Cannes 2014

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Sat 17 May. Day four.

REVIEWS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Saint Laurent (Bonello): 49. Alas, this is in fact a biopic, albeit one with some captivating interludes. Drug-addled downhill slide a drag.

GASPARD ULLIEL AT CANNES Q&A

SAINT LAURENT: This second of two YSL features this year released 5 months apart stars Gaspard Ulliel as YSL and Léa Seydoux as his muse Loulou de la Falaise, with Jérémie Renier as his partner Pierre Bergé, and others including Dominique Sanda, Louis Garrel, and Helmut Berger. The other previously released one, starring Pierre Niney and directed by Jalil Lespert, is coming out in the US shortly (Landmark). Bonello is respected for his lush, atmospheric turn-of-the century brothel study HOUSE OF TOLERANCE (2011, which I reviewed in Paris). Guy Lodge (VARIETY) called Lespert's YVES SAINT LAURENT "awkwardly structured" and "considerably less innovative than its human subject." This one also reviewed by Lodge he finds considerably better: Lespert was prêt-à porter; this is pure haute couture, also more commercial, with "its bigger-name cast and audio-visual sparkle." But two films about the same guy will cause confusion and diffuse interest and returns (I say). As a fan of Ulliel I am interested to see SAINT LAURENT; as one who's seen several YSL docs and liked the energy of youngest Comédie Française member Pierree Niney in 18 YEARS OLD AND RISING (R-V 2012), I will watch Lespert's film too.

WILD TALES (Damián Szifrón) 4/5 STARS - GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review) " Argentinian portmanteau movie [directed by Damián Szifrón] is a box of delights. Ricardo Darin features in this Pedro Almodóvar-produced collection of fine, fractious stories showing a nation at the end of its tether and a people poised to implode." WILD TALES also highly praised by VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review) "For pure viewing pleasure, the one wild card in Cannes competition this year is unlikely to be beten....A wickedly delightful compendium of six standalone shorts united by a theme of vengeance."

THE SALVATION (Kristian Levring) well reviewed in VARIETY (Peter Debruge review) - Danish Western shot in South Africa, with Mads Mikkelson and Eva Green. "This Danish twist on the most American of genres recycles stock elements from old Westerns, but does so in style." (Later D'Angelo saw it and gave it a 65.) MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.

THE ROVER (David Michôd) well reviewed in VARIETY by Scott Foundas who says it well realizes the promise of Michôd's stunning debut ANIMAL KINGDOM. "Two unlikely traveling companions traverse the existential badlands of the Australian outback in 'Animal Kingdom' director's striking follow-up." Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN's review of THE ROVER (a dystopian post-apocalyptic tale starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce) is less enthused, saying our expectations have to be "managed down" for this after ANIMAL KINGDOM, much less forceful, the script perhaps needing rewrites, or a return to a clearer first draft. MiIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY (Ned Benson) 3/5 STARS - GUARDIAN Xian Brooks review. It was shown at Toronto as two back-to-back featuers entitled "Him" and "Her" depicting the breakdown of a relationship (with James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain) but here they've been mashed-up, an hour cut, as "Them." Costars are many including John Hader and Isabelle Huppert as well as Cioran Hinds and William Hurt. Brooks finds good performances but a whole that feels "refrigerated." Given Brooks's remarks 3/5 seems a bit high. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

NATIONAL GALLERY (Frederick Wiseman). Documentary about the London museum has gotten favorable mention from various sources. Cannes category? Three hours, focused on working in the museum and a bit about the old masters. Andrew Pulver reviews it for the GUARDIAN.

AMOUR FOU (Jessica Haussner) Reviewed with mild favor by VARIETY by Justin Chang: "A dryly amusing and ambiguously layered account of the famed double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel." Not to be confused with the 2011 documentary about the relationship between Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. UN CERTAIN REGARD.


AMOUR FOU

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
Amour fou (Hausner): 45. I'm as indifferent to this film as its protagonists are indifferent to life itself. Looks stunning, though.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
The Wonders (Rohrwacher): 62. Hard to believe this is the same woman who made CORPO CELESTE. Loved everything except the "German" kid.

D'Angelo didn't like CORPO CELESTE but I did (NYFF 2011) GUARDIAN's Peter Bradshaw is mildly enthusiastic about the quiet charms of THE WONDERS/LE MERAVIGLIE (3/5 STARS: "This is an entertaining, affecting piece of work - but not wonderful.") VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review) also likes it but they both think it's too slight. Weissberg: "Alice Rohrwacher's sophomore feature has intermittent rewards yet isn't weighty enough to justify a Cannes competish slot."

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Sat 17 May. Day four cont'd.

MIKE D'ANGELO'S CANNES 2014 RANKED TWEET RATINGS SO FAR (updated day to day).

D'Angelo is uniquely precise in his relative ratings, which even if one disagrees, are useful because he is ranking his Cannes experiences in relation to each other, and he sees and rates a lot of the films.

No rating yet:

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 33m
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev): TBD. Easily my favorite of his; good vs. great hinges on what I decide the film implies about a specific event.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Au hasard Cotillard [Deux jours, une nuit] (Dardennes): 84. These guys may yet sell me on this whole "humanism" thing.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
It Follows (Mitchell): 74. Superbly creepy premise packs metaphorical punch, isn't executed quite as inventively as I'd hoped. But AIIEEE!

