For Greater Glory: Film Review

The sort of lumbering epic drama that went out of fashion by the late 1960s, For Greater Glory is mainly notable for shedding light on a little-known historical conflict, namely the Cristero War that took place in 1920s Mexico. This elaborate production about that countrys persecution of the Catholic Church crams in an endless number of battle scenes and real-life historical figures into its overlong 143-minute running time, with increasingly diminishing returns.

Among the gallery of notable performers playing dress-up is Andy Garcia in the central role of General Gorostieta, the esteemed hero of the Mexican revolution who is called out of comfortable retirement to take up the cause of the Cristeros. Not particularly religious himself, he feels called to duty when President Calles (Ruben Blades) declares war on Catholics and deprives them of basic human rights.

A major plot element involves a young boy, Jose (Maurcio Kuri), who when first seen is mischievously throwing fruit at an aged priest (Peter OToole) with whom he ultimately forms a close bond. When the priest is later killed by a firing squad, the boy joins the revolution and is mentored by Gorostieta, who treats him like the son he never had.

Despite its profusion of violent battle sequences, the film is most effective in its quieter moments, such as the scenes in which Calles warily negotiates with the American ambassador (Bruce Greenwood) who is mainly intent on preserving U.S. oil interests. Another standout is the subtly tension-filled encounter between Gorostieta and Calles during a brief lull in the war.

The histrionics in Michael Loves melodramatic screenplay rarely let up, with the characters constantly making portentous pronouncements about religious freedom, etc. Particularly egregious are the emotional debates between Gorostieta and his wife (Eva Longoria, in a stark departure from Desperate Housewives) over his decision to once again suit up for battle.

Making his directorial debut, esteemed special-effects designer Dean Wright (Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) displays little sense of dramatic pacing, letting far too many scenes drag on endlessly. The complicated storyline, with its numerous subplots and supporting characters who pop in and out of the action, is often difficult to follow. And like so many historical dramas, the film, shot on historical locations throughout Mexico, features drab the sort of sepia-toned cinematography that give it the feel of a moving daguerreotype.

The stolid Garcia is so intent on projecting his characters innate decency that he fails to display the charisma that shot him to stardom in such films as The Untouchables. Among the large supporting cast that also includes Oscar Isaac and an underused Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), the standouts are OToole, quietly moving as the priest who goes to his death with dignity, and Blades, impressively conveying Calles fanatical obsession with ridding his country of religious elements.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (ARC Entertainment)
Production: Dos Corazones Films, New Land Films
Cast: Andy Garcia, Oscar Isaac, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Santiago Cabrera, Eva Longoria, Peter OToole, Ruben Blades, Bruce Greenwood, Bruce McGill, Eduardo Verastegui
Director: Dean Wright
Screenwriter: Michael Love
Producer: Pablo Jose Barroso
Director of photography: Eduardo Martinez Solares
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Mike Oden Jackson
Production designer: Salvador Parra
Costume designer: Dianne Crittenden
Music: James Horner
Rated R, 143 min.

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For Greater Glory: Film Review

The sort of lumbering epic drama that went out of fashion by the late 1960s, For Greater Glory is mainly notable for shedding light on a little-known historical conflict, namely the Cristero War that took place in 1920s Mexico. This elaborate production about that countrys persecution of the Catholic Church crams in an endless number of battle scenes and real-life historical figures into its overlong 143-minute running time, with increasingly diminishing returns.

Among the gallery of notable performers playing dress-up is Andy Garcia in the central role of General Gorostieta, the esteemed hero of the Mexican revolution who is called out of comfortable retirement to take up the cause of the Cristeros. Not particularly religious himself, he feels called to duty when President Calles (Ruben Blades) declares war on Catholics and deprives them of basic human rights.

A major plot element involves a young boy, Jose (Maurcio Kuri), who when first seen is mischievously throwing fruit at an aged priest (Peter OToole) with whom he ultimately forms a close bond. When the priest is later killed by a firing squad, the boy joins the revolution and is mentored by Gorostieta, who treats him like the son he never had.

Despite its profusion of violent battle sequences, the film is most effective in its quieter moments, such as the scenes in which Calles warily negotiates with the American ambassador (Bruce Greenwood) who is mainly intent on preserving U.S. oil interests. Another standout is the subtly tension-filled encounter between Gorostieta and Calles during a brief lull in the war.

The histrionics in Michael Loves melodramatic screenplay rarely let up, with the characters constantly making portentous pronouncements about religious freedom, etc. Particularly egregious are the emotional debates between Gorostieta and his wife (Eva Longoria, in a stark departure from Desperate Housewives) over his decision to once again suit up for battle.

Making his directorial debut, esteemed special-effects designer Dean Wright (Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) displays little sense of dramatic pacing, letting far too many scenes drag on endlessly. The complicated storyline, with its numerous subplots and supporting characters who pop in and out of the action, is often difficult to follow. And like so many historical dramas, the film, shot on historical locations throughout Mexico, features drab the sort of sepia-toned cinematography that give it the feel of a moving daguerreotype.

The stolid Garcia is so intent on projecting his characters innate decency that he fails to display the charisma that shot him to stardom in such films as The Untouchables. Among the large supporting cast that also includes Oscar Isaac and an underused Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), the standouts are OToole, quietly moving as the priest who goes to his death with dignity, and Blades, impressively conveying Calles fanatical obsession with ridding his country of religious elements.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (ARC Entertainment)
Production: Dos Corazones Films, New Land Films
Cast: Andy Garcia, Oscar Isaac, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Santiago Cabrera, Eva Longoria, Peter OToole, Ruben Blades, Bruce Greenwood, Bruce McGill, Eduardo Verastegui
Director: Dean Wright
Screenwriter: Michael Love
Producer: Pablo Jose Barroso
Director of photography: Eduardo Martinez Solares
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Mike Oden Jackson
Production designer: Salvador Parra
Costume designer: Dianne Crittenden
Music: James Horner
Rated R, 143 min.

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U.N. Me: Film Review

A damning account of institutional dysfunction whose ability to stoke indignation is undercut by its filmmakers' misguided comic antics, Matt Groff and Ami Horowitz's U.N. Me is armed with enough evidence to make its case but is unlikely to attract the viewers it hopes to convince.

Though former investment banker Horowitz (who narrates and is the film's Michael Moore-like protagonist) has contributed to National Review and The Weekly Standard, and the film's segment on ineffectual nuclear inspections could be used to make a case for invading Iran, most of the doc's main arguments will find support across the political spectrum. Rather than entertaining wingnuts by attacking the United Nations' right to exist, for example, or saying it undercuts U.S. sovereignty, the film focuses on how the institution chronically fails to live up to its own principles, and suggests that in its current form it may be structurally incapable of doing so.

From oil-for-food, bribery, and sex-abuse scandals to the refusal to stop a genocide, the film finds everything from individual greed to institutional failures in which wrongheaded idealism leads to bizarre decisions: If, for instance, one believes that universal membership will encourage errant world powers to change their ways, perhaps it makes sense for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give the keynote at a U.N. anti-racism conference.

Though the lineup of talking heads includes practically no household names (blink and you'll miss former CIA director James Woolsey, the highest-profile interviewee), the film does offer interesting perspectives, like the experience of Jody Williams, the Nobel Peace Laureate who was recruited to report on Darfur only to see her work suppressed by countries with their own human-rights crimes to hide.

But the legitimacy of all these serious-minded interviewees is thrown into doubt by Horowitz, who weasels through the film like an overprivileged kid making a big-budget audition tape for The Daily Show. From the film's unfortunate title to recurring facetious transitions along the lines of "I needed to get some answers...," he makes the film about himself without explaining why we should accept him as our guide. He pulls stunts, like trying to run through a security checkpoint, and is so snide in interviews one almost feels sorry for spokesmen trying to cover up genocide and illicit nuclear-weapons programs.

The co-director grows more insufferable with each onscreen appearance. Surely, distaste over these antics explains the three-year gap between the film's production and its theatrical booking.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (Visio Entertainment)
Production Company: Disruptive Pictures
Directors-screenwriters-producers: Matt Groff, Ami Horowitz
Executive producers: Thor Halvorssen, Bill Siegel
Directors of photography: Bob Richman, Wolfgang Held
Music: Richard Friedman
Editor: Doug Abel
PG-13, 93 minutes

Read More

U.N. Me: Film Review

A damning account of institutional dysfunction whose ability to stoke indignation is undercut by its filmmakers' misguided comic antics, Matt Groff and Ami Horowitz's U.N. Me is armed with enough evidence to make its case but is unlikely to attract the viewers it hopes to convince.

Though former investment banker Horowitz (who narrates and is the film's Michael Moore-like protagonist) has contributed to National Review and The Weekly Standard, and the film's segment on ineffectual nuclear inspections could be used to make a case for invading Iran, most of the doc's main arguments will find support across the political spectrum. Rather than entertaining wingnuts by attacking the United Nations' right to exist, for example, or saying it undercuts U.S. sovereignty, the film focuses on how the institution chronically fails to live up to its own principles, and suggests that in its current form it may be structurally incapable of doing so.

From oil-for-food, bribery, and sex-abuse scandals to the refusal to stop a genocide, the film finds everything from individual greed to institutional failures in which wrongheaded idealism leads to bizarre decisions: If, for instance, one believes that universal membership will encourage errant world powers to change their ways, perhaps it makes sense for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give the keynote at a U.N. anti-racism conference.

