I took a trip to the Short Film Corner on Friday, although not intentionally at first. Natalie and I missed the first film we wanted to see, With Love... In The Age of Reason, because I thought I knew a shortcut. I led us all around the back ways of the Palais and Riviera; at one point we wound up in a part of the building that just had a bunch of offices and elevators that did not take us anywhere we needed to go. After much wandering we finally found the theater, but by the time we got there it was at full capacity. Oops. So anyway, after we tried the theater and failed on my account we decided to salvage the morning by checking out the Short Film Corner downstairs in the Palais. The SFC turned out to be pretty awesome. I need to go back, I just haven't had the time. There was a row of booths with computers and if you used your badge to log in you had access to all the short films in competition and in the sub-categories.
Strangest Short Film I've Seen Yet: "TO SWALLOW A TOAD" (Norway)
Just. Weird. The artwork was nice, kind of scratchy like it had been colored with colored pencils and then rubbed in something gray. I liked it. The plotline was real strange though and I wasn't expecting it because the way it was marketed made it sound like some sort of crosstown rivalry between people with round heads vs. those with square heads. What actually happened was this kid got his ear ripped off and his parents made him swallow a toad. There was more to it than that, but I may do a film review on it, so I'll leave it for now.
Best Short Film I've Seen Yet: "COOKED" (United Kingdom)
A walrus, a lobster and a seal all walk into a gym... starts the short film "Cooked" from UK director Jens Blank. The development of a love triangle keeps all the characters aiming to please, leading them to a steamy situation as they move out of the workout area and into the sauna. Centered on personal pride and insecurity, "Cooked" shows us what happens when our egos block our senses and refuse to give way to our true feelings hiding beneath the surface.
DISCLAIMER: I feel like this blog is just me discussing snippets of the movies I have seen, but that's really all I've been doing for the festival, so sorry if this is a bit boring for any of you, but I've got not much else. Now, onward!
Protektor was our first feature film of the day. It was a Czech film about a man who took a job as a radio personality for the major Nazi wavelength in Prague in order to protect his film star wife, who was a Jew. The music and the cinematography were edgy and brought out the intensity and sadness of the film, but the actual action? Kind of boring after the first half, honestly. Turns out the guy just wanted the fame, oh, and also to cheat on his wife while she was forced to stay locked up in the house all day long. Jana Plodkova, the wife, did a brilliant job with her role, and her character was the best one to watch on screen because she did things other than whine and give boring monologues, like when she decided to go break all the regulations imposed on her and take pictures of her doing it in public. Her parts were good, though the rest of it put me to sleep.
I don't know if it was leftover sleepiness from Protektor which make me nod off a few times during the beginning of Chingquong Blues or if it was the extremely gray, long scenes at the start which did me in, but it wasn't until about thirty minutes in that the story really picked up. The story itself was one of the most intriguing of the films I've seen lately. It's about a man trying to figure out the events surrounding his son's death since he's been away at sea. Sometimes the story is told in flashbacks from the witnesses and sometimes it picks up with the father himself. The Cannes judges gave the film a mere 2.5 out of 5 stars, but I would have at least given it a 4. Well, maybe a 3.5. But it was one of the best films I've seen the whole time I've been in Cannes.
Remember when I said I met that director guy while getting a ticket for Robin Hood? We - me, Natalie and Brian - all went to see his movie next. It was called 2B and was about the first artificial woman created to eventually herald in a new race of transbemans so that the human follies of greed, hate, and envy would not bring us to the brink of destruction or another holocaust. It was so awkward. Natalie left to see something better about halfway through. A lot of the lines sounded like they belonged in a porno, and they even lifted the main line from George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words. The sets seemed to come straight out of a 90's daytime soap opera as well as the lighting techniques, but I'm hazarding a guess that they were on a low budget. I may also review this film sometime in the future so I'll stop here, but I'm just going to say it once more for now... transbemans.
I shouldn't have seen Letters to God. The movie was very cheesy at times and probably targeted towards a younger audience, but it still got to me all the same. A boy sends letters in the mail to God because he has brain cancer. For those of you who knew Ryan Morgan, you can imagine how difficult it was to sit through that movie. It did a good job of taking a depressing topic and trying to keep the situation light and normal, but it was still painful and I had to go to the bathroom after it was over to compose myself before dinner with Victor.
I got to introduce Victor to a few other people in our group. He was a big hit. He even said he might have a ticket or two to give me and Natalie for the You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger premier.
i'm just loving all this! how wonderful!
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