Cannes results

[gregory starr]

Aaron,
Here's a short and narrow report.  I'll try to keep my opinion out of it
(I've got to save it for the magazine one of these days) and base it on the
dailies, comments of colleagues from the international Premiere editions
and other journalists/friends:

Koreeda's Distance: General disappointment in the media, since there was a
bit of anticipation after the previous After Life.  One of the dailies
found it okay, panned by the others.  Disappeared from conversation by the
time I arrived a day later.

Suwa's H Story: This was a shocker.  I, and it seems quite a few others,
were big fans of M/OTHER, but hundreds had deserted the theater by the end
of the first hour.  I stuck it out to the end, determined to find something
in it that would explain why it was made, but I'm still baffled.  I think I
must have talked to over 25 people about this, none of whom had lasted til
the end.  Trashed in the dailies.

My biggest disappointment was that I didn't get to HUSH, Hashiguchi's film.
I heard a lot of praise for this, and even the dailies were fairly
positive.  The most frequent word I heard is that it was so
accessible--which I'm not sure is necessarily praise.  Still, when I
mentioned Japanese film in discussions during the festival, this film came
up the most.  Praised in the dailies.

I didn't make it to Kobayashi's film or Manda's film, and don't know anyone
who did.  No buzz, either way.

Aoyama's Desert Moon:  No one left during the press screening that I was
aware of, but there was a total lack of either applause or any other
reaction.  Spookily so, for a Cannes audience.  At the Premiere editors'
meeting the next day, the French critics were panning the story (so silly!)
and the acting of Toyota.  Most of them had loved Eureka, by the way.  The
dailies had closed by then so no reviews, except in the French press.

Imamura's "Bridge": Well received by the press crowd that I was a part of,
the night before it's official screening.  Lots of laughter, moderate
applause.  The group I was part of after found it well done after the other
erratic Japanese films.  There had been a lot of buzz, though, started by a
Reuters report from Paris beforethe festival, about Bridge being in the
running for the Palm D'or, but none of us felt that way after the film.

I think all in all that there was general disappointment in the Japanese
selection.  When I expressed my surprise at the quality of H Story to one
Japanese journalist, I was told that Sento hadn't entered it, but had given
it to the Cannes organizers after being told they didn't have enough films
for the Un Certain Regard section.  True?  Don't know.  Do you?

There were no films of any nationality that stimulated buzz like that for
last year's Dancer or Yi Yi, though there was a lot of excitement about
Tears of the Tiger, a delightful Thai "Western" that was in the market.  As
soon as the Moretti was screened, it was obvious it would walk away with
the prize.

Cheers,
Greg Starr
Premiere Japan


>As many people know already, the Cannes Film Festival ended without any
>major awards for Japanese films.  Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Kairo was given the
>FIPRESCI critics prize, the third year in a row a Japanese film has won
>that award (M/OTHER and Eureka winning before).  None of the three films
>in the competition won an award.
>
>Does anyone have any reports on the general reception of Japanese films
>at Cannes, or about the reception of specific films?
>
>Aaron Gerow
>Yokohama National University
>KineJapan list owner
>For list commands: send "information kinejapan" to
>listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Kinema Club: http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Welcome.html