Though the lineup of talking heads includes practically no household names (blink and you'll miss former CIA director James Woolsey, the highest-profile interviewee), the film does offer interesting perspectives, like the experience of Jody Williams, the Nobel Peace Laureate who was recruited to report on Darfur only to see her work suppressed by countries with their own human-rights crimes to hide.

But the legitimacy of all these serious-minded interviewees is thrown into doubt by Horowitz, who weasels through the film like an overprivileged kid making a big-budget audition tape for The Daily Show. From the film's unfortunate title to recurring facetious transitions along the lines of "I needed to get some answers...," he makes the film about himself without explaining why we should accept him as our guide. He pulls stunts, like trying to run through a security checkpoint, and is so snide in interviews one almost feels sorry for spokesmen trying to cover up genocide and illicit nuclear-weapons programs.

The co-director grows more insufferable with each onscreen appearance. Surely, distaste over these antics explains the three-year gap between the film's production and its theatrical booking.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (Visio Entertainment)
Production Company: Disruptive Pictures
Directors-screenwriters-producers: Matt Groff, Ami Horowitz
Executive producers: Thor Halvorssen, Bill Siegel
Directors of photography: Bob Richman, Wolfgang Held
Music: Richard Friedman
Editor: Doug Abel
PG-13, 93 minutes

Read More

Snow White and the Huntsman: Film Review

A bold rethinking of a familiar old story and striking design elements are undercut by a draggy mid-section and undeveloped characters in Snow White and the Huntsman. After the campy family farce of Mirror, Mirror, this second revisionist take of the year on the 19th century fairy tale strides out deadly serious and in full armor, not to mention with more costume changes for Charlize Theronthan a Lady Gaga concert. Designed to appeal to teen and young adult girls and guys, this muscular PG-13-rated action adventure conspicuously lacks romance but should get a good box office ride on the shoulders of stars Kristen Stewartand Chris Hemsworth.

The teeing up is dramatic, to say the least, giving a swift and dire account of the malevolent usurpation of the throne of a rugged waterfront kingdom by Ravenna (Theron), a stunning blonde who infiltrates from enemy territory, bewitches the widowed monarch and dispatches him on their wedding night. The king's daughter is kept prisoner in a high tower until her maturity, at which point the queen's mirror, in this case a giant golden plate that morphs into a molten statue, informs her that the status of fairest in the land has shifted to Snow White (Stewart), who represents the queen's greatest threat as well as her salvation.

All through this, the visual elements are riveting, with production designer Dominic Watsonand costume designer Colleen Atwoodmaking major statements with their fabulously detailed and rich-looking creations. Initially based on blacks, whites and reds, the color scheme is slowly expanded to embrace a rich, carefully calculated array of hues, which first-time director Rupert Sanders, whose background is in commercials, knows how to show off to maximum effect.

Woe be to anyone who would permit Snow White to escape. But since the guilty party is the queen's albino-ish enforcer brother Finn (Sam Spruell), this unfortunate fellow is merely obliged to follow her into the aptly named Dark Forest, to which she has perilously fled and from which the dirty, unschooled teenager can only be rescued by a drunken warrior (Hemsworth), another widower, who has nothing to lose.

Sanders shows a skilled hand for conjuring up dramatic contexts, presenting characters, making actors look good and stirring up threatening moods. He's less effective at maintaining interest over the long haul of the mid-section's lengthy journey, as the huntsman leads Snow White through the dreaded forest to a village of women and children and on to a land known as Sanctuary, a once enchanted home to dwarfs, sprites and unique animals that has come upon hard times since the evil queen has been in power.

Although this interlude has its charms, stemming from the creature creations as well as the from the lightly amusing characterizations of the little guys by normally robust actors such as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstoneand Eddie Marsan, the protracted odyssey feels especially flat because it's not marked by any deepening of the personalities of the princess and her blade-toting escort or any significant alterations in their relationship. Hemsworth's soldier seems too loaded and hung up on his late wife to think too seriously about Snow White but, even if he did, he'd have to defer to William (Sam Claflin), the princess's childhood friend and presumed intended, who turns up (with this season's obligatory weapon, the bow and arrow) to join the good fight and install Snow White on her throne back home where she belongs.

Every so often, the film cuts back to the castle to reveal the queen in distressed states of aging and miraculous rejuvenation, the latter alarmingly achieved by sucking the youth out of younger victims. This royal would seem to be a self-made vampire of sorts as well as a forerunner of contemporary youth-obsessed women willing to do almost anything to maintain their beauty and allure.

So this is a film of moments, of arresting visuals, marked seriousness, sometimes surprising imagination and with nothing on its mind, really, except to provide the conventional reassurance of installing a rightful royal on the throne. It's also a film in which you can't help but behold and compare the contrasting beauty of two of the most exceptional looking women on the screen today, Stewart and Theron. Sanders studies both of them closely and from many angles, with Stewart nearly always maintaining her ethereal air clenched by angst and determination and Theron expressing a will and mercilessness to rival any despot. Despite the narrow ranges their roles require, both command one's attention throughout. Required in their own ways to be gaze-worthy, Hemsworth and Claflin bear up in far more constricted parts.

Craft and technical contributions are all first-rate. James Newton Howardhas composed an unusually somber and nuanced full orchestral score that helpfully amplifies the story's dark moods and currents.

Opens: June 1 (Universal)
Production: Roth Films
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin, Sam Spruell, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Johnny Harris, Brian Gleeson, Vincent Regan, Lily Cole
Director: Rupert Sanders
Screenwriters: Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini, screen story by Evan Daugherty
Producers: Joe Roth, Sam Mercer
Executive producers: Palak Patel, Gloria Borders
Director of photography: Greig Fraser
Production designer: Dominic Watkins
Costume designer: Colleen Atwood
Editors: Conrad Buff, Neil Smith
Music: James Newton Howard
Visual effects supervisors: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brensan
PG-13 rating, 128 minutes

Read More

Snow White and the Huntsman: Film Review

A bold rethinking of a familiar old story and striking design elements are undercut by a draggy mid-section and undeveloped characters in Snow White and the Huntsman. After the campy family farce of Mirror, Mirror, this second revisionist take of the year on the 19th century fairy tale strides out deadly serious and in full armor, not to mention with more costume changes for Charlize Theronthan a Lady Gaga concert. Designed to appeal to teen and young adult girls and guys, this muscular PG-13-rated action adventure conspicuously lacks romance but should get a good box office ride on the shoulders of stars Kristen Stewartand Chris Hemsworth.

The teeing up is dramatic, to say the least, giving a swift and dire account of the malevolent usurpation of the throne of a rugged waterfront kingdom by Ravenna (Theron), a stunning blonde who infiltrates from enemy territory, bewitches the widowed monarch and dispatches him on their wedding night. The king's daughter is kept prisoner in a high tower until her maturity, at which point the queen's mirror, in this case a giant golden plate that morphs into a molten statue, informs her that the status of fairest in the land has shifted to Snow White (Stewart), who represents the queen's greatest threat as well as her salvation.

All through this, the visual elements are riveting, with production designer Dominic Watsonand costume designer Colleen Atwoodmaking major statements with their fabulously detailed and rich-looking creations. Initially based on blacks, whites and reds, the color scheme is slowly expanded to embrace a rich, carefully calculated array of hues, which first-time director Rupert Sanders, whose background is in commercials, knows how to show off to maximum effect.

Woe be to anyone who would permit Snow White to escape. But since the guilty party is the queen's albino-ish enforcer brother Finn (Sam Spruell), this unfortunate fellow is merely obliged to follow her into the aptly named Dark Forest, to which she has perilously fled and from which the dirty, unschooled teenager can only be rescued by a drunken warrior (Hemsworth), another widower, who has nothing to lose.

Sanders shows a skilled hand for conjuring up dramatic contexts, presenting characters, making actors look good and stirring up threatening moods. He's less effective at maintaining interest over the long haul of the mid-section's lengthy journey, as the huntsman leads Snow White through the dreaded forest to a village of women and children and on to a land known as Sanctuary, a once enchanted home to dwarfs, sprites and unique animals that has come upon hard times since the evil queen has been in power.

Although this interlude has its charms, stemming from the creature creations as well as the from the lightly amusing characterizations of the little guys by normally robust actors such as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstoneand Eddie Marsan, the protracted odyssey feels especially flat because it's not marked by any deepening of the personalities of the princess and her blade-toting escort or any significant alterations in their relationship. Hemsworth's soldier seems too loaded and hung up on his late wife to think too seriously about Snow White but, even if he did, he'd have to defer to William (Sam Claflin), the princess's childhood friend and presumed intended, who turns up (with this season's obligatory weapon, the bow and arrow) to join the good fight and install Snow White on her throne back home where she belongs.

Every so often, the film cuts back to the castle to reveal the queen in distressed states of aging and miraculous rejuvenation, the latter alarmingly achieved by sucking the youth out of younger victims. This royal would seem to be a self-made vampire of sorts as well as a forerunner of contemporary youth-obsessed women willing to do almost anything to maintain their beauty and allure.

So this is a film of moments, of arresting visuals, marked seriousness, sometimes surprising imagination and with nothing on its mind, really, except to provide the conventional reassurance of installing a rightful royal on the throne. It's also a film in which you can't help but behold and compare the contrasting beauty of two of the most exceptional looking women on the screen today, Stewart and Theron. Sanders studies both of them closely and from many angles, with Stewart nearly always maintaining her ethereal air clenched by angst and determination and Theron expressing a will and mercilessness to rival any despot. Despite the narrow ranges their roles require, both command one's attention throughout. Required in their own ways to be gaze-worthy, Hemsworth and Claflin bear up in far more constricted parts.

