'Movie Magazine International' at Cannes

Jane Campion, President

Movie Magazine International will again be at the Cannes Film Festival, this time for the 67th festival held from May 14 to 25th with Jane Campion as Jury President. The festival started off with the debut of the out of competition film "Grace of Monaco" directed by Olivier Dahan and starring Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelley, and Tim Roth as Prince Rainier. The film will not be released at least for now in the US according to distributor Harvey Weinstein. The Royal Family of Monaco has boycotted the Cannes festival because of the film, which takes liberty with details about life of Grace Kelley. It is generally understood that Grace Kelley was ambivalent about her life as a princess in Monaco and was homesick for the US, and preferred speaking English as much as she could. Dahan claims that his film is not a biopic, but reality, and that the film is about cinema. Critics have blasted the film, not because of the controversy but because of the shallowness.

Dahan brought Marion Cotillard to fame with his film about Edith Piaf, but there was not a follow up for success with this film. The extraordinary makeover by Cotillard gave her an Academy Award. Many view Nicole Kidman as an established actress who often plays elegant characters, and so the role of Grace Kelley did not require the ambition that Cotillard brought to the screen. The choice of the film at any rate puts women at the center, something Cannes receives just criticism for not doing.
There is also this year’s jury president Jane Campion, the only woman to win a Palme d’or in the history of the festival. Campion instructed her jury to not read any reviews of the films, which is good advice- there are two women in the official competition, the Italian filmmaker Alice Rorhwacher, who presented "The Wonders" starring Alba Rorhwacher and Monica Bellucci, and "Still the Water", by the Japanese director Naomi Kawase.

Jean Luc Godard is back at Cannes with a new film "Goodbye to Language" about a man, a woman and a dog. Other veteran directors include the Dardenne Bros from Belgium with "Two Days One Night", Atom Egoyan with "The Captives" from Canada, Ken Loach UK - "Jimmy’s Hal"l, David Cronenberg, Canada, "Map to the Stars", the young Canadian Xavier Dolan, "Mommy", Mike Leigh UK "Mr Turner", Olivier Assayas from France, "Clouds of Sils Maria" and Nuri Bilge Ceylan with "Winter Sleep" from Turkey. Tommy Lee Jones is at Cannes this year with "The Homesman".

There are also several sidebars to official competition:

Cinema Foundation selections, Un Certain Regard, Cinema Acid, Cannes Classics, which presents spaghetti Westerns International Critics Week, a selection of short films vying for the Camera d’or and the Queer Palm competition.

Next week more from the Cannes film Festival.

© 2014 - Moira Sullivan - Air Date: 05/14/14
Movie Magazine International