Cannes

Melancholia

I’ve never been a Lars von Trier completist but I’ve always enjoyed his films - particularly Dogville, The Idiots and Antichrist (Ok, enjoyed might not be the right word), so I’d been looking forward to Melancholia since Cannes last year. My excitement was only further stoked by Peter Bradshaw’s astonishingly negative review in the Guardian…

Bradshaw has never made a secret of how much he hates everything von Trier has done, is doing or will do (to the extent that it’s pretty much pointless him writing reviews) but this one clearly had him riled!

Once again, Von Trier has written and directed an entire film in his trademark smirk mode: a giggling aria of pretend pain and faux rapture. The script is clunking, and poor Dunst joins Nicole Kidman and Bryce Dallas Howard in the list of Hollywood females who have sleepwalked trustingly through a Von Trier production. Even the spectacle is thin and supercilious.

Quite apart from the utterly nonsensical description of ‘spectacle’ as being ‘supercilious’, Dunst even won best actress for her “sleepwalked” performance! Luckily, Philip French was on hand to provide a second-opinion, half sneering and half simple plot retelling, that - as one commenter pointed out - got several of the significant details entirely wrong.  Thankfully, other reviewers less-desperate to smugly condemn von Trier’s Cannes-Nazi-gaffe provided more …uh… balanced reviews.

Either way, I was keen to see it. Now that I have, I have no idea what to think. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a very long time but I’ve still no real idea what it was about. The failure of human relationships? Bipolar disorders? The futility of making plans for the future given that life is essentially fragile? Who knows?

I know that I’m going to be musing over it for some time though. A thoroughly thought-provoking film.

Cannes ban von Trier...

Oh dear, oh dear, Lars von Trier has certainly upset the Cannes-folk, hasn’t he?

Does anyone really not see how ridiculous this is? Has anyone who does insist that it was a very serious issue actually seen/heard the video? He preceded the comments by pointing out that his next film was a four hour long hardcore porn film starring Kirsten Dunce. With no dialogue.

This man is bored. This man is bored of the dull routine of press conferences and he rambles off on a provocative wander. He clearly has no idea where this ramble is going and laughs at himself throughout. So you don’t like the humour? Fine, I can’t say I’m wild about it either, but the “von Trier is a Nazi” headlines that everyone has been churning out just seem like willful media aggression. Which is pretty pathetic.

But the media are the media, they’re always been smug hypocrites. Luckily, the Cannes organizers are above all that … just as bad. It’d be bad enough that they were dismissing him for what was clearly a joke, given with all the other stuff they’ve put up with, if it weren’t for the smiling face of Emir Kusturica who’s running this year’s Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes. This is the same Kusturica who has very seriously made comments suggesting an extent of support for Milosevic.. Suddenly, Lars jests don’t look so important…

Edit: The Daily Beast have a very interesting post with a response from von Trier.

“It was stupid and the wrong place to be sarcastic,” von Trier admitted. “Of course, I don’t sympathize with Hitler. And, as we all know, the Holocaust was the cruelest and most barbaric crime against humanity of the last century … My only excuse is that if I think a press conference is getting boring I start to perform. […] The reason that I make these Jewish jokes is that, for half my life, I thought I was Jewish. If you’re Jewish, you’re allowed to make Jewish jokes. So it’s hard to break that habit when you find out that you’re not really Jewish. All of my children have Jewish names. I’m sorry that people took it the wrong way. But I know why; I was stupid enough to talk to the world like I talk to my best friends.”

What we have here, as so many times before when the world reacts with shock to particularly callous/offensive remarks is an absolute lack of context. The people at the press conference are familiar with von Trier’s style (there is plenty of laughter or at least nervous tittering through the video) and the people who watch von Trier’s films are familiar with his style. It’s only when remarks given in a closed circle spread (inter)nationally that things start to kick off and the apoplectic rage blinds everyone…

Anyway, if nothing else, this gives me an excuse to stick a couple of awesome Nazi-themed posters from sleazey films in this post. So without further ado, here’s

Deported Women of the SS [rate:4.9] 154 votes

and

Red Nights of the Gestapo [rate:4.7] 104 votes

. Quality, family-friendly entertainment, I’m sure…

Cannes 2011

So Cannes 2011 starts tomorrow, everyone’s favourite round-up of often pretentious, frequently over-serious and yet still usually fantastic film. There’s almost no point getting too excited about any of the films on the actual bill because, months down the line when they actually get a release, the interest usually wears off before I get to actually see them. So I’m taking a fairly laid-back approach to it this year, mostly just reading the occasional review or summary. Or I might read everything I can find. We’ll see…

Neither Empire nor Total Film have much up yet for Cannes besides the month-old line-up announcement. More from them to come soon, I’m sure… The Guardian’s Cannes section has a predictably thorough-but-earnest Peter Bradshaw analysis of the main contenders up, whilst Mark Kermode is not going (he’s not much of a fan).

But what about the films themselves? Well, to be honest, very few of them are really shouting to me. I’ll keep half an eye out for the Lars Von Trier contribution (Melancholia) and Almodóvar’s latest (The Skin I Live In) whilst Takashi Miike’s Hara-Kiri: Death Of A Samurai certainly has potential (Peter Bradshaw, needless to say, is not interested!).

Half the fun, however, is usually to be found in keeping an eye on the mad as can be films in the marketplace, fighting desperately for distribution deals. There’re almost always a good few horror and other indie gems to look out for there, so I’m sure that’s where my attention will be focused.