Craft and technical contributions are all first-rate. James Newton Howardhas composed an unusually somber and nuanced full orchestral score that helpfully amplifies the story's dark moods and currents.

Opens: June 1 (Universal)
Production: Roth Films
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin, Sam Spruell, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Johnny Harris, Brian Gleeson, Vincent Regan, Lily Cole
Director: Rupert Sanders
Screenwriters: Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini, screen story by Evan Daugherty
Producers: Joe Roth, Sam Mercer
Executive producers: Palak Patel, Gloria Borders
Director of photography: Greig Fraser
Production designer: Dominic Watkins
Costume designer: Colleen Atwood
Editors: Conrad Buff, Neil Smith
Music: James Newton Howard
Visual effects supervisors: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brensan
PG-13 rating, 128 minutes

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Renoir: Film Review

The story of the young woman who was the final muse to painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the first one to filmmaker Jean Renoir is artistically pivotal and possessing of a lovely symmetry, but it's only mildly dramatic as rendered in the gently observant Renoir. Gilles Bourdos' sun-soaked look at the flame-haired teenager who showed up one day in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1915 and became the subject of the aged sensualist's ripe final works plausibly brings its subjects alive while displaying an intelligent appreciation for their individual needs at the time. But while the creative careers of the father and son were staggering, not all that much seems at stake in this film, which comes off as a pleasant but mild thing. Goldwyn Films acquired U.S. rights in Cannes and could enjoy a measure of theatrical success by targeting artistically inclined older audiences for whom the Renoir name remains hallowed.

Andree Heuschling was only 15 when, at the suggestion of Henri Matisse, she entered the Renoir household in the south of France and gave a fresh jolt of vibrant life to the painter's late work. Then 74, the wizened old man had just been widowed, and the film vividly depicts how Pierre-Auguste, confined to a wheelchair, needed to have his arthritic hands taped to be able to hold a brush.

PHOTOS: 2012 Cannes Awards Winners

For her part, Andree's hair and complexion already possessed the sort of rosy flush of sun-kissed youthfulness with which the painter endowed his subjects whether they had it or not; similarly, her body's voluptuous fleshiness required no embellishment on his part. In short, she was the ideal model for his late-period nudes. As the artist (Michel Bouquet) enthuses here, Her skin soaks up light.

As depicted in the film, Andree (Christa Theret) is a blithe young thing, very much in the French mold, who at least pretends she would just as soon take a job as a bar girl if it paid better than what one of the most famous artists in the country can offer her. Rude to and resented by the many female workers at the house, many of whom have posed for old master themselves, she has a somewhat raspy voice and does nothing to ingratiate herself.

But it doesn't matter, as the boss is happy, spending his days in the verdant environs of the house or down by the river creating idealized portraits of florescent youth painted by a man whose blood clearly still runs hot, even in his crippled state.

Also hobbled, by a serious World War I battlefield injury that nearly cost him his left leg, is the artist's 21-year-old son Jean (Vincent Rottiers), who arrives home on crutches to convalesce at the film's half-hour point. Much adored by his father, unlike his disaffected teenage son Claude, the young officer remains at this stage an unformed fellow; proper, socially somewhat maladroit and not entirely confident with women. Jean dabbles, according to his papa, not yet sure of his path in life and at the moment only anxious to recover and return his much-beloved comrades-in-arms in the Alpine Hunters 6th Battalion, who have sacrificed so much already.

Although there is incident in the film's second half Jean and Andree soon pair up, Pierre-Auguste paints more masterpieces, Jean discovers the movies, Andree has additional flare-ups it doesn't build to the level of compelling drama, leaving the film in a quiet, temperate realm that scarcely makes the pulse race, the bodacious Theret's frequent nudity notwithstanding.

In fact, Andree ultimately becomes a rather unappealing character, emerging from behind her surface allure as rather coarse and calculating. Intentionally or not, this prefigures the largely off-putting screen persona she eventually exhibited under the adopted name Catherine Hessling as the leading lady of a half-dozen silent Jean Renoir films.

The estimable veteran Bouquet is entirely credible as the old Renoir, who at one point is challenged to stand on his feet by his doctor and, to his great surprise, is able to do so. Rottiers possesses much sharper features than Jean Renoir ever had even in his pre-portly days but reasonably captures the young man's personal and professional uncertainty.

Visually, the film is lovely, if unostentatious, with Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee (Flowers of Shanghai and several others for Hou Hsiao-hsien, In the Mood for Love for Wong Kar-wai) sensitively capturing the Mediterranean light and landscapes.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard (Goldwyn Films, U.S.)
Production: Wild Bunch, Mars Films, France 2 Cinema
Cast: Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Vincent Rottiers, Thomas Doret, Romane Bohringer
Director: Gilles Bourdos
Screenwriters: Jerome Tonnerre, Gilles Bourdos, with the collaboration of Michel Spinosa, from the work Le Tableau Amoureux by Jacques Renoir
Producers: Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier
Executive producer: Christine De Jekel
Director of photography: Mark Ping Bing Lee
Production designer: Benoit Barouh
Costume designer: Pascaline Chavanne
Editor: Yannick Kergoat
Music: Alexandre Desplat
International sales: Wild Bunch
111 minutes

Read More

Renoir: Film Review

The story of the young woman who was the final muse to painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the first one to filmmaker Jean Renoir is artistically pivotal and possessing of a lovely symmetry, but it's only mildly dramatic as rendered in the gently observant Renoir. Gilles Bourdos' sun-soaked look at the flame-haired teenager who showed up one day in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1915 and became the subject of the aged sensualist's ripe final works plausibly brings its subjects alive while displaying an intelligent appreciation for their individual needs at the time. But while the creative careers of the father and son were staggering, not all that much seems at stake in this film, which comes off as a pleasant but mild thing. Goldwyn Films acquired U.S. rights in Cannes and could enjoy a measure of theatrical success by targeting artistically inclined older audiences for whom the Renoir name remains hallowed.

Andree Heuschling was only 15 when, at the suggestion of Henri Matisse, she entered the Renoir household in the south of France and gave a fresh jolt of vibrant life to the painter's late work. Then 74, the wizened old man had just been widowed, and the film vividly depicts how Pierre-Auguste, confined to a wheelchair, needed to have his arthritic hands taped to be able to hold a brush.

PHOTOS: 2012 Cannes Awards Winners

For her part, Andree's hair and complexion already possessed the sort of rosy flush of sun-kissed youthfulness with which the painter endowed his subjects whether they had it or not; similarly, her body's voluptuous fleshiness required no embellishment on his part. In short, she was the ideal model for his late-period nudes. As the artist (Michel Bouquet) enthuses here, Her skin soaks up light.

As depicted in the film, Andree (Christa Theret) is a blithe young thing, very much in the French mold, who at least pretends she would just as soon take a job as a bar girl if it paid better than what one of the most famous artists in the country can offer her. Rude to and resented by the many female workers at the house, many of whom have posed for old master themselves, she has a somewhat raspy voice and does nothing to ingratiate herself.

But it doesn't matter, as the boss is happy, spending his days in the verdant environs of the house or down by the river creating idealized portraits of florescent youth painted by a man whose blood clearly still runs hot, even in his crippled state.

Also hobbled, by a serious World War I battlefield injury that nearly cost him his left leg, is the artist's 21-year-old son Jean (Vincent Rottiers), who arrives home on crutches to convalesce at the film's half-hour point. Much adored by his father, unlike his disaffected teenage son Claude, the young officer remains at this stage an unformed fellow; proper, socially somewhat maladroit and not entirely confident with women. Jean dabbles, according to his papa, not yet sure of his path in life and at the moment only anxious to recover and return his much-beloved comrades-in-arms in the Alpine Hunters 6th Battalion, who have sacrificed so much already.

Although there is incident in the film's second half Jean and Andree soon pair up, Pierre-Auguste paints more masterpieces, Jean discovers the movies, Andree has additional flare-ups it doesn't build to the level of compelling drama, leaving the film in a quiet, temperate realm that scarcely makes the pulse race, the bodacious Theret's frequent nudity notwithstanding.

In fact, Andree ultimately becomes a rather unappealing character, emerging from behind her surface allure as rather coarse and calculating. Intentionally or not, this prefigures the largely off-putting screen persona she eventually exhibited under the adopted name Catherine Hessling as the leading lady of a half-dozen silent Jean Renoir films.

The estimable veteran Bouquet is entirely credible as the old Renoir, who at one point is challenged to stand on his feet by his doctor and, to his great surprise, is able to do so. Rottiers possesses much sharper features than Jean Renoir ever had even in his pre-portly days but reasonably captures the young man's personal and professional uncertainty.

Visually, the film is lovely, if unostentatious, with Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee (Flowers of Shanghai and several others for Hou Hsiao-hsien, In the Mood for Love for Wong Kar-wai) sensitively capturing the Mediterranean light and landscapes.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard (Goldwyn Films, U.S.)
Production: Wild Bunch, Mars Films, France 2 Cinema
Cast: Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Vincent Rottiers, Thomas Doret, Romane Bohringer
Director: Gilles Bourdos
Screenwriters: Jerome Tonnerre, Gilles Bourdos, with the collaboration of Michel Spinosa, from the work Le Tableau Amoureux by Jacques Renoir
Producers: Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier
Executive producer: Christine De Jekel
Director of photography: Mark Ping Bing Lee
Production designer: Benoit Barouh
Costume designer: Pascaline Chavanne
Editor: Yannick Kergoat
Music: Alexandre Desplat
International sales: Wild Bunch
111 minutes

Read More

Dangerous Liaisons: Cannes Review

A womanizing playboy and his scheming ex-lover play destructive power games in this ravishing relocation of an 18th century French literary classic to 1930s Shanghai. Already adapted for the big screen multiple times, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos clearly has evergreen appeal across cultural, language and age barriers.

