CANNES FILM FESTIVAL DAYS 1-3
Cannes is absolutely picturesque (though being a Cinephile is far from being as glamorous as the surroundings).
Cannes Film Festival should need no explanation, but for those who don't know, it's the most prestigious international film festival, operating on an invitation-only basis. It's also said to host the most glamorous red carpets in the world. I was able to attend as a Cinephile (the lowest-ranking badge member) as part of a Johns Hopkins University program with eight other Hopkins students.
DAY 1, May 11
The festival kicked off with Woody Allen's "Café Society," an out-of-competition official selection film. Since we're Cinephiles, we had to beg for invitations to the screening in front of the Palais des Festivals. Industry professionals are given tickets, and are penalized if they don't use them, so it's also in their interest to give their tickets away if they aren't interested or are unable to attend. Buying or selling tickets is forbidden.
We didn't really know how it would work or how much luck we would have, but we managed to get tickets for all nine of us! All it requires is persistence, thick skin, a mildly clever sign, and the ability to make prolonged eye contact with strangers and smile until they feel uncomfortable enough to surrender their tickets. Just kidding, but appearing well-groomed and friendly do go a long way (more on this in a later post). Having a clever sign also definitely helps, if only to elicit laughter from passersby or be photographed or recorded on video to break the monotony. Some of us wrote "J'ai soif d'une invitation pour 'Café Society'" (I'm thirsty for an invitation for Café Society), which got plenty of attention. We were even interviewed on Tunisian TV, which is certainly something I would have never experienced had I not come to Cannes.
As for the film, I'm not much of a Woody Allen fan, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Allen narrates the film, and his trademark themes are still there--Judaism, New York, a mediocre guy tangled up in girl problems, though no one is quite sure what his appeal is, especially to women like Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively. But then again, neither woman is given any depth, especially Blake Lively, who's really there just to be a pretty face. And that's exactly what the movie felt like: a pretty distraction. The cinematography is as luminescent and glittering as the dream-filled cities of Los Angeles and New York, but there didn't seem to be much depth.
I met a Cannes government official in line named Christian who offered to take pictures of me on the red carpet (and in other crowded places near the Palais), in a very endearing, dad-like fashion. His friends also let my friend Justin, who didn't have a bow tie, borrow their spare, because guys wearing regular ties are turned away.
DAY 2, May 12
While in line for "Café Society," I met a couple who offered to give me and Justin two tickets to the morning screening of "Sieranevada," a film by Romanian director Cristi Puiu competing for the Palme d'Or. I was stoked to have acquired tickets to an in-competition film so easily and so far in advance (and that I had raked up a good number of contacts on my first night). But, well, when I contacted her this morning, she said she'd already given away the tickets to someone else.
Instead, I watched "Eshtebak (Clash)," Egyptian director Mohamed Diab's gripping Cannes debut. It opened the Un Certain Regard category, which recognizes a director's originality, creativity, and risk-taking. The film is a microcosm of the chaos that ensued in Egypt after the 2013 military coup ousting Muslim Brotherhood-endorsed President Mohamed Morsi. Taking place in an overcrowded police van-turned prison while riots still rage outside, Eshtebak depicts the Egyptians' confusion, violence, and anguish, but also the common thread of humanity that unites people from all backgrounds--pro-military supporters, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, American journalists, the elderly, the adolescents. The film is constant sensory overload, with shootings, fights, lasers, grenades, and tear gas all filmed on a hand-held camera, but it's well-earned and appropriate to capture the events. Also, as much as the film succeeded in depicting the reality, the visuals were stunning, though not unnecessarily flashy so as to detract from the content.
The movie also had a surprising amount of character development for a movie in which outside events are constantly rattling the environment (literally), giving much leeway for the characters to be one-dimensional, purely reactive figures. I absolutely loved the film, and only dashed out with twenty minutes to run home, change, and get in line for my next screening.
I may have walked out of "Rester Vertical" had it not been only the second day of the festival.
I sorely regretted missing the end of "Clash" for French auteur Alain Guiraudie's "Rester Vertical (Staying Vertical)." It was the worst movie I saw at Cannes. It's a terrible, meandering film, one I'm perplexed was at Cannes, let alone in competition. While there's no depth to any of the characters, there's plenty of aimless, circular plot arcs; a strange child-and-man-care hut reachable only by rowboat which somehow houses a large tree-turned-bed whose foliage affix themselves to your chest for an unexplained, quasi-medical function; numerous, unmerited close-ups of genitalia; and murder via sodomy. Protagonist Leo indeed remains vertical (standing) at the end of the movie, a miraculous accomplishment for this vagrant, I suppose, but the audience isn't given enough character development to care.
DAY 3, May 13:"Or does it explode?"
No disrespect to Langston Hughes and the enraging racial barriers obstructing blacks' fulfillment of the American Dream, but my toes did indeed feel as if they were about to explode after waiting in heels for hours...only to be rejected to all three films I tried to see during the day. And I had invitations or access via my Cinephile badge to all of them. Is this not a dream deferred, albeit on an extremely shallow level???
I had very little interest in Gong Yoo even after he became the national heartthrob with the 2007 smash hit "Coffee Prince," and seeing him in a zombie movie, of all things, has led me to belileve that he may be the most perfect Korean man in existence.
Thankfully, the one film I was able to see--at midnight, so technically not even today--was amazing. "Busan-haeng (Train to Busan)," South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho's first live-action feature film, was a movie I did not expect to like. I despise zombie movies, and epidemic/catastrophe/apocalyptic blockbusters seem all too common in Korean cinema (just to name a few: "The Flu," "The Host," and "Snowpiercer," which also takes place on a train). But Yeon accomplished a feat I considered impossible: creating a profoundly moving zombie movie. It's not an oxymoron, really. My friend Gillian said this midnight screening was her "best movie-viewing experience at Cannes." It also received the one of the loudest standing ovations I've witnessed at Cannes.
I don't want to say too much because I'm planning to write an extended review of this movie after I watch it a second time when i t's released in theaters. But for me, even saying this is a lot--I never pay to watch a movie in theaters twice. I've only done so for Choi Dong-hun's "Assassination" (2015), which is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Na Hong-jin's "Goksung" to write my paper for this course. All I'm going to say is th at it's impeccably paced--it kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire time--and I cried and laughed a lot, which is something I think many Korean directors excel at. I also became a huge fan of Gong Yoo after thi film... He was not only a great actor, but also so smiley and really tried to wave at and let everyone take pictures (I got a crappy cellphone picture of him looking directly at me, OMG).
Basically, JUST GO WATCH IT~ The promo material does not do it justice. It releases in Korea on July 20th and is slated for release at the end of July in the US and Canada as well.