Wim Wenders just pissed on the graves of Bergman and Antonioni. Palermo Shooting is not only the worst film of the festival but also the funniest. Then, right at the merciful credits-fade, Wenders dedicated his cine-turd to “Ingmar and Michelangelo”.
Critics were ready to riot. Luckily, everyone (those who hadn’t walked out after an hour) had been laughing so hard through Wenders’ film that few had the strength to start tearing up seats.
So no Palme d’Or for Wim. But who will strut off with top prize? Steven Soderbergh’s guerilla double-epic Che, animated anti-war doc Waltz With Bashir and Mafia muck-raker Gamorra and tragi-comedy A Christmas Tale starring Catherine Deneuve and Bond villain Mathieu Amalric could all tickle the fancies of Sean Penn’s socially conscious jury.
Angelina Jolie (The Exchange), Benicio del Toro (Che) and Arta Dobroshi (The Silence Of Lorna) are front-and-centre for acting nods. We could be wrong… Because we apparently still aren’t pronouncing Charlie Kaufman’s new movie correctly. It’s “Syn-ec-do-KEY”. Not “Syn-ec-do-CHEE”. It’ll probably change again tomorrow. See you then.
In the mean time, catch up on the latest Cannes movie-films…
PALERMO SHOOTING (dir. Wim Wenders)
Looking like Michael Ballack raped Simon Cowell, singer-turned-actor Campino delivers an indescribably awful performance as a world-renowned photographer wandering around Palermo hallucinating about a masked archer. Boring, embarrassing and finally hilarious, Wender’s travesty is shot like a two-hour car commercial and written like a nursery book. For those mad enough to wait that long, a shaven-headed Dennis Hopper appears as Death himself in a finale that would have had Bergman spinning in his grave – even before he saw that dedication. Frankly, a game of Twister would have been more convincing.
ADORATION (dir. Atom Egoyan)
Unwinding with style and poise, Canadian auteur Egoyan’s mystery drama offers up smart ideas but is too busy tripping over its complicated story strands to dig into them. Tossing around themes of terrorism and technology, the story sees teen orphan Simon imagine that his Arab father tried to use his pregnant wife to bomb a plane. Or did they really just die in a car crash? Egoyan’s film flatters to deceive – but Underworld lunk Scott Speedman surprises with a smart performance as Simon’s uncle.
WENDY AND LUCY (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Small, intimate and understated, Old Joy director Reichardt’s lo-fi indie is difficult to knock but even harder to get excited about. Built on a series of banal misfortunes that befall young twentysomething Wendy (Michelle Williams) and her dog, this naturalistic drama is a quiet, detailed portrait of homelessness, isolation and the jolting impact of life’s smallest road bumps. Effective, but underwhelming.
CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS (dir. Abel Ferrara)
Seemingly shot in an afternoon, Abel Ferrara’s throwaway documentary about the famous Chelsea hotel barely scratches the surface of the New York artistic haven, in which Sid’s Nancy was stabbed, Arthur C Clarke wrote 2001 and everyone from Dylan to Joplin bunked down. Random drug-blurred survivors, along with Ethan Hawke and Milos Forman, burble out amusing anecdotes then wander off. And that’s it. Sometimes wandering into shot, Ferrara doesn’t bother telling us anything else about the hotel’s florid, fascinating history – where criminals and geniuses mixed drugs, murder and artistic inspiration for decades. A huge opportunity missed.
THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD (dir. Kim Ji-Woom)
Not good, not bad and only slightly weird, this J-Western homage to Sergio Leone’s saddle-sagas sees a killer, a thief and a bounty hunter chasing a treasure map in the Wild East of ’30s Manchuria. Korean helmer Ji-Woom quickly forgot the superb, measured chills of his immaculate horror A Tale Of Two Sisters when he let rip with the slicked-up ultraviolence of A Bittersweet Life. And so it goes again: this action’s slashed with a quirky black grin, but Ji-Woom’s swooping camerawork and bullet-blasting action never comes close to fill into the gaping plot holes.