Premiered at the Directors Fortnight in Cannes, this latest remake by the Chinese-Korean director Hur Jin-Ho falls short of the most celebrated version, directed by Stephen Frears in 1988. But glossy production values, a universally familiar plot, and the presence of international names like Zhang Ziyi in the cast should ensure modest commercial interest in foreign markets.

In roles made famous by John Malkovich and Glenn Close respectively, the suave Korean actor Jang Dong-gun brings a Clark Gable louchness to the role of heartbreaking libertine Xie Yifan. A luminous Cecilia Cheung also oozes toxic charm as his manipulative sparring partner, the wealthy femme fatale Mo Jieyu. Cast against her usual sex-kitten type, Zhang Ziyi steps into Michelle Pfeiffers shoes as Du Yufen, an earnest young widow who becomes a key pawn in Fan and Mos revenge-driven seduction wager. But playing poker with other peoples hearts can backfire, as Fan finds when he falls in love for real with the target of his fraudulent advances. It can only end in tears - and worse.

STORY: Chinese 'Dangerous Liaisons' Remake Sold to Multiple Territories

Shanghai in its bustling 1930s prime has always held dramatic appeal for filmmakers as the historical flashpoint where Chinas bright young things partied away the jazz age against a backdrop of gangland wars, political insurrection and imminent Japanese invasion. Films that have recreated this glamorous locale include Zhang Yimous Shanghai Triad, James Ivorys The White Countess, Steven Spielbergs Empire of the Sun and - set a few years later - Ang Lees Lust, Caution.

Hur Jin-Hos adaptation reimagines Shanghai as an opulent eastern mirror image of 18th century Paris or 19th century Vienna, with its grand operas, bed-hopping aristocrats and lavish society balls. The costumes are a blazingly colorful pageant of velvet and silk, the opulent interiors cathedrals to Art Nouveau grandeur. All gleaming chrome and polished mahogany, gold leaf and stained glass, the film is an immersively sensual experience.

Less impressively, the sets are mostly stagey and too brightly lit. Some of the backdrops look cheap and badly integrated, while an exterior street location recurs with suspicious regular throughout the action. The score, mostly consisting of a persistent and syrupy orchestral waltz, also becomes intrusive at times.

Following the French Revolution, the original Choderlos de Laclos novel was hailed in some quarters as a critique of the corrupt decadence of Frances old elite. Similar historical hindsight could be read into this remake, which damns the self-destructive sensualists of pre-Communist China as haughty, scheming, pathological sadists. But if so, any political subtext is buried very deeply. The street protestors who feature tangentially in the action are never even contextualized for non-Chinese audiences. This is not a deep movie.

An interesting twist on a classic plot, Dangerous Liaisons is essentially a deluxe soap opera. But with its beautiful cast and gorgeous production design, it is still a highly enjoyable way to waste two hours.

Venue: Cannes, Directors Fortnight screening, May 24

Production company: Zonbo Media, Homerun Asia

Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Dong-gun Jang, Cecilia Cheung, Lisa Lu, Shawn Dou

Director: Hur Jin-Ho

Producer: Weiming Chang

Sales company: Arclight Films

Read More

Prometheus: Film Review

Be careful what you wish for, especially if it involves figuring out who invented humankind. That's the warning at the heart ofPrometheus,a visual feast of a 3D sci-fi movie that has trouble combining its high-minded notions about the origins of the species and itsAlien-based obligation to deliver oozy gross-out moments. Ridley Scott's third venture into science-fiction, afterAlienin 1979 andBlade Runnerin 1982, won't become a genre benchmark like those classics despite its equivalent seriousness and ambition, but it does supply enough visual spectacle, tense action and sticky, slithery monster attacks to hit the spot with thrill-seeking audiences worldwide.

The Greek titan Prometheus got in trouble for stealing fire from Zeus and putting man on the same level as the gods. Presuming that humans won't rest until we discover where we came from and how we got here,Prometheusproposes that not very long from now, in 2093 to be precise, a plausible source of human life will not only be found but reached by space explorers backed, not surprisingly, by private, not government, interests.

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Never-Seen Photos From 'Prometheus'

The striking opening sequence (shot in Iceland) reveals scientist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) discovering ancient cave paintings indicating the likely arrival on Earth of extraterrestrials many thousands of years ago. Such evidence points to the source as a moon in a small solar system a vast distance away, but not out of reach of a trillion-dollar spacecraft built by Weyland Industries.

The buildup and arrival are the best part of the film, suggesting a sense of inquiry and genuine sort of thoughtfulness that promise a truly weighty slice of speculative fiction. Not that this territory hasn't been amply mined in the past: In fact, the particulars of the ship's interior design, visual projections, hibernating crew members, sports workout routines and Michael Fassbender's robot character as a sort of ambulatory HAL with an obsession to look and speak like Peter O'Toole inLawrence of Arabia, which he likes to watch, are unavoidably reminiscent of2001: A Space Odyssey.

PHOTOS: 28 of Summer's Most Anticipated Movies: 'Avengers,' 'Dark Knight,' 'Prometheus'

Little by little, however, elements of other, less philosophical films come into play, includingFantastic Voyage, Rosemary's Babyand, inevitably,Alien.Arriving on the rugged, outwardly lifeless moon, the 17 crew members notice pyramid-like structures that were clearly not fashioned by nature. Inside, the elaborate tunnels and chambers possess moisture, elaborate writing, a large statue of a human head and, more alarming, countless small cylinders that produce a sticky mud-like substance, and an apparent human head.

It doesn't take long for the crew's number to be reduced by untoward circumstances, nor for doubt to set in about the true agenda not only of Fassbender's David, who can be quietly amusing, but of Charlize Theron's Meredith Vickers, the chilly Weyland executive on board who condescendingly treats everyone else, including the ship's captain (Idris Elba), as vastly inferior employees.

PHOTOS: Ridley Scott's Life and Work

Elizabeth and her scientist boyfriend Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green) continue to spar about the potential momentousness of their journey she, who wears a cross, hopes to find confirmation of her religious beliefs that will point to the existence of a traditional creator, while he is convinced that what they discover will merely prove once and for all that Darwin was right. But such rarefied considerations are thrown overboard when aliens start materializing, shooting their tentacles where you definitely don't want them, getting someone pregnant and otherwise causing the same sort of mayhem they always have in outer-space monster films.

As the survivors are pared down to a precious few, the grisliness and gross-out quotient increases; a self-inflicted Cesarian section may be a screen first (certainly the result of it is), while Fassbender's fate is similarly imaginative and far funnier. This project started life as an intended prequel toAlienbut morphed into something else. Unfortunately, the closer it comes to a climax, the more you feel the elements being lined up to set the stage for a sequel to this film, most of all in a coda that feels like a craven teaser trailer for the next installment.

THR COVER STORY: Secrets of Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus'

Scott doubles hisAlienpleasure with not just one but two strong female roles here. Rapace credibly expresses her character's combined scientific and religious convictions It's what I choose to believe, she insists and is more than up to the physical requirements of some very intense scenes. Theron is in ice goddess mode here with the emphasis on ice (and this just as her turn inSnow White and the Huntsmanis about to open) but perfect for the role all the same. Blonded up, perfect of diction and elegant of body, Fassbender seems almost alarmingly neutered at first as the ship's all-purpose valet but excels as he's allowed to begin injecting droll comedy into his performance. As the captain, Elba has a few strong moments standing up to his boss, Theron, while the other actors are mostly cannon fodder, save for an unrecognizable Guy Pearce in a late-on role.

Technically,Prometheusis magnificent. Shot in 3D but without the director taking the process into account in his conceptions or execution, the film absorbs and uses the process seamlessly. There is nary a false or phony note in the effects supervised by Richard Stammers, which build upon the outstanding production design by Arthur Max. Dariusz Wolski's graceful and vivid cinematography synthesizes all the elements beautifully in a film that caters too much to imagined audience expectations when a little more adventurous thought might have taken it to some excitingly unsuspected destinations.

Opens: June 8 (20thCentury Fox)
Production: Scott Free, Brandywine
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriters: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof, based on elements created by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Producers: Ridley Scott, David Giler, Walter Hill
Executive producers: Michael Costigan, Mark Huffman, Michael Ellenberg, Damon Lindelof
Director of photography: Dariusz Wolski
Production designer: Arthur Max
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Visual effects supervisor: Richard Stammers
Rated R, 124 minutes

Read More

Prometheus: Film Review

Be careful what you wish for, especially if it involves figuring out who invented humankind. That's the warning at the heart ofPrometheus,a visual feast of a 3D sci-fi movie that has trouble combining its high-minded notions about the origins of the species and itsAlien-based obligation to deliver oozy gross-out moments. Ridley Scott's third venture into science-fiction, afterAlienin 1979 andBlade Runnerin 1982, won't become a genre benchmark like those classics despite its equivalent seriousness and ambition, but it does supply enough visual spectacle, tense action and sticky, slithery monster attacks to hit the spot with thrill-seeking audiences worldwide.

