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Three more Cannes standouts
In what is shaping up as the tightest race for the Palme d’Or in years, three more movies have joined “The Artist” and “The Tree of Life” on the critically acclaimed list.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian filmmakers who have won two Palmes already, have brought yet another touching drama to Cannes, “The Kid With a Bike.”
Cecile de France and Thomas Doret star in this tale of a kind-hearted hairdresser who tries to help a boy who has been abandoned by his father.
At first, the boy named Cyril can’t believe that his father has truly left him, and he strikes out in rage at nearly everyone around him at a children’s home. But when he meets Samantha, the hairdresser, the two establish a connection.
As with most Dardenne movies, the plot is not complicated. It simply explores characters and their motivations, never descending into sentimentality but illuminating social problems.
Aki Kaurismaki of Finland crafts another small-scale but big-hearted tale in “Le Havre.”
It centers on a quirky shoeshiner, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), and his straight-faced but loving wife Arletty (Kati Outinen). At first, it appears that Marcel is nothing more than a scoundrel, stealing baguettes from the neighborhood grocer and defying other shopkeepers who don’t want him on their sidewalks.
But when Marcel comes across a young African boy who has entered France illegally and is the subject of a police hunt, he becomes much more than a mild-mannered loser. He takes the kid into his home, and the neighborhood rallies around his efforts to get the child to his immigrant mother in England.
“La Havre” is full on gentle wit, which is a Kaurismaki trademark. But it’s also subversive of state authority and of people who would seek to punish a child. In the Screen International ratings, it has the highest score of any competition film so far.
Then there’s the controversial “Melancholia,” from Lars von Trier of Denmark. It’s nearly as ambitious as “The Tree of Life,” with all of its celestial ponderings. But where director Terrence Malick searches for meaning in the stars, von Trier sees the heavens as a metaphor for human anxieties.
In “Melancholia,” anxiety is represented by a planet 10 times the size of Earth, which is headed in our direction. Scientists predict that it will miss Earth, but as it keeps getting closer, the lives of a family at an exclusive estate become increasingly strained.
Kirsten Dunst stars, along with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland and “True Blue” vampire Alexander Skarsgard.
Von Trier uses startling images to portray what could be the end of the world. And he does this in the context of an extended wedding scene that begins the movie.
Visually, it’s breathtaking. Thematically, it’s more problematic. But if you look at the movie as a metaphor for depression, then you’re probably seeing it the way von Trier intended.
Three more highly anticipated movies are still to come in Cannes. They are Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In,” starring Antonio Banderas; Paolo Sorrentino’s “This Must Be the Place,” starring Sean Penn; and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive,” starring Ryan Gosling.
From left, actors Brady Corbet, Louisa Krause, producer Antonio Campos, producer Josh Mond, actress Elizabeth Olsen and director Sean Durkin pose during a photo call for The Kid With a Bike , at the 64th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Sunday, May 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
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