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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
The cast of Julieta at the Cannes premiere (Photo: AC POUJOULAT / AFP)
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Almodovar's
Julieta and Assayas'
Personal Shopper
Cannes, France - The 69th annual Cannes Film Festival (Le Festival International du Film de Cannes) is underway in France, and Travolta Cooper, filmmaker of BLACK MOSES and founder of #TheCinemas is on location reporting for TheBahamasWeekly.com. Here's Cooper's next segment:
The Cannes Film Festival attracts press, filmmakers, and talent in the film industry from all around the world. But make no mistake, “Cannes” it belongs to the French. I don’t believe it is of any coincidence that a festival, one to almost rival Hollywood in terms of influence and prominence, is situated in the nation of France. Why not? Well, what most do not know is that Hollywood did not invent the movies? French men did.
If you care about cinema and its origins, I challenge you to look up names like Auguste and Louis Lumiere. Research George Melies and his short film A Trip To The Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune). So from the origins of cinema, all the way through the Cahiers Du Cinema (French New Wave) of the 1960’s all the way through today, Cannes is one of the prize jewels of France. Cinema (a French word) is in France’s blood. And it is in the breath of the French audience.
Hence, this Cannes space is sacred ground for French and world cinema. And the French audience does not let you forget it. It doesn’t matter if its Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, or Quentin Tarantino (American filmmakers that have all been influenced by French Filmmakers) if a movie sucks; you film gets “booed.” It gets dismissed. Right there live at the premiere with the filmmaker (or as they say “Auteur”) present. At the same time if it’s a good film, the audience will applaud. And, if it is great the audience will stand to their feet and applaud. The reverence here for cinema is one to rival that of worship and the Palais De Festival (the center and headquarters of Cannes) at times feels like a “church” for cinema. I haven’t witness a film to get a standing ovation yet, but there have been cheers and boos.
Applause came for Pedro Almodovar’s new film
Julieta. The name Almodovar cinema is almost synonymous with the mention of Spanish cinema. He is their most preeminent and prolific filmmaker and in some way almost invented modern Spanish cinema.
Julieta is based on three short stories from Canadian author and Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro’s book Runaway, which is about a woman who is estranged from her daughter for some 13 years. It stars two of Spain’s most popular actresses Emma Suarez and Adriana Ugarte as they play same woman who ages some 32 years. I learned today that Julieta was supposed to be Almodovar’s English Language debut. And that it was to star Meryl Streep. That didn’t quite work out, so he relocated the stories from Canada to Spain.
Julieta has all the trademarks of Almodovar cinema: bright colors, family secrets, and female centric storytelling. While this one does not rank with his best like Women On The Verge, Talk To Her, and Bad Education, it was pleasant enough to generate a mild applause from the general audience and myself.
Julieta is short on traditional story plot structure (which made it slow at times), instead, as it title suggests, it is a character driven piece in which the lead characters (embodied by the two lead actresses who play the same role) provide the “act structure”. In other words, whenever Emma Suarez or Adriana Ugrate shows up in the film, you know that you’re witnessing a new act of the film.
The cast of Personal Shopper at Cannes (Photo: V. Hache / AFP)
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Personal Shopper is Oliver Assays entry into the festival. Mr. Assays is a French filmmaker and represents some of the best of modern French films like
Clouds of Sils Maria and
Summer Hours. The movie stars Kristen Stewart as a supermodel fashion assistant name Maureen, who’s also a psychic medium and is wrecked with guilt over the death of her twin brother. Maureen herself can die from the same condition at any moment as her twin. If that premise sounds a bit convoluted and strange, then don’t worry, so is the movie.
Personal Shopper was “booed” at the premiere. The French audience, and world audience were not having it. I personally liked the whole “ghost” theme – in the living and the dead – but it didn’t quite come together for me. It had loads of potential to be an interesting twist on the “ghost story” but it just comes off as strange and shocking.
Caribbean film or Cariwood will never happen without the Caribbean audience. It is really that simple. All of this is in vain until the region can come together and cheer Caribbean Film or boo Cariwood movies. This will depend on the relationship between the Caribbean audience and its filmmakers. Who are the Caribbean filmmakers that will be revered and respected in the region like Assayas is in France? Who is the Almodovar to almost brand Caribbean film like the Spanish auteur did Spain? As it stands there is a film from the Dominican Republic playing in the Marche Du Cinema that I am about to see soon. There are short films in the Short Film Corner segment of Cannes from Cuba and Puerto Rico that you should be hearing about tomorrow. These are single and lonesome screenings that won’t require the masses at Cannes to see the Caribbean story and life revered on the epic screen and space of the Grand Lumeier Theater at the Palais des Festivals.
This has to begin at home. Our regional films must be embraced, respected, booed and cheered at home; in hopes of them making it here, where cinema was born - France.
© Copyright 2016 by thebahamasweekly.com
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