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Tu dors Nicole (Lafleur): 71. Random French-Canuck Fortnight comedy blends various influences (GHOST WORLD, F. HA) into unique sensibility.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
Mr. Turner (Leigh): 68. Much more a conventional biopic than TOPSY-TURVY, but featuring the same delectable wealth of period detail.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas): 67. Relentlessly brainy, to the point where it's constantly interpreting itself. Really sharp, though.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
The Salvation (Levring): 65. Old-school Western, nothing special but expertly done. Eva Green makes a great scarred, pissed-off mute.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
In the Name of My Daughter (Téchiné): 63. Same deal as GIRL ON THE TRAIN: Would be superb as fiction, fizzles when real-life stuff intrudes.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Force Majeure (Östlund): 63. I much prefer the version of this film where the couple can't talk about it. Sharp on masculinity, though.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
The Wonders (Rohrwacher): 62. Hard to believe this is the same woman who made CORPO CELESTE. Loved everything except the "German" kid.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1m
Wild Tales (Szifron): 62. Wish the shorts had anything in common (bsides being "wild"), but they're fun. Only 1/2 have a good punchline tho.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 40m
The Salt of the Earth (Wenders & Salgado): 62. Lets the elder Salgado's photographs and V/O annotations do the work, to oft-stirring effect.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 9hA
Timbuktu (Sissako): 59. Does a good job for a long while of hiding its essential nature—social-justice tract—behind loose-limbed funkiness.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 2h
Coming Home (Zhang): 58. Shamelessly melodramatic amalgam of the returning-POW movie and the amnesiac romance. Enjoyably cornball.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Homesman (Jones): 57. Briefly thought this was making a startlingly powerful feminist statement, but false alarm. Just a buddy flick.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Love at First Fight (Cailley): 56. Starts out like a French version of a mediocre Sundance romcom, winds up somewhere (a bit) weirder.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Winter Sleep (Ceylan): 55. Epic portrait of a prick, shot in an amazing location. Admirable, w/a magnificent lead perf, but sooo grueling.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
P'tit Quinquin (Dumont): 55. Not so much a Dumont comedy as just a long-ass Dumont film that's often really funny. Gestalt lacking for me.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Goodbye to Language (Godard): 54. Content is his usual gobbledygook (adjust as necessary), but holy shit he found ways to give 3-D a point.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 56m
Mommy (Dolan): 54. I'd watch Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément in anything, but this just seems like a whole lot of random thrashing.

Foxcatcher (Miller): 50. MONEYBALL appealed to me with some spiky humor, but as a straight dramatist I find Miller intensely blah.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Saint Laurent (Bonello): 49. Alas, this is in fact a biopic, albeit one with some captivating interludes. Drug-addled downhill slide a drag.

Mike D'Angelo‏@gemko
The Captive (Egoyan): 46. Art-schlock at its art-schlockiest. Structural gamesmanship compels, but when the pieces come together, ye gods.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
Amour fou (Hausner): 45. I'm as indifferent to this film as its protagonists are indifferent to life itself. Looks stunning, though.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Still the Water (Kawase): 44. Remember in 2007 when I saw PARANOID PARK and SILENT LIGHT back to back? That was awesome.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
That Lovely Girl (Yedaya): 43. Old-school miserablism like I haven't seen in a while. Incest/rape + bulimia + cutting + just no letup.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Footloose (Loach): 41. Features the howler of the festival: The Lithgowian priest asking "What is this obsession with pleasure?!"

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg): 35. Adjust upward if you thought SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS was brilliant satire.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 21h
Grace of Monaco (Dahan): 33. A non-hack might've done something interesting w/ idea that "Princess of Monaco" was Kelly's greatest role.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Self-Importance [The Search] (Hazanavicius): 25. This is what happens when you validate a guy like this with Oscars & convince him he's Major.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
Party Girl (three young first-time directors): W/O. Chances that your mom is really fascinating enough to build a feature around: very slim.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 52m
Snow in Paradise (Hulme): W/O. There are hints of something odd going on in this otherwise humdrum gangster flick, but I wasn't curious.

[Chris Knipp]

Semaine de la Critique: Complete List

IT FOLLOWS (Mitchell), which has leapt to the top of D'Angelo's ratings at the end of the day, is his first viewing in the CRITICS' WEEK competition. David Robert Mitchell (THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER, 2011), is the only American in the list. Here are the rest:

Opening Film: Faire L’Amour, dir: Djinn Carrénard (France)
Closing Film: Hippocrate, dir: Thomas Lilti (France)

Special Screenings
Respire, dir: Mélanie Laurent (France)
L’Institutrice, dir: Nadav Lapid (Israel)

Critics’ Week Features
Più Buio Di Mezzanote*, dir: Sebastiano Riso (Italy)
The Tribe*, dir: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (Ukraine)
It Follows, dir: David Robert Mitchell (U.S.)
Gente De Bien*, dir: Franco Lolli (Colombia)
When Animals Dream*, dir: Jonas Alexander Arnby (Denmark)
Hope*, dir: Boris Lojkine (France)
Self Made, dir: Shira Geffen (Israel)

* Denotes first film, eligible for the Camera d’Or

Critics’ Week Shorts
Safari, dir: Gerardo Herrero (Spain)
The Chicken, dir: Una Gunjak (Croatia)
Crocodile, dir: Gaëlle Denis (UK)
Une Chambre Bleue, dir: Tomasz Siwiński (Poland)
TrueLoveStory, dir: Gitanjali Rao (India)
Petit Frère, dir: Rémi St-Michel (Canada)
A Ciambra, dir: Jonas Carpignano (Italy)
La Contre-Allée, dir: Cécile Ducrocq (France)
Les Fleuves M’Ont Laissée Descendre Où Je Voulais, dir: Laurie Lassalle (France)
Boa Noite Cinderela, dir: Carlos Conceiçao (Portugal)

IT FOLLOWS (Mitchell) HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (David Rooney review) very favorable:

Writer-director David Robert Mitchell's 2010 debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, was a gentle depiction of adolescence in the Michigan suburbs as a time of inchoate yearnings and fading innocence. He returns to that territory with the same sensitivity in It Follows, only this time the danger is far more malevolent than just plain old emotional vulnerability. Creepy, suspenseful and sustained, this skillfully made lo-fi horror movie plays knowingly with genre tropes and yet never winks at the audience, giving it a refreshing face-value earnestness that makes it all the more gripping

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
It Follows (Mitchell): 74. Superbly creepy premise packs metaphorical punch, isn't executed quite as inventively as I'd hoped. But AIIEEE!