The Greek titan Prometheus got in trouble for stealing fire from Zeus and putting man on the same level as the gods. Presuming that humans won't rest until we discover where we came from and how we got here,Prometheusproposes that not very long from now, in 2093 to be precise, a plausible source of human life will not only be found but reached by space explorers backed, not surprisingly, by private, not government, interests.

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Never-Seen Photos From 'Prometheus'

The striking opening sequence (shot in Iceland) reveals scientist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) discovering ancient cave paintings indicating the likely arrival on Earth of extraterrestrials many thousands of years ago. Such evidence points to the source as a moon in a small solar system a vast distance away, but not out of reach of a trillion-dollar spacecraft built by Weyland Industries.

The buildup and arrival are the best part of the film, suggesting a sense of inquiry and genuine sort of thoughtfulness that promise a truly weighty slice of speculative fiction. Not that this territory hasn't been amply mined in the past: In fact, the particulars of the ship's interior design, visual projections, hibernating crew members, sports workout routines and Michael Fassbender's robot character as a sort of ambulatory HAL with an obsession to look and speak like Peter O'Toole inLawrence of Arabia, which he likes to watch, are unavoidably reminiscent of2001: A Space Odyssey.

PHOTOS: 28 of Summer's Most Anticipated Movies: 'Avengers,' 'Dark Knight,' 'Prometheus'

Little by little, however, elements of other, less philosophical films come into play, includingFantastic Voyage, Rosemary's Babyand, inevitably,Alien.Arriving on the rugged, outwardly lifeless moon, the 17 crew members notice pyramid-like structures that were clearly not fashioned by nature. Inside, the elaborate tunnels and chambers possess moisture, elaborate writing, a large statue of a human head and, more alarming, countless small cylinders that produce a sticky mud-like substance, and an apparent human head.

It doesn't take long for the crew's number to be reduced by untoward circumstances, nor for doubt to set in about the true agenda not only of Fassbender's David, who can be quietly amusing, but of Charlize Theron's Meredith Vickers, the chilly Weyland executive on board who condescendingly treats everyone else, including the ship's captain (Idris Elba), as vastly inferior employees.

PHOTOS: Ridley Scott's Life and Work

Elizabeth and her scientist boyfriend Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green) continue to spar about the potential momentousness of their journey she, who wears a cross, hopes to find confirmation of her religious beliefs that will point to the existence of a traditional creator, while he is convinced that what they discover will merely prove once and for all that Darwin was right. But such rarefied considerations are thrown overboard when aliens start materializing, shooting their tentacles where you definitely don't want them, getting someone pregnant and otherwise causing the same sort of mayhem they always have in outer-space monster films.

As the survivors are pared down to a precious few, the grisliness and gross-out quotient increases; a self-inflicted Cesarian section may be a screen first (certainly the result of it is), while Fassbender's fate is similarly imaginative and far funnier. This project started life as an intended prequel toAlienbut morphed into something else. Unfortunately, the closer it comes to a climax, the more you feel the elements being lined up to set the stage for a sequel to this film, most of all in a coda that feels like a craven teaser trailer for the next installment.

THR COVER STORY: Secrets of Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus'

Scott doubles hisAlienpleasure with not just one but two strong female roles here. Rapace credibly expresses her character's combined scientific and religious convictions It's what I choose to believe, she insists and is more than up to the physical requirements of some very intense scenes. Theron is in ice goddess mode here with the emphasis on ice (and this just as her turn inSnow White and the Huntsmanis about to open) but perfect for the role all the same. Blonded up, perfect of diction and elegant of body, Fassbender seems almost alarmingly neutered at first as the ship's all-purpose valet but excels as he's allowed to begin injecting droll comedy into his performance. As the captain, Elba has a few strong moments standing up to his boss, Theron, while the other actors are mostly cannon fodder, save for an unrecognizable Guy Pearce in a late-on role.

Technically,Prometheusis magnificent. Shot in 3D but without the director taking the process into account in his conceptions or execution, the film absorbs and uses the process seamlessly. There is nary a false or phony note in the effects supervised by Richard Stammers, which build upon the outstanding production design by Arthur Max. Dariusz Wolski's graceful and vivid cinematography synthesizes all the elements beautifully in a film that caters too much to imagined audience expectations when a little more adventurous thought might have taken it to some excitingly unsuspected destinations.

Opens: June 8 (20thCentury Fox)
Production: Scott Free, Brandywine
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriters: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof, based on elements created by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Producers: Ridley Scott, David Giler, Walter Hill
Executive producers: Michael Costigan, Mark Huffman, Michael Ellenberg, Damon Lindelof
Director of photography: Dariusz Wolski
Production designer: Arthur Max
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Visual effects supervisor: Richard Stammers
Rated R, 124 minutes

Read More

The Music According to Antonio Carlos Jobim (A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim): Cannes Review

This freewheeling tribute to the Brazilian music legend Antonio Carlos Tom Jobim offered one of the most effortlessly enjoyable screening experiences in Cannes, but also one of the most insubstantial.

Showcasing the songs of the late composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist credited with popularising the bossa nova sound worldwide, it was co-directed by Jobims 36-year-old daughter Dora and the 83-year-old Brazilian veteran Nelson Pereira Dos Santos.

Essentially an audio-visual mixtape stitched together from archive musical performances, this breezy documentary has no editorial commentary, no talking heads and no clear narrative structure. Apparently aimed at specialist music fans already familiar with Jobims life story, the films most likely post-festival afterlife is on the small screen and home entertainment formats.

PHOTOS: Cannes Awards 2012

Even Jobim himself, who died in 1994, is almost an incidental character in this story. We see him performing at various stages of his 40-year career, but the majority of the films musical content consists of other artists covering his songs in Portuguese - plus French, English, Italian, Swedish and even Japanese translations. Bossa nova classics including Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), Insensatez (How Insensitive) and of course Garota de Ipanema (The Girl From Ipanema) recur in multiple versions and languages.

The gallery of performers who cover Jobims music is certainly extraordinary, spanning several generation of jazz and pop legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Judy Garland and Diana Krall. Two of the stand-out sequences feature Sammy Davis Jr. becoming a kind of human beatbox of bossa nova, and Jobim himself dueting with Frank Sinatra on two cuts from their first joint album in 1967. Grand masters of song working in sublime harmony, their voices intertwined like cigarette smoke.

But while the range of musical flavors in the film is impressively broad, it does tend towards a mellifluous easy-listening blandness at times. A few more offbeat contemporary interpreters of Jobims canon, such as David Byrne or Iggy Pop, might have given a broader picture of his universal allure. Some of the footage, especially the Garland clip, has clearly been salvaged from poor quality videotape. The ever-shifting montage technique also proves frustrating at times, often reducing great performances to fleeting fragments in one long audio-visual medley.

The Music According to Antonio Carlos Jobim is a sweet and undemanding experience, but would have been more satisfying with a more conventional structure and more biographical back story. As it stands, viewers have no choice but to lie back and be gently swept along by the music - rhythms like softly lapping waves, voices like warm tropical breezes. The filmmakers may have set out to write a love letter to a musical icon but it comes over more like a series of postcards.

Venue: Cannes special screening, May 22

Production Company: Regina Filmes Ltda.

Cast: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque, Vincius De Moraes, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland

Directors: Dora Jobim, Nelson Pereira Dos Santos

Editor: Luelane Correa

Screenplay: Miucha Barque Del Holanda, Nelson Pereira Dos Santos

Sales agent: Regina Filmes Ltda.

Rating TBC, 84 minutes

Read More

Dangerous Liaisons: Cannes Review

A womanizing playboy and his scheming ex-lover play destructive power games in this ravishing relocation of an 18th century French literary classic to 1930s Shanghai. Already adapted for the big screen multiple times, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos clearly has evergreen appeal across cultural, language and age barriers.

Premiered at the Directors Fortnight in Cannes, this latest remake by the Chinese-Korean director Hur Jin-Ho falls short of the most celebrated version, directed by Stephen Frears in 1988. But glossy production values, a universally familiar plot, and the presence of international names like Zhang Ziyi in the cast should ensure modest commercial interest in foreign markets.

In roles made famous by John Malkovich and Glenn Close respectively, the suave Korean actor Jang Dong-gun brings a Clark Gable louchness to the role of heartbreaking libertine Xie Yifan. A luminous Cecilia Cheung also oozes toxic charm as his manipulative sparring partner, the wealthy femme fatale Mo Jieyu. Cast against her usual sex-kitten type, Zhang Ziyi steps into Michelle Pfeiffers shoes as Du Yufen, an earnest young widow who becomes a key pawn in Fan and Mos revenge-driven seduction wager. But playing poker with other peoples hearts can backfire, as Fan finds when he falls in love for real with the target of his fraudulent advances. It can only end in tears - and worse.

STORY: Chinese 'Dangerous Liaisons' Remake Sold to Multiple Territories

Shanghai in its bustling 1930s prime has always held dramatic appeal for filmmakers as the historical flashpoint where Chinas bright young things partied away the jazz age against a backdrop of gangland wars, political insurrection and imminent Japanese invasion. Films that have recreated this glamorous locale include Zhang Yimous Shanghai Triad, James Ivorys The White Countess, Steven Spielbergs Empire of the Sun and - set a few years later - Ang Lees Lust, Caution.

