Saturday, May 20, Y2K? Ynot!

CANNES, FRANCE ­ Being on the FIPRESCI Jury this year puts me in an interesting position. I can actually handicap the race for the Palme D'Or without the distraction of having seen the films in the competition, having been kept hopping out at the east end of the Croisette, in the under-air-conditioned confines of the Noga Hilton and Espace Miramar.

Going by what I've heard, the winner will either come from Scandinavia or the Pacific Rim. There's very strong support for Liv Ullman's Infidelity among the English speaking press, and Jury President Luc Besson is known to be a great admirer of Lars Von Trier's Bjork-starring musical, Dancer In The Dark.

The Asians ­ a huge presence in the competition this year ­ have picked up support for Edward Yang's Yi Yi, Jiang Wen's Devil On The Doorstep, and Eureka, the three and a half hour long Japanese film which has been described as "Great, but slow." Haven't heard the buzz on the new Wong Kar-Wai film, In The Mood For Love.

Speaking of the Asians, when did Korea become the hot new country on the international cinema scene? Was there a memo on this that I missed? Are the Iranians now passé? I think I'll skip the Koreans and see if I can catch the next "next big thing" on one hop.

Strong talk for Renee Zellwegger's marvelously oblivious performance in Neil Labute's Nurse Betty, but I've not heard any word on actor. I liked George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou? But comedies here get treated like comedies at the Oscars, and the Coens' film didn't generate a very strong buzz.

OVERHEARD IN THE PRESS ROOM ­ "I can't go to dinner right now. I'm thinking in English about a film in Arabic that I have to write about in French."

TARR-ED ­ Saw the new Bela Tarr film. Tarr is the director of the seven hour long Satantango, which has screened in Toronto four times under the auspices of the Toronto Festival and Cinematheque Ontario. This may be more times than Tarr's screened it for friends in his rec room.

The Werckmeister Harmonies is another of those films that demonstrates why Eastern Europeans really should put more stress on editing in their film schools. I think I could actually admire Tarr if he'd start cutting the tails of his shots.

In Werckmeister Harmonies, there's a shot of the protagonist -- a good-looking young guy with lank Baryshnikov hair and the hollow-eyed air of a fellow who smells of wet wool and Bulgarian cigarettes -- accompanying one of the townsmen trying to bring peace to a chaotic situation, and they are walking away from the camera.

Then they walk away from the camera some more. The camera rises slightly and they reach a fork in the road. Each chooses one fork. They continue to walk away from the camera. The one following the right fork disappears behind one of the film's many crumbling buildings. The one following the left fork keeps walking away from the camera. This goes on for, oh, I don't know, four or five minutes. He is the patron poet of exquisite black and white cinematography of crumbling masonry, though. At two hours, Werkmeister Harmonies MIGHT be a great film.

FIPRESCI Prizes: After 10 days of complaining about the length of the films in the Competition, the FIPRESCI Jury chose to honour the longest film in the competition, Eureka!, directed by Shinji Aoyama. Aoyama's film was seen as the highlight of an extremely strong Asian programme at this year's festival. (See above)

From the parallel sections of the Festival, FIPRESCI honoured the Iranian film The Time of Drunken Horses, a neo-realist exercise which one critic ­ me ­ described as "The Kurdish Party of Five" I was more inclined toward the shifting reality and stylistic elegance of Vivian Chang's Hidden Whispers, but what the heck.

TOMORROW -- Denys Arcand's Stardom and the awards.

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Past Reports

• May 18
• May 20