Competition Jury Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Leila Hatami,
Jeon Do-yeon and Carole Bouquet arrive for the screening of
The Wonders. Photograph: Julien Warnand/EPA [GUARDIAN]

[Johann]

D'Angelo is entertaining to read. Interesting slate of films at Cannes.
Wish I was there.

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe not as good as last two years? But it often seems that. Cannes is always great.

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. 18 May. Day five.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
The Homesman (Jones): 57. Briefly thought this was making a startlingly powerful feminist statement, but false alarm. Just a buddy flick.

THE HOMESMAN 4/5 STARS (GUARDIAN Peter Bradshaw review) Bradshaw calls it "superbly watchable," "Tommy Lee Jones also stars in his second film as a director - a full-bodied quasi-feminist western in which he and Swank's gutsy singleton escort three disturbed women across the mid-west plains." VARIETY (Peter Debruge review0 is favorable but less glowing, hard to detect from Debruge's description despite good cast, music, cinematography, restraint, what the charms of this film are exactly. But "just a buddy flick" seems reductive?


GASPARD ULLIEL AS YSL

SAINT LAURENT 2/5 STARS (GUARDIAN Peter Bradsahw review) "A smirking deification: Bonello's Saint Laurent is a celebratory and swooningly submissive tribute to the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. It is hugely narcissistic, colossally long - and for all its apparently feminised sensibility and solemn talk of Saint Laurent's pioneering sympathy with women, it is as macho and phallus-worshipping as any Schwarzenegger action movie. . . Finally, Saint Laurent is a well made but bafflingly airless and claustrophobic film, like being with fashion's very own Tutenkhamen , living and dying inside his own richly appointed tomb - and sentimentally indulged to the last." Much verbiage for a film Bradshaw almost hates. One can see how this could have the beautiful, decadent moodiness of Bonello's previous HOUSE OF TOLERANCE. Wonder if Bradshaw has seen that. (This was shot on 35mm film; in the press conference Bonello explains why. Runtime 135 mins.) SONY PICTURES CLASSICS has picked up this as well as WILD TALES. P.s. Jalil Lespert's YVES SAINT-LAURENT, which came out in France 4 Jan. 2014, did very meciocrely with the press (Allociné critics' rating 3.0). 0

THE WONDERS (Rohrwacher/Le meraviglie, Italian, liked by D'Angelo who gave it a 62) not liked by VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review): "Alice Rohrwacher's sophomore feature has intermittent rewards yet isn't weighty enough to justify a Cannes competish slot."


THE WONDERS

WELCOME TO NEW YORK (Ferrara) VARIETY (Scott Foundas review) sounds one of Ferrara's most interesting later films, if only for the physically bloated, controversial Depardieu's committed performance. Too much literal procedural stuff maybe but that pretty realisti. Bisset holds her own with Depardieu, and they play together like a Cassavetes film couple. Heavy-handed editorializing by Ferrara on American decadence included. GUARDIAN (Xian Brooks review) 4/5 STARS: "a film so brazen and foolhardy that it had sections of the Cannes audience hooting in astonishment. I watched the whole thing with my jaw on the floor." CANNES MARKET.

BEAUTIFUL YOUTH (Jaime Rosales) is described in VARIETY (Peter Debruge review) as more mainstream than the Spanish director's previous work, a depiction of an aimless 20-something couple with a newborn child who contemplate making porn movies. GUARDIAN raves: 3/5 STARS (Peter Bradshaw review): " An intelligent, bracing study of Spanish twentysomethings doomed to unemployment and disillusion, told through the story of a couple with a newborn child." (I reviewed Rosales' SOLITARY FRAGMENTS (SFIFF 2008), a humanistic, but observationally chilly feature.) UN CERTAIN REGARD.


BEAUTIFUL YOUTH

MAPS TO THE STARS (Croonenberg) Mike D'Antelo's tweet review (above) was a paltry 35. GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review) 4/5 STARS. He calls it "brilliant." "David Cronenberg's new film here at Cannes is a gripping and exquisitely horrible movie about contemporary Hollywood – positively vivisectional in its sadism and scorn. It is twisted, twisty, and very far from all the predictable outsider platitudes about celebrity culture." VARIETY (Peter Debruge review) suggests the screenplay, written by then-wannabe Bruce Wagner 20 years ago, is out of date. Debruge also holds that Cronenberg, who has never shot in L.A. before or even in the US, doesn't capture the feel of the city. ". . .most of Wagner’s criticisms were hatched in the early ’90s, in a pre-smartphone era, before the Internet got nasty and back when the line “Harvey’s Harvey” would have packed a lot more punch." MAPS debuts in Paris Wed., and Debruge preducts it will do better there than with Cannes critics; we'll see. (It did: Allociné press rating 4.2 so far the same, so far, as the new Dardenne brothers film as of early Wed.)

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Mon. 19 May. Day six.

MIKE D'ANGELO CANNES TWEET REVIEWS AND OTHERS CONT'D: (These two from D'Angelo he may have seen Sun. night.)

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
The Salvation (Levring): 65. Old-school Western, nothing special but expertly done. Eva Green makes a great scarred, pissed-off mute.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
Foxcatcher (Miller): 50. MONEYBALL appealed to me with some spiky humor, but as a straight dramatist I find Miller intensely blah.

FOXCATCHER = 5/5 STARS from GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review), so underrated by D'Angelo vs. THE SALVATION (he has graded exotic westerns a bit high in the past). Justin Chang's VARIETY review calls FOXCATCHER, a true 1996 sports-crime-murder story, "Perhaps the sole credible awards-season heavyweight to have emerged from this year’s Cannes Film Festival." It has an early Nov. Sony Classics release. This has unusual roles for Steve Carrel (serious, as jealous, murderous Delaware plutocrat John Du Pont ) and Channing Tatum. Also with Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave. Title comes from du Pont's mansion's name 'Foxcatcher Farm.' This is one we're all going to see. CANNES COMPETITION. (SALVATION=MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.)