Hur Jin-Hos adaptation reimagines Shanghai as an opulent eastern mirror image of 18th century Paris or 19th century Vienna, with its grand operas, bed-hopping aristocrats and lavish society balls. The costumes are a blazingly colorful pageant of velvet and silk, the opulent interiors cathedrals to Art Nouveau grandeur. All gleaming chrome and polished mahogany, gold leaf and stained glass, the film is an immersively sensual experience.

Less impressively, the sets are mostly stagey and too brightly lit. Some of the backdrops look cheap and badly integrated, while an exterior street location recurs with suspicious regular throughout the action. The score, mostly consisting of a persistent and syrupy orchestral waltz, also becomes intrusive at times.

Following the French Revolution, the original Choderlos de Laclos novel was hailed in some quarters as a critique of the corrupt decadence of Frances old elite. Similar historical hindsight could be read into this remake, which damns the self-destructive sensualists of pre-Communist China as haughty, scheming, pathological sadists. But if so, any political subtext is buried very deeply. The street protestors who feature tangentially in the action are never even contextualized for non-Chinese audiences. This is not a deep movie.

An interesting twist on a classic plot, Dangerous Liaisons is essentially a deluxe soap opera. But with its beautiful cast and gorgeous production design, it is still a highly enjoyable way to waste two hours.

Venue: Cannes, Directors Fortnight screening, May 24

Production company: Zonbo Media, Homerun Asia

Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Dong-gun Jang, Cecilia Cheung, Lisa Lu, Shawn Dou

Director: Hur Jin-Ho

Producer: Weiming Chang

Sales company: Arclight Films

Read More

Wallander: The Revenge: Film Review

Scandinavian crime fiction continues its American invasion with the Henning Mankell adaptation Wallander: The Revenge, originally made for Swedish TV. Considering the Stateside exposure already given to the BBC series in which Kenneth Branagh plays the hero, theatrical prospects here are limited. But fans of the character should appreciate Krister Henriksson's dry take on the role, and will be happy to learn that 13 of his made-for-TV outings will be offered (alongside this one) on VOD and DVD.

Here, the famously downbeat Kurt Wallander has cause to be laconic and bleary-eyed: Most of the tale concerns a 24-hour marathon of police work that begins, inconveniently, at the end of a drunken housewarming party. When saboteurs wipe out power to the whole city of Ystad at the same time someone murders a local bigwig, Wallander's department is thrown into disarray. Not only are civilians clamoring impatiently for info, but his investigation is hindered by a variety of outsiders ranging from the local prosecutor's office to the Swedish army -- not to mention two new cadets whose on-the-job training has just started.

Some scenes involving these outsiders are plagued by stiff acting and a camera that lingers long enough one feels pushed to acknowledge dramatic tension that isn't there. But director Charlotte Brndstrm is on safer ground with Wallander and his colleagues, who project a believable sense of community. Henriksson in particular hits just the right balance of aloofness and concern.

The politically outspoken Mankell works in some themes about tolerance and War on Terror wrongheadedness (the murder victim sponsored an exhibit of art depicting Muhammad), and the blackout offers a novel backdrop, but on the whole this is a routine mystery tale existing mainly to introduce new characters to the Wallander universe and allow for future installments.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (Music Box Films)
Production Company: Yellow Bird Films
Cast: Krister Henriksson, Lena Endre, Sverrir Gudnason, Nina Zanjani, Mats Bergman, Douglas Johansson, Stina Ekblad, Fredrik Gunnarson, Marianne Mrck
Director: Charlotte Brndstrm
Screenwriter: Hans Rosenfeldt
Based On Story By Henning Mankell
Producer: Malte Forssell
Executive producers: Ole Sndberg, Anni Faurbye Fernandez, Mikael Walln, Vibeke Windelv
Director of photography: Alexander Gruszynski
Production designer: Anna Asp
Music: Flskkvartetten
Costume designer: Kicki Ilander
Editor: Hkan Karlsson
No rating, 90 minutes

Read More

Wallander: The Revenge: Film Review

Scandinavian crime fiction continues its American invasion with the Henning Mankell adaptation Wallander: The Revenge, originally made for Swedish TV. Considering the Stateside exposure already given to the BBC series in which Kenneth Branagh plays the hero, theatrical prospects here are limited. But fans of the character should appreciate Krister Henriksson's dry take on the role, and will be happy to learn that 13 of his made-for-TV outings will be offered (alongside this one) on VOD and DVD.

Here, the famously downbeat Kurt Wallander has cause to be laconic and bleary-eyed: Most of the tale concerns a 24-hour marathon of police work that begins, inconveniently, at the end of a drunken housewarming party. When saboteurs wipe out power to the whole city of Ystad at the same time someone murders a local bigwig, Wallander's department is thrown into disarray. Not only are civilians clamoring impatiently for info, but his investigation is hindered by a variety of outsiders ranging from the local prosecutor's office to the Swedish army -- not to mention two new cadets whose on-the-job training has just started.

Some scenes involving these outsiders are plagued by stiff acting and a camera that lingers long enough one feels pushed to acknowledge dramatic tension that isn't there. But director Charlotte Brndstrm is on safer ground with Wallander and his colleagues, who project a believable sense of community. Henriksson in particular hits just the right balance of aloofness and concern.

The politically outspoken Mankell works in some themes about tolerance and War on Terror wrongheadedness (the murder victim sponsored an exhibit of art depicting Muhammad), and the blackout offers a novel backdrop, but on the whole this is a routine mystery tale existing mainly to introduce new characters to the Wallander universe and allow for future installments.

Opens: Friday, June 1 (Music Box Films)
Production Company: Yellow Bird Films
Cast: Krister Henriksson, Lena Endre, Sverrir Gudnason, Nina Zanjani, Mats Bergman, Douglas Johansson, Stina Ekblad, Fredrik Gunnarson, Marianne Mrck
Director: Charlotte Brndstrm
Screenwriter: Hans Rosenfeldt
Based On Story By Henning Mankell
Producer: Malte Forssell
Executive producers: Ole Sndberg, Anni Faurbye Fernandez, Mikael Walln, Vibeke Windelv
Director of photography: Alexander Gruszynski
Production designer: Anna Asp
Music: Flskkvartetten
Costume designer: Kicki Ilander
Editor: Hkan Karlsson
No rating, 90 minutes

Read More

Fogo: Cannes Review

A superb calling-card for the skills of cinematographer Diego Garca, hour-long docu-fiction hybrid Fogo is otherwise austere high-art cinema of the most exquisitely patience-sapping kind. A Canadian-Mexican co-production about the Newfoundland/Labrador island which provides its title, this third picture by Yulene Olaizola will enjoy a measure of festival exposure thanks to the success of her widely-screened 2008 debut Intimacies of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. TV channels favorable to experimental ethnography may also want to take a look -- likewise any producers seeking a DP especially skilled at outdoor landscape work.

Working with his Mexican compatriot Olaizola -- both turn 30 next year -- Garca here confirms the ample promise he displayed in his sole previous credit, Mark Jackson's outstanding psychological drama Without. Shooting on a wind-swept, heavily-forested island in the Pacific Northwest in collaboration with Jessica Dimmock, Garca worked wonders on a minimal budget with high-definition digital cameras. Here similar equipment crisply renders the starkly bleak beauty of Fogo, its frozen lakes and mossy stonecrops, so powerfully that audiences may find themselves shivering in their seats. As Herman Melville famously said of his masterpiece Moby-Dick - "a Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

PHOTOS: Cannes Awards 2012: Michael Haneke, Mads Mikkelsen and 'Beyond the Hills'

The big-sky vistas crafted by Garca and Olaizola are so alluring it's no surprise to discover that the film was part-funded by the Fogo Island Arts Corporation, whose website describes it as "a contemporary arts experiment [which] takes a leading role in regenerating the islands [using] arts and creativity as powerful means of stimulating and enhancing a resilient social ecosystem." But bizarrely, in the light of this remit, Olaizola's sparsely-worded screenplay -- co-written with Garca and Rubn Imaz -- presents Fogo as a benighted, near-abandoned, almost post-apocalyptically harsh wilderness, one whose few remaining die-hard residents are, in the opening scene, offered one last chance to evacuate out back to "civilization."

One would certainly never guess from the movie that Fogo's population stands at well over 2,000 people. In between the striking landscape-dominated exterior sequences, there's a handful of dialogue-exchanges among locals - evidently non-professionals from the area, somewhat stiffly playing themselves - who ruminate on the harshness of fate. "I never thought we were comin' to this," one sighs over his home-brewed hooch. "How are we gonna survive?" ponders his drinking-chum glumly, the pair hunched in a dimly-lit, near-empty kitchen that could have been interior-designed by Samuel Beckett. As in Bela Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky's The Turin Horse, meanwhile, potatoes are silently munched in stoic resignation as the wind blows on and on (and on) beyond the walls.

Admirers of such nature-focused, challengingly oblique recent festival hits like C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrm's The Anchorage and Ben Rivers' Two Years at Sea may respond to Olaizola's ostentatiously dour approach here. And there's much to like about Pauline Oliveros's score, with its keening harmonica and accordion stylings - not to mention the brisk running-time. But for all the elemental grandeur of the locations, Fogo lands with a hefty bump whenever it switches into fictional mode -- indicating that Olaizola would be better off returning to the kind of relatively "straight" documentary which kicked off her career so promisingly.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors' Fortnight), May 22, 2012.
Production company: Malacosa Cine
Cast: Norman Foley, Ron Broders, 'Little Joe'
Director: Yulene Olaizola
Screenwriters: Yulene Olaizola, Rubn Imaz, Diego Garca
Producers: Yulene Olaizola, Rubn Imaz
Director of photography: Diego Garca
Music: Pauline Oliveros
Editor: Rubn Imaz
Sales Agent: Pascale Ramonda, Paris
No rating, 61 minutes.

