Cannes 2008	With the Support of

"Delta" (above), "Hunger" (left), "Eldorado" (right)

The selection of films for any festival is frequently a function of chance: which films are ready and available, in particular. So spotting "tendencies" in a festival's program is not necessarily an accurate approach. Nevertheless, a number of films in the official selection at Cannes this year did have a common denominator: They revealed a curiosity not for a reinvented reality but rather for the world as it is.
    The best films reflected a revival of realism in all its forms, ranging from the classical political thriller (Italian Matteo Garrone's Gomorra, about the Camorra, the Mafia of Naples) to the more intimate socio-psychological drama (the painful portrayal of a decaying Turkish family in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys; the bitter fate of a female Albanian immigrant in Belgium in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Lorna's Silence). Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas took an intensive look at Sao Paulo in Linha de passe, whereas Jia Zhang-ke addressed the consequences of a factory shutdown in a Chinese province in 24 City. Pablo Trapero exposed the dreadful conditions inside an Argentinean prison in Lion’s Den. Israeli director Ari Folman took the Israeli military to task in his animated documentary, Waltzing with Bashir. Even Clint Eastwood's story of a mother searching for her disappeared son, Changeling, included a critique of the rampant corruption in both the civilian administration and the police department in Los Angeles at the end of the 1920s.
   This year's official selection marked the most significant plea in years for an authors' cinema and its worldview, including, astonishingly enough, two French films: Laurent Cantet's The Class, an impressive study of multiculturalism within a Paris school (winner of the Golden Palm); and Raymond Depardon's Modern Life, a documentary about farmers in a remote mountain region.
    The return of filmmakers who had earlier won palms characterized Cannes 2008. Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, 1984) presented Palermo Shooting; Steven Soderbergh, whose career had begun with the Golden Palm for Sex, Lies and Videtape in 1989, showed the two parts of his biopic on Che Guevara, Che. The Dardennes (Golden Palms for Rosetta in 1999 and The Child in 2005) came to the Cote d'Azur with Lorna's Silence. Ceylan had his third Cannes entry with Three Monkeys — following Distant (Grand Prix in 2003) and Climates (2006).
    As far as the market goes, rumor was that business was down. If true, this could mean that some of the Cannes films face more difficult distribution problems outside their own territories — and sometimes within. The contradiction between the festivities of Cannes and the everyday offering in theaters around the corner seems to get bigger.
    In the framework of the Critics' Week, FIPRESCI presented Mexican Fernando Eimbcke's Lake Tahoe as a film which, after appearing at Berlin in February, deserved another look and a second chance for a wider public (read more) (Klaus Eder)

FIPRESCI presented "Lake Tahoe" at the Critics' Week. Photo, from left: Jean-Christophe Berjon, Fernando Eimbcke, Klaus Eder, Pamela Biénzobas.

Festival de Cannes, France, May 14-25, 2008, www.festival-cannes.org
FIPRESCI Prizes: Delta by Kornél Mundruczó (Hungary, Germany, 2008, Competition), Hunger by Steve McQueen (UK, 2008, Un certain regard), Eldorado by Bouli Lanners (Belgium, France, 2008, Directors' Fortnight). Details

Reports

Building New Lives, New Cinema. Delta is, writes João Antunes in his review of Kornél Mundruczó's FIPRESCI Prize winning film, "as beautiful as it is tragic... It shows us that Hungarian cinema is again on the map, and that universal themes can bring us together if the movie experience is enriching and enlightening, as is the case here."
Hunger is for Those Hungry for Freedom. Steve McQueen's film Hunger, which won the FIPRESCI Prize in the "Un Certain Regard" section, is about the life in prison of an Irish Republican Army member. "It is about his death as a result of a hunger strike he started in a protest against treating him and other Republican fighters as criminals rather than as political prisoners", writes Mohammed Rouda in his review.
Under Worn-out Golden Wallonian Skies. In his second feature film Eldorado director and actor Bouli Lanners hits the road again in the strangely graceful desolation of the Wallonian landscape. "Two men and the road — it is as simple as that. All the absurdities that give the film its melancholic light-heartedness arise from that", writes Dana Linssen, and points out the existence of a new "Belge Noire" school of filmmakers.
New Looks. Kirill Razlogov focuses on the official section "Un Certain Regard" which is "usually more interesting than the main one for the simple reason that it is more radical and offers the possibility of discovering new names, new tendencies, and ultimately new cinemas." In particular, he reviews films by Thomas Clay, Antonio Campos, Amat Escalante and Steve McQueen.
Woman is the Future of Man? Barbara Lorey was shocked by the "world of misery and private pain, of family dysfunction and economic deprivation, lawless capitalism, organized crime and social cruelty" she found in most of the films. However, she also found "light, resistance and even hope in most of these films, born by a number of strikingly impressive and strong female figures".
Liverpool! British filmmaker Terence Davies created an outstanding work about his hometown Liverpool, Of Time and the City. The film "is of a piece, an honest, open entity that censors nothing in a sincere if relentless quest for truth", writes Howard Feinstein in his review.
The Exchange Rate — Fluctuations in the Market for Truth. Lisa Nesselson reviews Clint Eastwood's suspenseful period drama Changeling (aka The Exchange) "that, in the best Hollywood tradition, echoes current events".
The Quiet Man. In his fifth feature film, the very funny and very moving O' Horten, Bent Hamer has returned to Norway and the territory he had explored in his earlier films. Christian Monggaard reviews the film presented in "Un certain regard".
The Art of Lola. In the framework of "Cannes Classics", a restored version of Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) was shown. Dinko Tucakovic enjoyed the show: "The real miracle began in the dark of the cinema, when the film, the original version of which had been thought lost for good, flowed for an entire 118 minutes. When we got out, enchanted, the heavy rain seemed like poetic justice, a final apology to the master for the injustice of more than five decades ago."

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