[This actually from yesterday:]
FORCE MAJEURE (Ruben Östlund') 4/5 STARS GUARDIAN Henry Barnes review . This story of a man who abandons his family when an avalanche appears to come and is forever compromised when it turns out to have been just snow and fog sounds like a less minimal replay of Julia Loktov's much admired THE LONELIEST PLANET (NYFF 2011). I reviewed Ostlund's previous PLAY (also NYFF 2011) and so did Howard Schumann on Cinescene. . Peter Debruge in VARIETY: "Visually stunning even in its most banal moments and emotionally perceptive almost to a fault, the film stands to complicate many a romantic arthouse date." This does sound like a more playable, but still highly odd and original film from Östlund, even if under "scrutiny" it seems "a bit stagnant" to Debruge. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

BIRD PEOPLE (Pascale Ferran) And we have a 'winner' or close to a rave notice anyway from D'Angelo, though we don't know yet why he rates it so high. VARIETY (Peter Debruge) only says this "curious follow-up to LADY CHATTERLEY" "will have a comfortable nest at fests
but flies too high only to risk too liittle. This is the director of the lovely LADY CHATTERLEY (SFIFF 2007). This one focuses on a hinted-at offbeat romance between a mousy French hotel maid (Anais Demoustier) and an jetsetting Silicon Valley executive (Gary Newman) in mid-life crisis at De Gaule airport (Roissy) Hyatt. Keenly observational with a supernatural turn and a trick ending reviewers won't reveal that may be what D'Angelo doesn't like? HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (Jordan Minzter) hints at a bit more of the oddball twists toward the end. Also has Roschdy Zem as the hotel clerk, Radha Mitchell as the man's wife, and a 'JULES ET JIM' style voice-over by the ubiquitous Matthieu Amalric. Opens in France 4 June. French trailer. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Still the Water (Kawase): 44. Remember in 2007 when I saw PARANOID PARK and SILENT LIGHT back to back? That was awesome.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Bird People (Ferran): 80. Hated the last three minutes (which are crucial); adored everything else. Truly extraordinary. Read nothing.

BIRD PEOPLE, ANAIS DEMOUSTIER

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Dowd (AV Club) vs. D'Angelo (The Dissolve). Battle of the thirty- and forty-something daily festival journalists.

D'Angelo is writing his daily Cannes essays for the new venue The Dissolve this year and the ones on AV Club have been taken over by their reviewer A.A. Dowd. Dowd's pieces lack the sharpness and personality of D'Angelo's, but promise starry-eyed enthusiasm since this is his first time ever at Cannes. Here are Dowd's films seen and ratings of them: Let's just hope these two, who are often in touch and have switched off places, are not simply interchangeable. They're clearly not but reading them side by side lets me see why I like D'Angelo's Cannes reports. One reason is the way he conveys a sense of the festival as an organic thing, breathing and changing with each day's new screenings: thus while GRACE OF MONACO "instantly flatlined," the mood was immediately corrected 24 hours later by the appearance of Mike Leigh's very fine MR. TURNER. But of course D'Angelo's confidence and command goes far beyond maintaining a sense of live drama in the festival itself, as much as that fits with daily reporting. In writing for The Dissolve now he is freed of the need to assign letter grades to films, which may be a relief for one whose 1-100 ratings are so much more precise than AV Club's A-B-C system. But this makes his dispatches harder to summarize. This is not a battle;l it's just that the formats are quite similar, and show D'Angelo as an experienced practitioner of the daily Cannes report.


DAY FIVE, EVAN BIRD IN MAPS TO THE STARS


A.A. Dowd: AV Club.

Cannes ’14, Day One: Grace Of Monaco opens the fest with a whimper. GRACE OF MONACO: C. TIMBUKTU: B-. With the crowd on these.

Cannes ’14, Day Two: Mike Leigh makes another biopic. Mr. Turner. MR. TURNER: B. THE CAPTIVE: B. PARTY GIRL: B. THAT LOVELY GIRL: C- (He is rating MR. TURNER a bit low, CAPTIVE higher than most; THAT LOVELY GIRL oppressed him with its miserablism (he might have rated it lower; D'Angelo walked out).

Cannes ’14, Day Three: An epic, an anthology, another biopic, and a gem The gem is AMOUR FOU, but Dowd is stingy with raves (B+). The epic is WINTER SLEEP, which he thought too much of a slog (B-). The biopic is SAINT LAURENT: C. The anthology ("A welcome jolt of irreverence") is WILD TALES: B.

Cannes ’14, Day Four: Outside competition, a striking horror film debuts That revers to David Robert Mitchell's IT FOLLOWS: B+ Also rated THE HOMESMAN: B-

Cannes ’14, Day Five: Cronenberg does Lynch doing Richard Kelly. Good title and snappy photo of the 13-year-old boy actor pointing a pistol. MAPS TO THE STARS: C. FOXCATCHER: C+ (gibes with D'Angelo's low rating; description not as informative as Bradshaw's).

Cannes ’14, Day Seven: Ryan Gosling brings his directorial debut to the fest. Add Harmony Korine and Dario Argento to the directors Gosling is said to emulate in his poorly received directorial debut. (Catherine Shoard of GUARDIAN, an avowed fan of the actor, had good things to say about the film in a video she and her colleagues made.) Dowd gives LOST RIVER a C+. "Less a coherent movie than a wild collage" may be the best comment yet to fit with the trailer and what people have said.



IT FOLLOWS


Mike D'Angelo: The Dissolve.