Read More

Fogo: Cannes Review

A superb calling-card for the skills of cinematographer Diego Garca, hour-long docu-fiction hybrid Fogo is otherwise austere high-art cinema of the most exquisitely patience-sapping kind. A Canadian-Mexican co-production about the Newfoundland/Labrador island which provides its title, this third picture by Yulene Olaizola will enjoy a measure of festival exposure thanks to the success of her widely-screened 2008 debut Intimacies of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. TV channels favorable to experimental ethnography may also want to take a look -- likewise any producers seeking a DP especially skilled at outdoor landscape work.

Working with his Mexican compatriot Olaizola -- both turn 30 next year -- Garca here confirms the ample promise he displayed in his sole previous credit, Mark Jackson's outstanding psychological drama Without. Shooting on a wind-swept, heavily-forested island in the Pacific Northwest in collaboration with Jessica Dimmock, Garca worked wonders on a minimal budget with high-definition digital cameras. Here similar equipment crisply renders the starkly bleak beauty of Fogo, its frozen lakes and mossy stonecrops, so powerfully that audiences may find themselves shivering in their seats. As Herman Melville famously said of his masterpiece Moby-Dick - "a Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

PHOTOS: Cannes Awards 2012: Michael Haneke, Mads Mikkelsen and 'Beyond the Hills'

The big-sky vistas crafted by Garca and Olaizola are so alluring it's no surprise to discover that the film was part-funded by the Fogo Island Arts Corporation, whose website describes it as "a contemporary arts experiment [which] takes a leading role in regenerating the islands [using] arts and creativity as powerful means of stimulating and enhancing a resilient social ecosystem." But bizarrely, in the light of this remit, Olaizola's sparsely-worded screenplay -- co-written with Garca and Rubn Imaz -- presents Fogo as a benighted, near-abandoned, almost post-apocalyptically harsh wilderness, one whose few remaining die-hard residents are, in the opening scene, offered one last chance to evacuate out back to "civilization."

One would certainly never guess from the movie that Fogo's population stands at well over 2,000 people. In between the striking landscape-dominated exterior sequences, there's a handful of dialogue-exchanges among locals - evidently non-professionals from the area, somewhat stiffly playing themselves - who ruminate on the harshness of fate. "I never thought we were comin' to this," one sighs over his home-brewed hooch. "How are we gonna survive?" ponders his drinking-chum glumly, the pair hunched in a dimly-lit, near-empty kitchen that could have been interior-designed by Samuel Beckett. As in Bela Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky's The Turin Horse, meanwhile, potatoes are silently munched in stoic resignation as the wind blows on and on (and on) beyond the walls.

Admirers of such nature-focused, challengingly oblique recent festival hits like C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrm's The Anchorage and Ben Rivers' Two Years at Sea may respond to Olaizola's ostentatiously dour approach here. And there's much to like about Pauline Oliveros's score, with its keening harmonica and accordion stylings - not to mention the brisk running-time. But for all the elemental grandeur of the locations, Fogo lands with a hefty bump whenever it switches into fictional mode -- indicating that Olaizola would be better off returning to the kind of relatively "straight" documentary which kicked off her career so promisingly.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors' Fortnight), May 22, 2012.
Production company: Malacosa Cine
Cast: Norman Foley, Ron Broders, 'Little Joe'
Director: Yulene Olaizola
Screenwriters: Yulene Olaizola, Rubn Imaz, Diego Garca
Producers: Yulene Olaizola, Rubn Imaz
Director of photography: Diego Garca
Music: Pauline Oliveros
Editor: Rubn Imaz
Sales Agent: Pascale Ramonda, Paris
No rating, 61 minutes.

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The Music According to Antonio Carlos Jobim (A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim): Cannes Review

This freewheeling tribute to the Brazilian music legend Antonio Carlos Tom Jobim offered one of the most effortlessly enjoyable screening experiences in Cannes, but also one of the most insubstantial.

Showcasing the songs of the late composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist credited with popularising the bossa nova sound worldwide, it was co-directed by Jobims 36-year-old daughter Dora and the 83-year-old Brazilian veteran Nelson Pereira Dos Santos.

Essentially an audio-visual mixtape stitched together from archive musical performances, this breezy documentary has no editorial commentary, no talking heads and no clear narrative structure. Apparently aimed at specialist music fans already familiar with Jobims life story, the films most likely post-festival afterlife is on the small screen and home entertainment formats.

PHOTOS: Cannes Awards 2012

Even Jobim himself, who died in 1994, is almost an incidental character in this story. We see him performing at various stages of his 40-year career, but the majority of the films musical content consists of other artists covering his songs in Portuguese - plus French, English, Italian, Swedish and even Japanese translations. Bossa nova classics including Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), Insensatez (How Insensitive) and of course Garota de Ipanema (The Girl From Ipanema) recur in multiple versions and languages.

The gallery of performers who cover Jobims music is certainly extraordinary, spanning several generation of jazz and pop legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Judy Garland and Diana Krall. Two of the stand-out sequences feature Sammy Davis Jr. becoming a kind of human beatbox of bossa nova, and Jobim himself dueting with Frank Sinatra on two cuts from their first joint album in 1967. Grand masters of song working in sublime harmony, their voices intertwined like cigarette smoke.

But while the range of musical flavors in the film is impressively broad, it does tend towards a mellifluous easy-listening blandness at times. A few more offbeat contemporary interpreters of Jobims canon, such as David Byrne or Iggy Pop, might have given a broader picture of his universal allure. Some of the footage, especially the Garland clip, has clearly been salvaged from poor quality videotape. The ever-shifting montage technique also proves frustrating at times, often reducing great performances to fleeting fragments in one long audio-visual medley.

The Music According to Antonio Carlos Jobim is a sweet and undemanding experience, but would have been more satisfying with a more conventional structure and more biographical back story. As it stands, viewers have no choice but to lie back and be gently swept along by the music - rhythms like softly lapping waves, voices like warm tropical breezes. The filmmakers may have set out to write a love letter to a musical icon but it comes over more like a series of postcards.

Venue: Cannes special screening, May 22

Production Company: Regina Filmes Ltda.

Cast: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Chico Buarque, Vincius De Moraes, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland

Directors: Dora Jobim, Nelson Pereira Dos Santos

Editor: Luelane Correa

Screenplay: Miucha Barque Del Holanda, Nelson Pereira Dos Santos

Sales agent: Regina Filmes Ltda.

Rating TBC, 84 minutes

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La Playa D.C.: Cannes Review

Three decades after unknown film-student Spike Lee unveiled Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, writer-director Juan Andrs Arango emerges straight outta Bogot with his own auspicious, tonsorially-themed debut La Playa D.C. Focusing on a teenage apprentice barber coping with the city's forbiddingly mean streets, it's a minutely-observed peek into hardscrabble lives that pours intoxicatingly fresh aguardiente into a rather dusty old bottle. Plentiful festival play should flow from its Un Certain Regard premiere at Cannes, cementing Arango as Colombia's most notable cinematic export since Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno.

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While Sandino Moreno's breakthrough vehicle Maria Full of Grace was officially a Colombian-American co-production, it was directed by California's Joshua Marston. South America's most northerly country has long kept a very low international profile in terms of moviemaking: the most prominent current Colombian-born director, Rodrigo Garca (Albert Nobbs), has carved his career almost exclusively in the US.

Arongo, a 35-year-old native-born Bogotano, trained and worked in Canada and the Netherlands before returning home to shoot his debut feature in the high-altitude city. Indeed, the unique geography of this chaotic metropolis - sprawling concrete encircled by lushly damp verdant hills - is a major element in its impact, evocatively rendered by cinematographer Nicols Canniccioni via a chilly color-palette of cobalt blues, mossy greens and asphalt grays.

Teenage brothers Tomas (Luis Carlos Guevara), Jairo (Andrs Murillo) and Chaco (James Solis) have fled to the capital from their formerly-idyllic home on the country's western seaboard, driven out by the civil war which claimed the life of their father. Chaco has spent time in "el Norte" - the USA - and has returned sporting the latest ghetto-fabulous fashions and hairstyles. Jairo is is tearaway of the trio, forever falling foul of dangerous foes. Quietly-spoken Tomas, a lanky lad who looks much older than his 13 years, recognizes that he's going to need a trade if he's to have any chance of a decent life. And as Afro-Colombian males favor massively intricate braided designs - painstakingly executed with clippers and razor-blades - there's no shortage of work for a lad with a steady hand and a degree of artistic flair.

Arango's screenplay is a familiar enough coming-of-age chronicle, in which Tomas embarks on his first serious romance while prematurely buckling down to responsibility - under the amusingly stern eye of his barbershop mentors - and keeping tabs on his wayward siblings. Painful bonds of fraternal love are unfussily celebrated this generally downbeat but humor-flecked journey around the male-dominate city-within-a-city that comprises the title's Playa D.C. - i.e. the ironically-named "beach" of Colombia's "capital district" or Distrito Capital.

