That didn’t take long. Twenty-four hours after Pixar’s heart melting 3D ‘toon Up threw back the curtain, the world’s biggest film festival has revealed its second very special film.
She won an Oscar in 2003 for her short film Wasp. She won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2006 for Red Road. She’s just became front-runner for this year’s Palme d’Or. Best of all? She’s one of ours. Brit writer/director Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank is a Dardennes-style drama bang out of the top drawer. Powerful, punishing, funny and beautifully observed, it’s driven by a stunning performance from non-pro newcomer Katie Jarvis as an angsty 15-year-old Essex chav who dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer.
Rudely kicking off with swearing, cider-drinking, aggro and angst, Fish Tank kicks in as Mia finds herself drawn towards her single mum’s new boyfriend (the once-again-terrific Michael Fassbender). Trapped in claustrophobic council-estate flats and lost beautiful wide open spaces as growing pains and sexual heat start to throb hard, Jarvis makes like an Essex skank version of Evan Rachel Wood. Fassbender is effortlessly charismatic. And Arnold’s spiky naturalism and subtly artful direction is a thrill – filmmaking of highest calibre and absolutely the best film of the festival so far.
“You’re staying to the end, aren’t you?” Arnold asked LWLies, when we chatted together today. “I’m going back to England tomorrow – see you there!”
It’s a date. But Arnold may be back quicker than she thought if Fish Tank bags the Palme d’Or. But the festivals big guns – Von Trier, Haneke, Gaspar Noe – are still yet to unspool their contenders. In fact, LWLies overheard that Noe is still working on his film, a sure-to-be-very-harsh-indeed nightmare-drama set in Tokyo’s neon megalopolis.
Oh, any Twilight fans out there? All of you? Go home. Spurting with red blood and none-more-black humour, Oldboy director Park Chan-wook’s vampire romance Thirst is one of the most deliciously skewed entries into the blood-sucker subgenre.
It’s also way too long. Off to a gooey body-horror beginning as a guilt-wracked priest finds himself transforming into a vampire, Thirst spins out of control in a squiggly central third before rediscovering itself for a fantastic final half hour. Through it all, Park’s film never loses its big, bloody-fanged grin. Expect sex (weird), blood-drinking (through a straw), stabby-bitey violence (lots) and laughs (even more). And a chat with Park right here, very soon…