Day 1: States Of Grace D'Angelo puts his review of GRACE at the bottom "where it belongs" to focus on the truly worthy first title, MR. TURNER, after debunking the idea that Cannes has to begin with a clinker (it has begun with MOONRISE KINGDOM only recently).

Day 2: Auteur Obligations D'Angelo defends the presence of directorial heavyweights, none of whom is at all over the hill, he points out. But he proposes Atom Egoyan for retirement after THE CAPTIVE. When he goes into detail about it he makes a case that while the film remains mysterious it's interesting, but as the pieces fall into place it becomes too silly and muddled to take seriously. He also discusses THAT LOVELY GIRL in detail, though he sums it up as little more than "a catalogue of grotesquerie." Auteurs are fine, D'A. is saying, but they're got to live up to their reps.

Day 3: Marathons And Sprints. D'A. explains how WINTER SLEEP will be seen by few stateside but at Cannes is a major event, with lots of journalists begging to be admitted to the Lumiere Theatre despite its having over 2,000 seats -- "In part, I suspect, that’s because it’s the longest film in Competition (at three hours and 16 minutes)—there’s a natural tendency for people to assume that longer = grander, better, more important. Ceylan seems to have bought into that idea himself, frankly." The first hour is "flat-out terrific," but the next two are absorbed indoors with endless petty bickering. The film still is magnificent and admirable, but much of it frankly "an endurance test." " Some movies really are just too damn long." D'Angelo explains why Bonello's SAINT LAURENT doesn't quite work and how it fails to be what you'd expect from the maker of HOUSE OF TOLERANCE. The only interesting thought sounds like that YSL makes the seeming oxymoron of "hedonistic workaholic" make sense in his own personal case. With "new kid on the competition block" D'A. explains how Damián Szifron makes his anthology pic WILD TALES (six unrelated tales) work by amusing and not wearing out any one tale's welcome. WINTER and SAINT LAURENT are marathons; WILD TALES is a sprint, or series of them. But it's too lightweight to justify being in Competition.

Day 4: Shivers The reference of course to IT FOLLOWS, the hip/hot newcomer horror flick, David Robert Mitchell's followup to his "lovely, beguiling debut feature" THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER (I have still not seen it), which debuted at Cannes Critics' Week four years ago. The premise: after sex with a new lover, the protagonist is pursued by a thing that can take any form, easy to escape but always murderously in pursuit, to be escaped only by transfer by sex with someone else, but if it kills that person, it reverts back to her. This sounds Cronenbergian but isn't, D'A. says. It makes me think of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This jumped to the top of D'A.'s listings, perhaps because he's looking for original coolness, because of suave and consistent style and showing how few trappings are needed to make a good horror movie. This was a nice day for D'A., since he also was quite charmed by Alice Rohrwacher's semi-autobiographical tale of a multicultural beekeeping family, THE WONDERS. Tommy Lee Jones's THE HOMESMAN was a disappointment to D'A. This review shows how weirdly D'A.'s full reviews have a ring of déja vu because his Twitter reviews are so spot-on. His AMOUR FOU review jut fleshes out the tweet too in a rigorously logical but also obvious way.

Day 5: Follow The Map Maybe not such a good day for this writer, with FOXCATCHER and MAPS TO THE STARS. He found little to like in either. D'Angelo compares SCREEN and LE FILM FRANCAIS' relative Competition ratings so far (I'll give these separately) to say FOXCATCHER is going to do well in one chart and maybe both, as the really award-worthy movie so far. He does not agree at all, not feeling that Bennett Miller gets beyond his creakily obvious biopic plot points, or manages to explain why this murder took place. As for MAPS TO THE STARS, D'Angelo found Bruce Wagner's 1989 SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS "dismally unfunny," so take it from tehre: Wagner's 20--year-old screenplay (which sounds strange) is the basis for Cronenberg's movie. Bennett Miller could have used a map: he has no destination. Cronenberg could have used something else, a different screenplay. D'Angelo felt "once again" the Competition films of the day were outshone by a feisty little movie, a refreshingly old school Western made by a Dane and starring Mads Mikkelson, THE SALVATION.

Day 6: Empahic Automatons of Cinematic Excellence Those are the Dardenne brothers (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT. And D'A. thinks their new film may be their best yet. He can't understand why Naomi Kawase is a Cannes darling: just a lot of actors mouthing her ponderous philosophical generalizations. This new one STILL THE WATER is better than her previous, but still nobody outside Cannes is likely to see it, or needs to.

Day 7: Pretensions and Pleasures. The pretensions are Hazavencius and his THE SEARCH and perhaps Ryan Gosling's high-flown Gothic noir LOST RIVER, which D'Angelo skipped (after dire "toxic" reports) in favor of an unexpected French Canadian film called JE DORS NICOLE, which he enjoyed very much in spite of its not having any particular point to make. Also a pleasure, despite its not being an ideal project for the director, was André Téchiné's IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER, with Guillaume Canet and Catherine Deneuve; he (D'A.) was somewhat thrown off and by the discovery that it's based on true events, which belatedly explained its unsatisfying ending. "That damp fizzle of an ending prevents it from ranking among Téchiné’s best work. . ."


GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Day 8: Reinventing the format. He means Godard's GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE and Dolan's MOMMY, and he has a lot to say about both.

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes.

Two critics polls.

"My" Cannes 2014 coverage may be getting too long. But here to sum things up neatly in terms of contrasting critical ratinbgs is D'Angelo's collation of up to yesterday's ranking of Competition films seen so far. The French don't give a damn about MR. TURNER and THE WONDERS, and quite like SAINT LAURENT. Nobody has much use for THE CAPTIVE, and the clear favorite (even if nobody will much want to watch it) is Nuri Bilge Ceylan's WINTER SLEEP. SCREEN represents an international poll of critics; LE FILM FRANCAIS, just French ones.