Almost every scene is scored by hip-hop music - often with a distinctive Indio twist - in a picture whose soundtrack is seamlessly integrated with the tunes blasting out of the characters' own radios and disc-players, often with lyrics that exude a hard-knock, hard-won optimism ("life's a daily struggle - but we get by. / Life isn't easy - but we manage"). The US-influenced rhythms of Tomas's soundscapes thus contribute to the pervasive tang of unpretentious authenticity that elevates La Playa D.C.above the general run of urban-ethnographic world cinema.

Bottom line: Closely-observed Colombian coming-of-ager introduces the latest bold directorial talent from Latin America.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), May 23, 2012.
Production companies: Cine Sud Promotion, Bananeira Films, Hangar Films
Cast: Luis Carlos Guevara, Andrs Murillo, James Sols
Director / Screenwriter: Juan Andrs Arango
Producers: Diana Bustamante, Jorge Andrs Botero
Co-producers: Thierry Lenouvel, Vania Catani, Angelisa Stain, Mauricio Aristizbal
Director of photography: Nicols Canniccioni
Art director: Juan David Bernal
Costume designer: Angelica Perea
Music: Erick Bongcam, Jacobo Vlez, Mara Mulata, Socavn de Timbiqui, Diocelino Rodriguez, Flaco Flow & Melanina, Choquibtown, Jiggy Drama
Editor: Felipe Guerrero
Sales Agent: Doc & Film International, Paris
No rating, 89 minutes.

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La Playa D.C.: Cannes Review

Three decades after unknown film-student Spike Lee unveiled Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, writer-director Juan Andrs Arango emerges straight outta Bogot with his own auspicious, tonsorially-themed debut La Playa D.C. Focusing on a teenage apprentice barber coping with the city's forbiddingly mean streets, it's a minutely-observed peek into hardscrabble lives that pours intoxicatingly fresh aguardiente into a rather dusty old bottle. Plentiful festival play should flow from its Un Certain Regard premiere at Cannes, cementing Arango as Colombia's most notable cinematic export since Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Related Topics

Cannes Film Festival Revi...

While Sandino Moreno's breakthrough vehicle Maria Full of Grace was officially a Colombian-American co-production, it was directed by California's Joshua Marston. South America's most northerly country has long kept a very low international profile in terms of moviemaking: the most prominent current Colombian-born director, Rodrigo Garca (Albert Nobbs), has carved his career almost exclusively in the US.

Arongo, a 35-year-old native-born Bogotano, trained and worked in Canada and the Netherlands before returning home to shoot his debut feature in the high-altitude city. Indeed, the unique geography of this chaotic metropolis - sprawling concrete encircled by lushly damp verdant hills - is a major element in its impact, evocatively rendered by cinematographer Nicols Canniccioni via a chilly color-palette of cobalt blues, mossy greens and asphalt grays.

Teenage brothers Tomas (Luis Carlos Guevara), Jairo (Andrs Murillo) and Chaco (James Solis) have fled to the capital from their formerly-idyllic home on the country's western seaboard, driven out by the civil war which claimed the life of their father. Chaco has spent time in "el Norte" - the USA - and has returned sporting the latest ghetto-fabulous fashions and hairstyles. Jairo is is tearaway of the trio, forever falling foul of dangerous foes. Quietly-spoken Tomas, a lanky lad who looks much older than his 13 years, recognizes that he's going to need a trade if he's to have any chance of a decent life. And as Afro-Colombian males favor massively intricate braided designs - painstakingly executed with clippers and razor-blades - there's no shortage of work for a lad with a steady hand and a degree of artistic flair.

Arango's screenplay is a familiar enough coming-of-age chronicle, in which Tomas embarks on his first serious romance while prematurely buckling down to responsibility - under the amusingly stern eye of his barbershop mentors - and keeping tabs on his wayward siblings. Painful bonds of fraternal love are unfussily celebrated this generally downbeat but humor-flecked journey around the male-dominate city-within-a-city that comprises the title's Playa D.C. - i.e. the ironically-named "beach" of Colombia's "capital district" or Distrito Capital.

Almost every scene is scored by hip-hop music - often with a distinctive Indio twist - in a picture whose soundtrack is seamlessly integrated with the tunes blasting out of the characters' own radios and disc-players, often with lyrics that exude a hard-knock, hard-won optimism ("life's a daily struggle - but we get by. / Life isn't easy - but we manage"). The US-influenced rhythms of Tomas's soundscapes thus contribute to the pervasive tang of unpretentious authenticity that elevates La Playa D.C.above the general run of urban-ethnographic world cinema.

Bottom line: Closely-observed Colombian coming-of-ager introduces the latest bold directorial talent from Latin America.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), May 23, 2012.
Production companies: Cine Sud Promotion, Bananeira Films, Hangar Films
Cast: Luis Carlos Guevara, Andrs Murillo, James Sols
Director / Screenwriter: Juan Andrs Arango
Producers: Diana Bustamante, Jorge Andrs Botero
Co-producers: Thierry Lenouvel, Vania Catani, Angelisa Stain, Mauricio Aristizbal
Director of photography: Nicols Canniccioni
Art director: Juan David Bernal
Costume designer: Angelica Perea
Music: Erick Bongcam, Jacobo Vlez, Mara Mulata, Socavn de Timbiqui, Diocelino Rodriguez, Flaco Flow & Melanina, Choquibtown, Jiggy Drama
Editor: Felipe Guerrero
Sales Agent: Doc & Film International, Paris
No rating, 89 minutes.

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Aquí y Allá: Cannes Review

An ostentatiously downbeat peek into the life of a poor Mexican family, Antonio Mndez Esparza's Spanish-US co-production Aqu y All is attracting international attention after taking top honours in the Critics' Week sidebar at Cannes. But prospects for this patience-taxingly boilerplate example of current Latin American art-cinema are much closer to that of relatively little-seen 2009 Grand Prix winner Goodbye Gary than to 2010 scorer Armadillo or last year's big breakout Take Shelter - festival berths won't translate to much theatrical or small-screen play.

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Cannes Film Festival Revi...

Its title, which is left deliberately untranslated on the film's digital 'print' and in the press-notes, is Spanish for "here and over there," - though Here and There has been used as a shorthand version. The "here" is a small village in the southern, sparsely-populated and mountainous Guerrero region - home to thirtyish couple Pedro (Pedro De los Santos Jurez) and Teresa (Teresa Ramrez Aguirre) and their high-schooler daughters 'Lore' (Lorena Pantalen Vzquez) and Heidi (Heidi Solano Espinoza). The "over there" is the United States, where Pedro spends considerable spells of time as a migrant worker - the unspoken implication is that he's doing so illegally.

These periods away from home mean that Pedro barely knows his own children - as is evident from the first of the film's four chapters, 'The Return,' which takes place in the immediate aftermath of his latest stint in el Norte. Pedro tries to make ends meet doing menial jobs in the area, dividing his free time between his family and working on his own musical compositions. In part two, 'Here,' we see him performing with his band and coping with Teresa's difficult third pregnancy. In part three, 'The Horizon,' baby Luz's arrival brings further financial strain, resulting in Pedro taking the decision to return north: "I do care," he assures the distressed Teresa, "That's why I want a better life for all of you." The short final segment, 'Over There,' focusses on Lore and Heidi as they share their memories of their departed parent.

The plight of folks like Pedro isn't confined to Mexico, of course, and issues of globalized labor and cross-border movement are only going to become tougher as the impacts of the recent worldwide financial crisis bite deep. As a glum, slow-burning, austere treatment of a topical, serious issue, Aqu y All is guaranteed a favorable reception in many quarters - even if, in film-making terms, it's nothing we haven't seen before dozens of times (and usually done with rather more flair).

The non-professional actors, reportedly playing slight variations on themselves, are awkwardly subdued and self-conscious, and overall it might have been more productive for Mndez Esparza, whose debut feature-length work this is, had stuck to 'straight' documentary - in the vein of, say, Ed Moschitz's recent Austrian eye-opener Mama Illegal - rather than a docu-fiction hybrid.

This is also editor Filippo Conz's feature debut, and his inexperience shows in the way he lets scenes trundle on and on before cutting abruptly - resulting in a repetitive, monotonous rhythm that repels rather than compels interest, and makes it difficult to follow the chronology of a story which, judging by Luz's rapid development, takes place over a couple of years.

Frustratingly, one of the most promising sequences, in which an elderly lady wryly reminisces about bygone days, is also one of the shortest, Conz and Mndez Esparza devoting much more time to half-baked dramatic developments involving the vagaries and inadequacies of the Mexican healthcare system. And for all its makers' self-evidently admirable intentions, Aqu y All ends up - even at nearly two hours - saying surprisingly little about the hot-button subjects it ambitiously sets out to explore.

Bottom line: Award-winning examination of migrant labor would have worked better as a documentary.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Critics' Week), May 22, 2012.
Production companies: Aqu y All Films, Torch Films
Cast: Pedro De los Santos Jurez, Teresa Ramrez Aguirre, Lorena Pantalen Vzquez, Heidi Solano Espinoza, Angel De los Santos Leyva
Director / Screenwriter: Antonio Mndez Esparza
Producers: Ori Dov Gratch, Tim Hobbs, Pedro Hernndez Santos, Diana Wade, Antonio Mndez Esparza
Exective producers: Alvaro Portanet Hernndez, Amadeo Hernndez Bueno
Director of photography: Barbu Balasoiu
Art director: Priscilla Charles Caldern
Editor: Filippo Conz
Sales Agent: Alpha Violet, Paris
No rating, 110 minutes.

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