The Mysteries of Cannes, #2, updated

By day, Le Petit Majestic is about as unprepossessing as a corner bistro can get:

By night, it's a spilling-into-the-street madhouse! The below shot was snapped on a slow night!

"But Glenn," you ask, "what of les films?" Well, right now I'm wrestling with Charlie Kaufman's almost-epic Synedoche, New York for a second Critic's Notebook for indieWIRE. Did I like it? "Like" is kind of not applicable. Questions persist as to whether density equals profundity. Just what is the state of the film's protagonist? Is solipsism all there is? I'm grappling, grappling.

Easier times were had with Philippe Garrel's Frontier of Dawn, a nice soak for those who love the indolent angoisse and tristesse of the Garrel mood, something the director is able to conjure, a friend noted, just by turning on the camera. Or so it seems. The more some folks ostentatiously laughed at the introduction of a supernatural angle into the plot (achieved via effects that date back to Cocteau if not Melies), the more I loved the film.

Atom Egoyan's Adoration, coming on the heels of the largely disastrous Where the Truth Lies, returns the writer/director to the unstuck-in-time, jigsaw-puzzle-assembling structures of his earlier pictures; here, the topics are life fictions, disemmination of information on the internet (this is in a sense the longest MacBook commercial ever), cultural difference, bigotry, and terrorism. At the heart of the picture, though, is a simpering sanctimony that could well bring out the neo-con you never knew you had in you. The "oh no, the nice old man is really a racist" theme is fairly tiresome, while a bit with figures from a creche is just, well, weak. Perhaps others less damaged than myself will be righteously stirred.

I may or may not get into the new Cantet in any minute, and after that, more wrestling with Kaufman, and after that, Wenders' The Palermo Shooting. Wenders, Hopper, Jovavich...and Lou Reed and Patti Smith as themselves. Because when you think "Palermo," you think Lou Reed and Patti Smith. Although, in fairness I have to note that I've heard that Palermo is a fairly happening gig for rockers of this undergound/post-underground ilk. So there's a rationale for their presence. We shall see...

UPDATE: At indieWIRE you can see what my grapplings with Synedoche, New York, yielded. Click here.

Comments

[bill]

I look forward to your review of "Synecdoche, New York". So far, I remain unconvinced of Kaufman's greatness. Remove John Malkovich from "Being John Malkovich", and you have the kind of story genre fiction writers of varying abilities have been doing for decades. The film's stunning originality didn't stun me all that much. I was on board "Adaptation" for most of its length, but, reflecting back, realized how let down I was by the joke ending. And I hated "Human Nature".

I need to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" again, because I didn't really focus on it the one time I gave it a shot. I do remember liking Kaufman's work on "Get a Life", however.

[bill]

Also, off topic, who wants to see the Spanish teaser trailer for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rbAPI8yZ83s

That...uh, that looks like it might be pretty good, actually.

[Bedheaded]

Terrific review of Synecdoche, Glenn, I'm really excited to see it. I posted your review to my Facebook profile. Cheers!