SCREEN
(average rating out of four stars; I broke the three-way tie by number of 4-star ratings)

3.6 Mr. Turner (Leigh)
3.4 Winter Sleep (Ceylan)
2.6 The Wonders (Rohrwacher)
2.6 Timbuktu (Sissako)
2.6 The Homesman (Jones)
2.2 Wild Tales (Szifron)
1.7 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
1.6 The Captive (Egoyan)

LE FILM FRANÇAIS
(Note: these averages aren’t directly comparable to Screen’s, even though both essentially use a four-star scale. Just note the relative ranking.)

3.00 Timbuktu (Sissako)
2.79 Winter Sleep (Ceylan)
2.33 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
2.14 The Homesman (Jones)
1.93 Wild Tales (Szifron)
1.87 Mr. Turner (Leigh)
1.50 The Captive (Egoyan)
1.09 The Wonders (Rohrwacher)

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Tues. 20 May. Day Seven.


COTILLARD IN TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

DEUX JOURS, UNE NUIT/TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (DARDENNE BROTHERS). A crystal-clear Palme d'Or favorite emerges with the new Dardennes movie shown this morning. It jumps to the top of D'Angelo's Cannes '14 list and other people's lists too.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Au hasard Cotillard [Deux jours, une nuit] (Dardennes): 84. These guys may yet sell me on this whole "humanism" thing.

GUARDIAN'S (Peter Bradshaw review ) 5/5 STARS."The Dardenne brothers' employment rights fable looks likely to beat off stiff competition and bag them their third Palme d'Or, while star Marion Cotillard is on course for best actress."

VARIETY'S (Scott Foundas review) "The Dardenne brothers take on a movie star and lose none of their beautifully observed verisimilitude in another powerhouse slice of working-class Belgian life. . .the Dardennes once again find a richness of human experience that dwarfs most movies made on an epic canvas. Cotillard’s presence will assure the widest exposure to date of any Dardenne effort, particularly in the U.S., where IFC will distribute later this year." Releasing theatrically in France now, it has already received predictable raves (Allociné press rating 4.2 based on 6 reviews so far.

QUEEN AND COUNTRY (JOHN BOORMAN): 3/5 STARS (GUARDIAN). Peter Bradshaw review. A sequel to Boorman's semi-autobiograpahical HOPE AND GLORY, this about a young man in Fifties England doing his military service, having more trouble with girls. "Entertaining, if lightweight..." DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT.

COMING HOME (ZHANG YIMOU): HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Elizabeth Kerr review: " stately and polished, typical of Zhang, the film’s lack of any real thematic thrust or significant commentary ."

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 2h
Coming Home (Zhang): 58. Shamelessly melodramatic amalgam of the returning-POW movie and the amnesiac romance. Enjoyably cornball.

This was shown at Berlin when Sony Pictures Classics bought the US distribution. (Can a movie be both "stately" and "shamelessly melodramatic"? OUT OF COMPETITION.

Another from from yesterday:
A HARD DAY (KiIM SEONG-0HUNG) VARIETY Maggie Lee review"A hit-and-run lands a cop in more trouble than he could ever have imagined in “A Hard Day,” a South Korean police thriller that finds helmer-scribe Kim Seong-hung handling a taut yet elaborately plotted narrative with poise, control and near-faultless technical execution." (This is a more high-action and criminal thriller version of Matthew Saville's Australian moral dilemma film FELONY [FCS 2014] I reviewed in early March. Both concern cops involved in fatal hit-and-runs who cover them up.) DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT.

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes 2014 Day Seven, con't.


CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'LOST RIVER'

LOST RIVER (RYAN GOSLING) 2/5 STARS GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review): "Ryan Gosling flounders with directing debut....The first film in which Ryan Gosling features behind the camera rather than in front wears its influences on its sleeve and its folly all over the shop. For 'River' read 'Opportunity or 'Any Sense Of Proportion Or Humility' or maybe just 'Mind'." You can watch a teaser trailer of this debut shot in desolate Detroit: it's surreal, magic realism, arty, and owes various gestures to Refn, Malick, Lynch, a touch of Benh Zeitlin, Cianfrance, and others. Boldly visual but formless and overindulgent. Something in there somewhere though. INDIEWIRE (Lyttleton review) provides more specific discussion. VARIETY (Justin Chang review): "Ryan Gosling makes an altogether inauspicious debut with this risible slab of Detroit gothic." UN CERTAIN REGARD.

Two more from D'Angelo:

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Tu dors Nicole (Lafleur): 71. Random French-Canuck Fortnight comedy blends various influences (GHOST WORLD, F. HA) into unique sensibility.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
In the Name of My Daughter (Téchiné): 63. Same deal as GIRL ON THE TRAIN: Would be superb as fiction, fizzles when real-life stuff intrudes.

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S David Rooney review calls IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER (French title 'L'Homme Qu'on Aimait Trop') "a "musty, out of touch effort." Writing for the the same publication VARIETY regular Boyd van Hoeij describes TU DORS NICOLE (which is French Canadian, and the "third idiosyncratic directorial outing of Quebec editor Stephane Lafleur." as "shot in gorgeous, black-and-white 35mm" and "an affecting, funny and eccentric -- in the best sense of the word -- meditation on that in-between state that people in their early twenties find themselves, as they are technically old enough to participate fully in all of life’s activities but they still lack the experience to know what they really want or what’s really good for them."

Still coming in Competition in Cannes 2014's remaining days:

ASSAYAS' CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
GODARD'S GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE
HAZANAVICIUS' THE SEARCH
LOACH'S JIMMY’S HALL
ANDREY ZVYAGINTSEV'S LEVIATHAN

D'Angelo chose to go to Téchiné's Out of Competition film L’HOMME QU’ON AIMAIT TROP (In the Name of my Daughter) and skip Lisandro Alonso's UN CERTAIN REGARD one JAUJA (LAND OF PLENTY) starring Viggo Mortensen, which VARIETY called "beautiful but belabored." In HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Deborah Young's review makes this 19th-century vaguely costumed flick sound interesting, a bit more 'mainstream' than this cult director's usual work (LOS MUERTOS, LIVERPOOL) and much more talky, but still enigmatic.

