Monday, May 18 2009
By OLé
| Yes we Cannes
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We are leaving the cinema completely ravished. This is madness, bare horror and yet nothing surreal: a couple is doing its psychoanalysis in the woods – the thing to avoid!
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe (I didn’t pay attention to their character names and actually it has no importance as this could be any couple anywhere) are having sex while their four year old son liberates himself out of his playpen. He makes it to the open window and watches snowflakes falling on the ground. A minute later he is on the ground himself and the drama opens with the first chapter: grief. Charlotte is troubled by self-reproaches and has continuous anxiety attacks. Her husband, a psychiatrist, is an over rational counterpart who does not seem to be troubled by the death of Nick. To confront her fear he convinces Charlotte on a retreat to their isolated cabin in the woods which has the delightful name “Eden”. Not surprisingly their stay turns into anything else than paradise. In those woods Charlotte was writing her thesis on the torture of witches during the Dark Ages. Scared and intimidated by the surrounding, she left the work unfinished on the attic, where Willem takes it up again. He must confront the unconscious and unexplainable while Charlotte turns into a hysterical Sadomasochist.
Other as the title suggests, Antichrist is not a Nietzschian blow against Christianity. It is much more a psychological drama about sexuality, gender relations and the reciprocal power of fear and lust. In an interview with the Danish author Knud Romer (who acted in Idiots) von Trier says, that Antichrist draws upon a lot of images and impressions from his adolescence. He brought them together at a time in his life when he was feeling really bad. Expect to feel the same when leaving the theatre!
photos © Festival de Cannes
Saturday, May 16 2009
By OLé
| Yes we Cannes
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Seeing a carotid being cut with a razor blade at 8h30 in the morning is a rather painful breakfast. The two and a half hours that follow this scene are not easier to digest, but French director Jacques Audiard has brought to Cannes a mafia masterpiece which is thrilling and beautiful at the same time.
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Friday, May 15 2009
By OLé
| Yes we Cannes
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It is crisis and you feel it also in Cannes: beer instead of champaign and peanuts replace the caviar, festival goers had been used to in previous years. Everybody has something to complain about. Restaurants lack reservations, hotels are not fully booked and now it has even started to rain. Can Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz make up for so much trouble? Both singers have small parts in Lee Daniel’s first feature film “Precious” which tells the story about a young marginal girl who can’t read or write.
Wednesday, May 13 2009
By OLé
| Yes we Cannes
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This post is also available in: Spanish
The Cannes film festival kicks off tonight with the world premier of the new Pixar animation feature “Up”.
At the first glance it’s of course a little weird that a Disney opens the world’s most important rendezvous in film business. But as festival director Thierry Frémaux said yesterday, “the future of film is 3-D”. The improved technology (it’s said “Up” will bring a 3-D experience which makes IMAX movies look like a flat ride to grandma’s house) should stop illegal movie piracy and should bring people back into the theatres.
And after all the choice for a Disney comedy could also counterbalance the economic crisis that doesn’t stop at the festival carpet. For the first time since many years hotels are not showing the sign “complet” (no more vacancies) in their windows and restaurant owners complain of missing dinner reservations.
Tuesday, May 12 2009
By OLé
| Yes we Cannes
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Long term festival president Gilles Jacob has been around since 1978 (I wasn’t even born then) turning it into the world’s most important film event. Nowadays he leaves the organization to director Thierry Frémaux and prefers shooting photos of the event. Here are some of his first shots:
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Monday, June 9 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish
Shops, films, magazines… and even a day in the calendar. Nowadays, the “freak” market is serious business. Last Sunday, International Freak Day took place, an incredibly important event for Europe’s weirdest inhabitants. It marked the end of the party for those characters who, with both the release of Indiana Jones and the Eurovision Song Contest (from now on referred to as Eurofreak), had an busy, strange and entertaining week.
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Wednesday, May 21 2008
By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan German Spanish French
Italy’s waste disposal problem has extended further into the north of the country. Since May Day this year there has been one town in particular that stinks of donkey shit: Verona. A group of twenty-something Nazis savagely beat up a 29 year old man with long hair that refused to give them a cigarette. Nicola Tommasoli died after 5 days in a coma in hospital. Nicola Tommasoli is one victim more of Euro trash.
