeli guilt that isn't given much voice anywhere outside of Israel. Its exposure in this festival is almost as groundbreaking as the movie itself.

Leonera (Lion's Den)

You've seen women's prison films before. But have you ever seen a film set in a women's prison for mothers...and their children? No, me neither. Martina Gusman stars here as Julia, who wakes up one morning a bloody mess, with two male bloody messes in the apartment with her, and subsequently winds up accused of murder. And she's pregnant. The film follows several years of her life, chronicling her finessing of prison politics, the fierce bond she creates with her son, her fraught relations with her wealthy mother (Elli Medeiros), and more. Gusman's performance is what most critics would call a "powerhouse" (unless somebody's pulling my leg, she was pregnant for real during the part of the shoot in which her character was) and Pablo Trapero's direction is what you would call "remarkably assured." Few directors (and unless someone's pulling my leg, this one is married to his lead actress) would open a picture with a rollicking sing-a-long over the credits, then eschew music entirely for the better part of an hour, and then throw in another rollicking song for a "March of the Prison Mothers" sequence. For all that, your response to this picture is definitely gonna have quite a bit to do with whether a women's-prison-for-mothers picture is your precise cup of meat.

Four Nights With Anna

I found this rather frustrating at first. "Jerzy Skolimowski's first directorial effort in ten years, and he's doing a pastiche of Bruno Dumont and Bela Tarr?" The Bruno Dumont's in the form of the hulking man-child who's the picture's hero, Leon (Artur Steranko)—definite shades of L'Humanite. The Tarr's not so much in the duration of the shots as the whole Old-Eastern-European-ness of the milieu (this is Skolimowski's first Polish film in more years than I can count [still a little jet-lagged, I])—muddy roads, overflowing ashtrays, none of the characters even has a television. Then I remembered Patti Smith's old adage—"We invented it, let's take it over." Without Jerzy, I don't think Bruno and Bela would ever have existed, at least not in their current forms. And the film's fractured structure, sardonic/ironic pratfalls, and unapologetic difficulty are pure Skolimowski. Truth to tell, the film's still sinking in for me, and my enthusiasm is growing.

Comments

[Rodrigo Rothschild]

You really should check the Saramago book. While you may find the metaphor overstated, the writing is impeccable. The whole thing is written in such a way (no quotations on dialogue, weird punctuation) that Saramago makes you feel blind yourself. You got to admit that's quite a gimmick.

Can't wait for the movie.

[Wayne]

I'm a big fan the Sarmago book and the films of Meirelles, so I hate to hear that the film doesn't measure up. Can't wait to read your thoughts on the Che Guevera pic.

[Aaron Aradillas]

I must admit that Blindness might be the most anticpated comedy of the year.

You would think that an outbreak of blindness might give the sagging ecconomy a boost. Think about it. It would cut down on the dependency of gas for transportation. It would get the country healthier by forcing people to walk more. It would encourage more interaction with people through the need of public transportation. It would cut electricty bills almost in half. People wouldn't be texting each other all the time. Yes, an outbreak of blindness could save the world.

And, let's face it, Julianne Moore isn't the worst choice to be a sighted-guide.

[Jason]

Don McKellar is the Everyman of Canadian cinema (which means only twenty Canadians would recognize him), so I'm still anxious to see Blindness, disappointing or not.

[Glenn Kenny]

Don't get me wrong, guys; I'm not calling "Blindness" a must-to-avoid. For one thing, too many people I respect see a lot more in it (somebody stop me!) than I do. Anyway, if I'd wanted to really dis the movie, I would have said I liked it better under the title "The Day of the Triffids."

[lizzani]

Fuck "Blindness" a really boring book. Thank God for Skolimowski and his return

[Dan]

Got to love a "Triffids" shout-out. I wondered about that myself; didn't John Wyndham get there a couple of decades earlier, and in a way that DIDN'T involve gimmicks?

[Chris]

What ever happened to that movie McKellar did a couple of years ago about the Hippies who smoke pot all day and take a young girl under their wing. It was directed by a Canuck named Reg, I think, and the title had the word Monkey in it. Can someone help me with this?

And I can't stand Jack Black. I mean, I loathe him. I hate him more than Drew Carey. The whole Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid routine wears me out toute suite.

[Tom]

In what context is the Skolimowski playing? I don't see it anywhere in Cannes's online listings.

[Nick Plowman]

Good for you Man!!!!

Wish I was there....

[Jason]

Chris, the film you're thinking of is the 2006 Canadian film Monkey Warfare, directed by Reg Harkema. It's available on R1 DVD through Alliance Atlantis. I liked the fact that Harkema made the most of a miniscule budget (even by Canadian standards), employing a fantastic indie-rock soundtrack and visual shout-outs to Jean-Luc Godard.