The festival Marché/Market films seem to have been by invitation only this year, but D'Angelo said he wasn't interested though he has watched some of them in the past. Yesterday Market included a sneak screening of Jon Stewart's directorial debut ROSEWATER starring Gael García Bernal as an Iranian-Canadian journalist. This will probably be shown at Toronto.

Showoff: Justin Bieber walking the Crosette today

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Wed. 21 May.

THE SEARCH (Michel Hazanavicius) panned in GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review) 2/5 STARS "desperately well-meaning" ..."naive and misjudged;" ...[lead role of Bérénice Béjo] "dull and complacently conceived" ... Annette Benning "frankly even more exasperating." An EU search for a lost boy's mother frankly inspired by a same-name Fred Zinneman 1948 Oscar winner. INDIEWIRE' Eric Kohn calls this "a remake devoid of a purpose." Agreement seems to be his big Oscar win for THE ARTIST gave Hazanavicius license (or he thought it did) to do something he shouldn't have. D'Angelo gives it his lowest rating other than his one W/O:

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Self-Importance [i.e. THE SEARCH] (Hazanavicius): 25. This is what happens when you validate a guy like this with Oscars & convince him he's Major.

He should return to his light comedic OSS 117 stuff (and apparently he plans to).


CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'THE END OF LANGUAGE'

THE END OF LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Godard) AKA ADIEU AU LANGUAGE.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Goodbye to Language (Godard): 54. Content is his usual gobbledygook (adjust as necessary), but holy shit he found ways to give 3-D a point.

GUARDIAN 3/5 STARS: (Peter Bradshaw) calls it "chaotic, eccentric, exasperating and mad. " (Twitter) "The latest from the great director features a keynote turn from his own mutt, Miéville, erratic edits, an incomprehensible plot, mesmeric moments and a reassuringly idiosyncratic world-view." VARIETY (Scott Foundas review): 'Contempt' meets 'Lassie,' sort of, in Jean-Luc Godard’s 'Goodbye to Language,' a characteristically vigorous, playful, mordant commentary on everything from the state of movies to the state of the world from French cinema’s oldest living enfant terrible. Its title notwithstanding, Godard’s 39th feature-length work proves its maker has plenty left to say and plenty of new ways of saying it, from its freewheeling use of multiple video formats to its radical experiments in 3D. For 69 densely packed minutes that feel like an adrenaline shot to the brain, 'Goodbye' continually reaffirms that no single filmmaker has done more to test and reassert the possibilities of the moving image during the last half-century of the art form.

MAIDAN (Sergei Loznitsa) GUARDIAN 3/5 (Andrew Pulver review) "Sergei Loznitsa's documentary about the anti-government protests that forced out Ukraine's president is a vital and urgent film – even if his rigorous method doesn't help to convey the broader picture." Loznitsa previously directed the documentary-mix fiction features MY JOY and IN THE FOG (both reviewed on Filmleaf). Leslie Felperin gushes over MAIDAN in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: "This stunning, epic-scaled film harkens back to the heroic, journalistic roots of documentary-making and yet feels ineffably modern and formally daring. "


CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'MAIDAN'

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 56m
Mommy (Dolan): 54. I'd watch Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément in anything, but this just seems like a whole lot of random thrashing.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 52m
Snow in Paradise (Hulme): W/O. There are hints of something odd going on in this otherwise humdrum gangster flick, but I wasn't curious.

MOMMY (DOLAN) GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review) 4/5 STARS: "Cannes 2014 review: Mommy - dearest work yet from Xavier Dolan
The latest from the Canadian 25-year-old is a splashy, transgressive treat, from trailer-trash chat to unexpected sex and surprising emotional depth."

MOMMY (DOLAN) VARIETY Peter Debruge review) "A funny, heartbreaking and, above all, original work from Canadian enfant terrible Xavier Dolan. . . unexpectedly self-effacing fifth feature [at age 25!]" Here Dolan acknowledges that his problems with his mother starkly dramatized in the almost revenge flick I KILLED MY MOTHER were due to misunderstandings on both sides, not just hers. "It’s uncanny how much Dolan’s style and overall solipsism have evolved in five years’ time." Originality includes his use of 1:1 aspect ration, which is derivative from no one, not even himself, and in Cannes projection looks taller than it is wide.


MOMMY

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Thurs. 22 May.

JIMMY'S HALL (KEN LOACH)

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Footloose [JIMMY'S HALL] (Loach): 41. Features the howler of the festival: The Lithgowian priest asking "What is this obsession with pleasure?!"

GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw): 3/5 STARS: "Ken Loach sets community against clergy in Jimmy Gralton biopic
Ken Loach's thoughtful take on Irish communist Jimmy Gralton's battle to save a community hall from an uptight priest is powerful, if a little pedagogic."
VARIETY (Scott Foundas ) "Ken Loach has taken a despicable episode of modern Irish history — the 1933 deportation without trial of one of its own citizens, James Gralton — and made a surprisingly lovely, heartfelt film from it with 'Jimmy’s Hall.' A thematic sequel of sorts to his Cannes-winning 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. . ."

THE SALT OF THE EARTH (WENDERS, SALGADO)

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 40m
The Salt of the Earth (Wenders & Salgado): 62. Lets the elder Salgado's photographs and V/O annotations do the work, to oft-stirring effect.

GUARDIAN (Andrew Pulver) 4/5 STARS [/B] "A documentary portrait of the renow
ned Brazilian photographer [Sebastião Salgado] by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado manages to be both illuminating and uplifting."
VARIETY (Jay Weissberg): "Wim Wenders confirms his mastery of the documentary form with this stunning ode to Sebastiao Salgado."