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Thursday, May 1 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish French
Probably the most stupidest celebration that ever existed. I’m referring to International Worker’s Day, which is celebrated on 1 May by not working. I don’t get it, it’s as if we should therefore spend International Day of Sexual Violence assaulting women or driving like maniacs on the International Day Without Cars.
I leave you for a second time with one of my coolest non-work colleagues from cinema: “the Dude”
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Wednesday, April 30 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan German Spanish French
They’ve had a funny turn over at the European commission. On 24 April, Brussels announced that they’ll be keeping a proposalto protect homosexuals in the face of any discrimination in the EU’s 27 member states firmly in the closet. Looks like it’s only cool to be gay in the movies, because in real life, evidently it’s not, unless you are being discriminated against in the workplace, which is where EU legislation protects the most at the moment.
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Friday, April 18 2008
By Flipaisimo
Some people are afraid of ageing. But I think that there are loads of good points about getting old. I can’t deny that walking around without a nappy, having my own teeth and my own erections is not a huge advantage of being young, but equally I wouldn’t be disgusted at the thought of taking an early retirement.
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Thursday, April 3 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish French
The best screenplayer in Spanish cinema of all time decided to go on strike this week in Madrid forever. With 95 screenplays under his belt, he probably died of one last laughing fit, the likes of which many of us have enjoyed thanks to his genius dialogues. After a battle with lung cancer, he leaves us as he was always in the habit of doing, with stealth and grandeur.
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Monday, March 24 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish Scottish Gaelic
Relax… (Foto: Rasso)
In the first weeks of March, almost half of Europe exercised their right to strike. Seems terrible; not because people have to strike to fight for their rights, but because I am convinced that being human means that we shouldn’t have to work. The famous saying “El trabajo dignifica al hombre” seems to have expired. Welcome to the era of contemplation, my friends.
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Monday, March 3 2008
By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan German Spanish French
Thieves and Polices (Pic: Dukal)
Brussels are going classic in their fashion collection this spring. Whilst eighties styles are currently screaming out of all high street windows, the European parliament seems to have opted for something a little more out of the middle ages. On 27 February a secret audit was leaked, revealing that MEPs dispense of their salaries rather suspiciously. But no need to spread panic – they themselves decided not to make this public, via a democratic vote. Seems the juror and his court have become the same person – in beautiful ‘vintage’ fashion.
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Tuesday, February 26 2008
By Flipaisimo
This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish
Golden Raspberry (Foto:alexajbully)
Whilst the whole world was dazzled by the lights of the 80th Oscar ceremony (http://www.cafebabel.com/en/article.asp?T=T&Id=13952) on 24 February, the awards which really celebrated American cinema had already taken place. The night before the Oscars, the Golden Raspberry (‘Razzies’ to friends) took place, honouring the worst American films of the year. A funny, honest act which merits your attention far more than the wanker fashion parade that takes place on the red carpet in LA’s Kodak Theatre.
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Friday, January 18 2008
By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish French
Every year I wonder the same thing. What was worse? Was it 2007 itself, or the fact that it was a year in which I had the bad luck to come across certain rubbish films? I decide on the latter - these bad films unabashedly formed part of 2007's successes and failures.
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By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan Spanish
On 17 January 2008, far away in a hidden resort town in the mountains of Utah, the 24th annual edition of the Sundance Film Festival started. For many it's a cinematographic oasis in a creative American desert, a light in the murk of those events in American cinema (i.e. Oscars, Golden Globes and other run-of-the-board ceremonies
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Wednesday, January 2 2008
By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan German Spanish French Scottish Gaelic
On the eve of the International Day for Human Rights on 10 December, the Castro brothers decided to arrest all those who protested in favour of the freedom of expression on the streets of the Cuban capital. Curious celebration for such an important date, especially when it took place on the same day that Cuba announced the ratification of two pacts to protect those rights.
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Friday, November 30 2007
By Flipaisimo
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This post is also available in: Catalan German Spanish French Scottish Gaelic
Romania, Germany, Britain and France go neck-to-neck in the best film award category at the European Film Awards this December
Next Saturday 1 December, the European Film Academy marks its twentieth anniversary in the city of Berlin, muse of Wim Wenders, the German director who is also an academy founder. In this edition of the annual 'European Oscars' (where the films are of a much higher quality than those from America), French cinema dominates nominations. British and German cinema are also well represented. Romania is in the running to take the award for best film whilst Spanish cinema, however, makes a notable absence.
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OLé