As the Lucasfilm logo appeared on the biggest screen in Cannes, a packed house whooped and cheered like lobotomized Americans. You’d have thought Mike Tyson had just walked in.
Two hours and three minutes later, LWLies and the rest of the audience shuffled wordlessly out of the cinema. In fact, the first person we heard break the silence was an American, probably one of the whoopers.
Warning - here be spoilers…
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“So we needed a fucking spaceship??”
Well, quite. A couple of classic moments aside, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull proved a cheesy, kiddie scrap-book of Indy tropes and a big disappointment. B-movie homage or just bad movie?
Indy surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge. Shia LaBeouf swinging through the jungle on vines like a monkey. Rampant CG unreality. Russian soldiers with machineguns that always miss. Clunky one-liners. Clumsy story. Aliens. A spaceship. John Hurt babbling.
Whatever. You’ll see it anyway.
Spoilers end
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Two films did really hit the mark: Mafia epic Gamorrah and the Dardenne brothers’ The Silence Of Lorna are the two best films of the fest so far.
And we also found out what life might be like if we were a) French farmers; or b) raised us in a Pilipino grot-cinema.
GAMORRAH (dir. Matteo Garrone)
Fractured, forceful and shot with concussive immediacy, this epic expose of modern mafia families controlling Italy is a dark, raw, intelligent departure from GoodFellas and The Godfather. From drugs and waste-disposal to fashion and piracy, the Camorra crime families throttle the economy by the neck and street-level people by the balls. This is a criminal empire who’ve killed 4,000 people in the last 30 years – and invested in the reconstruction of the Twin Towers… Cross-cutting five separate storylines, it’s tough to grapple at times, but the grimy up-close realism, intense detail, sudden violence and engaged performances all fuse for a dense, engrossing saga.
THE SILENCE OF LORNA (dirs. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes)
Another immensely subtle, skilful emotional drama from Cannes darlings the Dardennes brothers. Like Rosetta and L’Enfant, it zeroes in on the unexpected dilemma of one person. Albanian 20something (Arta Dobroshi) is married to a junkie in order to secure Belgian citizenship – with the help of the local mafia, she also get a cash-cut to help her open a café with her boyfriend. Things, of course, don’t go to plan. And the Dardennes’ delicately construct and observe a suspenseful, immaculately acted social-realist drama of redemption – one that finally tips into something spiritual and very human.
SERBIS (dir. Brilliante Mendoza)
Cinema Pornadiso? Surrounded by the relentless roar and blare of the traffic outside, a poverty-hit porn theatre is stage for its family owners to struggle with the chaotic mini-dramas of daily life while the suck’n’fuck exchanges of the local rent-boys happily continue around them. Startlingly unpunctuated realism and drifting narrative pace are the twin-hallmarks of Pilipino helmer Brilliante Mendoza, although here this never really adds up to much – his characters lack flesh and there’s little purposeful direction in this sweaty, amusing snapshot. But the theatre itself is vividly and symbolically realised, with Mendoza’s camera exploring its flooding toilets, grubby walls and festering problems in an easy metaphor for its inhabitants and the country itself.
THE MODERN LIFE (dir. Raymond Depardon)
Could this be the most unassuming film at Cannes 2008? The Modern life is a docu-portrait of struggling French farm-workers facing the inevitable decline of their profession. Presented as a series of beautifully framed straight to camera interviews, Depardon’s obvious affection for these people and their lives becomes the driving force behind the minimal narrative. He slowly earns their trust and cajoles these reclusive folk into revealing the difficulties they face in this modern life. The result is a slow and melancholy film that always remains touching.
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Elsewhere, Spike Lee invited LWLies to catch a sneak-peek of his upcoming war epic Miracle At St Anna. Packed flashes of violence, sweeping scale and florid melodrama, this story of four black American soldiers trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII looked a big, booming brothers-in-arms joint.
Clint Eastwood’ Changeling, Emir Kusturica’s Maradona documentary and Joaquin Phoenix and Gwynie P in Two Lovers are what’s in store for you tomorrow. Watch this space…