LEVIATHON (ZVYAGINTSEV)

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 33m
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev): TBD. Easily my favorite of his; good vs. great hinges on what I decide the film implies about a specific event.

GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw): 5/5 STARS: "Leviathan - a new Russian masterpiece. . . Andrei Zvagintsev's latest is a very strong contender for the Palme d'Or - a mix of Hobbes, Chekov and the Bible, full of extraordinary images and magnificent symmetry.

VARIETY: JUSTIN CHANG predicts LEVIATHON will win the Palme d'Or.

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. 22-23 May. Windup of the festival.


ZVYAGINTSEV'S LEVIATHON

Big prizes? Contenders.

LEVIATHON (ANDREI ZVYAGINTSEV)

VARIETY (Yesterday, before the film was shown): "CANNES: Underscoring the still enduring attraction of movies from a select number of much-courted auteurs, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s much-anticipated 'Leviathan,' is on track to sell out near all the world, of major territories, by Cannes market end." (This is mindless promo journalism,, when you think about it: to say the movies of "much-courted auteurs" have a "still enduring attraction" is redundant. Was Zvyagintsev ever "hot"? Anyway now he apparently is. That's the point. Is it why D'Angelo is being coy about how he rates LEVIATHON? The thing is, most of the Competition films have all been seen now and for a moment there's seemingly a larger field of possibilities than there really is. Besides TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, and now clearly LEVIATHON, there's WINTER SLEEP, FOXCATCHER, MR. TURNER, THE WONDERS, even MOMMY. Maybe TIMBUKTU. All we can be sure of is the non-successes, even turkeys: THE CAPTIVE (called CAPTIVES by the French to avoid contaminating the memory of Ackerman's La captive ), MAPS TO THE STARS. And it's obvious others that made a respectable showing are not contenders.


There has been enthusiastic discussion of some UN CERTAIN REGARD titles, some MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS, one OUT OF COMPETITION, and a couple of SPECIAL SCREENINGS. There have been a lot of interesting films. Some of them will turn up at the New York Film Festival -- where betting on prizes doesn't happen because there aren't any and just being in the Main Slate is the shared prize.

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes. Fri. 23 May. Last film; prize predictions.


BINOCHE, ASSAYAS, MORETZ, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (OLIVIER ASSAYAS) Trailer.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas): 67. Relentlessly brainy, to the point where it's constantly interpreting itself. Really sharp, though.

GUARDIAN (Xian Brooiks review): 4/5 STARS: "Art is the ultimate achievement, says Olivier Assayas's meta-drama with Juliette Binoche as an ageing star, Kristen Stewart her PA and Chloë Grace Moretz the younger model – and it's nearly brilliant enough to convince us."

D'Angelo (and everybody else) starts summing up favorites for the Palme d'Or (these are not his own top films in his Twitter ratings). Peter Bradshaw tweets "tearful hugs" to everyone. Many journalists leave before the prizes.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
Favorites in Competition (in order): Dardennes, Leigh, Assayas, Zvyagintsev, Szifron, Rohrwacher.

This means: TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, MR. TURNER, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA , LEVIATHON, WILD TALES, and THE WONDERS. That's not narrowing it down much, but it eliminates earlier apparent favorites (WINTER SLEEP, FOXCATCHER).


PRIDE

PRIDE (MATTHEW WARCHUS) GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw): Cannes 2014 review: Pride - Billy Elliot continued with rousing gay rights romance set during miners' strike
Theatre director Matthew Warchus makes a successful transfer to screen with a funny, no-punches-pulled tale set against the backdrop of the mid-80s 'Pits and Perverts' concerts." Bradsha also points out Warchus is taking over Kevin Spacey's job of running the Old Vic.

GUARDIAN's PETER BRADSHAW has listed his Cannes Competition prize should win/will win predictions.

• Palme D'Or: Mr Turner/Mr Turner

• Grand prix: TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (dirs. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)/TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

• Director's prize: Abderrahmane Sissako for TIMBUKTU/Xavier Dolan for MOMMY

• Jury prize: LEVIATHON (dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev)/THE WONDERS (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)

• Best screenplay: Damián Szifrón for WILD TALES/Bruce Wagner for MAPS OF THE STARS

• Best actor: Channing Tatum for FOXCATCHER/Steve Carell for FOXCATCHER

• Best actress: Marion Cotillard for TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHTt/Marion Cotillard for TWI DAYS, ONE NIGHT

VARIETY'S JUSTIN CHANG has a Cannes prize prediction piece.

Palme d'Or: LEVIATHON
Grand Prix: MR. TURNER
Jury Prize: TIMBUKTU
Best Director: XAVIER DOLAN
Actor: STEVE CARELL
Actress: MARION COTILLARD
Screenplay: WINTER SLEEP

Chang also has lengthy discussion of other possibilities and odds determined by thinking Jane Campion, who is keenly aware of Cannes history, will want NOT to reward directors who've been heavily rewarded before. WINTER SLEEP has won the FIPRESCI Prize.

UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZES listed by Justin Chang (Variety)

WHITE GOD, Hungarian helmer Kornel Mundruczo’s audacious drama about a canine uprising, won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday.

The jury prize was given to FORCE MAJEURE, Scandinavian helmer Ruben Ostlund’s sharply comedic tale of a family weathering a crisis while on vacation at a ski lodge. Ostlund was previously in Un Certain Regard with 2011′s “Play.”

The jury awarded a special prize to THE SALT OF THE EARTH, Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s documentary about Salgado’s photographer father, Sebastiao.

Ensemble acting honors were awarded to the cast of Un Certain Regard opener PART GIRL, the debut feature of French helmers Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis. The actor prize went to Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil for his performance as the title character in Rolf de Heer’s CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, a drama set in Australia’s Northern Territory.
--VARIETY, Justin Chang.