The Screengrab : fernando mereilles

Cannes Rundown, Day 1: Blindness

Paul Clark — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:31:00 GMT

For the last few years, Screengrab has been lucky enough to have its own man in Cannes. But with Mike D’Angelo’s recent announcement that he wouldn’t be returning to the Croisette this year, we’ve found ourselves without a correspondent to cover the world’s glitziest film festival. So instead, from now through the end of the fest, we’ll be spotlighting reviews of all films in competition- and some out of competition- from writers throughout the blogosphere. It’s no Wack Experiment, but it’ll have to do.

Cannes kicked off today with the Opening Night film, Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness. Here’s a taste of what some folks are saying:

Justin Chang, Variety- “A horror tale, a bleak allegory and a chronicle of human suffering as consoling as it is devastating, "Blindness" emerges onscreen both overdressed and undermotivated, scrupulously hitting the novel's beats yet barely approximating, so to speak, its vision.”

James Rocchi, Cinematical- “While the sweeping allegory of Blindness created a lush, captivating story on the page, film's a slightly less forgiving medium; we find ourselves asking questions not of character and metaphor, but, rather, of plot logic and possibility, and those sharp inquiries poke holes in the film's tension… But [the filmmakers] are not, to their credit, afraid of showing the ugly things that spring from the film's central event; we're shown a world of muck and filth and waste and rotting flesh as the ward slips into chaos in the absence of law and minor medical problems spiral into catastrophes.”

Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere- “The problem with Fernando Meirelles' Blindness, which screened this morning at the Cannes Film Festival, is that the milieu of the story, which is based on a novel by Jose Saramago, is bleak and confining. It's more than just the milieu, actually. The second and third act of this film delivers a kind of lockdown vibe… This is basically an insane asylum drama -- most of it taking place in a squalid prison in which the victims of said blindness plague have been quarantined -- and as such produced, in me, a deep hunger to escape.”

Stay tuned to Screengrab for more exciting coverage of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The official Cannes Web site can be found here.

Cannes 2008: Late-Breaking News!

Paul Clark — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:19:00 GMT

One week ago today, the Cannes Film Festival powers that be unveiled this year's selection of films in Competition. But while there was plenty on that list to get excited about, it seems they weren't finished, as today they announced three more selections in the official Competition lineup.

True to form, one of the latecomers was a French entry, and it proved to be a pretty interesting choice: Entre les murs, the latest film by celebrated filmmaker Laurent Cantet, whose previous works included the 2000 film Time Out. Another American film was added today as well- Two Lovers, the latest from We Own the Night's James Gray, a Cannes favorite. Two Lovers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow, is said to be a romance, making it something of a change of pace for Gray, who has to date specialized in crime stories.

But the big news today was the announcement of this year's opening-night film, Fernando Meirelles' Blindness. The film, which stars Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, will screen in competition, with its pedigree the hope is that it improves on the dicey precedent set by recent Cannes openers such as Fanfan la Tulipe and The Da Vinci Code.

Added out of competition was the opener of the festival's Un Certain Regard sidebar, Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen (no, not that one). Finally, the closing film of the festival was officially announced as being Barry Levinson's What Just Happened?. Sadly, this star-studded film (the cast includes Robert DeNiro, Bruce Willis, and Robin Wright Penn) is a Hollywood satire, not a big-screen adaptation of the long-forgotten sitcom Wha'Happened?. So all you Mike LaFontaine fans in the audience will be sorely disappointed.

But wait, there's more! Two more names were added to the Official Competition Jury (also announced last week), which brings the jury up to nine members. The additions were French actress Jeanne Balibar (who worked with fellow jury member Sergio Castellitto in Va Savoir)...

... and Iranian writer/director Marjane Satrapi, who directed last year's Jury Prize-winner Persepolis and collaborated with jury prez Sean Penn on the English-language version of the film.

The Cannes Film Festival will be held from May 14 through the 25th.

Trailer Review: Blindness

Paul Clark — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

This is a first-rate teaser in the classic sense, in that it gives audiences a taste of the film's premise and little else. I'd venture a guess that all of the footage we see here is taken from the opening twenty minutes of the film- we meet the characters, the plot (taken from a novel by Jose Saramago) is introduced, and the titular malady escalates to epidemic proportions. It's tantalizing and highly effective. Like Children of Men's Alfonso Cuaron before him, director Fernando Meirelles appears to bring a certain level of deep-seated spirituality to the film's science-fiction roots, something that's apparent even in this relatively short teaser, which is nonetheless full of ethereal fades to white and Gods'-eye-few camera shots. Also, it's nice to see Julianne Moore working in a project worthy of her talent again, after too many ill-fitting comedies and cookie-cutter melodramas, and costars like Gael Garcia Bernal and the always-compelling Mark Ruffalo should make a good match for her.

Screengrab Review: City of Men

Peter Smith — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Review by Bryan Whitefield.

When City of God was released in 2002, it became an international sensation for its mix of stylized violence and gritty portrayal of life in the Brazilian favelas. It launched the career of director Fernando Mereilles, who used the same location and several of the non-professional actors from the film to create an episodic series for Brazilian TV called City of Men.

The show was much more light-hearted than the original film, following the day-to-day exploits of lovable teenagers Acerola and Laranjinha whose various schemes ranged from selling popsicles to losing their virginity. Capturing a more hopeful spirit while never turning a blind eye to violence and harsh conditions, the show also gave audiences a chance to watch the two boys literally grow up on camera. In many ways it covered similar territory to season four of HBO's The Wire — kids living under difficult circumstances with no guidance, failed by social institutions and finding an alternative in community-minded drug dealers who at least offer a path to money and mobility.

The film City of Men was written and directed by Paolo Morelli, who helmed several of the show's episodes, and maintains the show's looseness and vibrancy, highlighting the contradiction between Brazil's incredible beauty and nearly unimaginable poverty, crime and violence. Picking up where the show left off, we find the two friends forced to face an early adulthood. Acerola is now a father himself, while Laranjinha is consumed with uncovering the identity of the father he never knew. Because of the dire conditions that surround them, the story has a built-in drama and the characters are forced into difficult, even critical decisions. The movie plays more like a series finale than a stand-alone feature, but if it leads viewers back to the consistently excellent television series, it's valuable even just as an advertisement. — Bryan Whitefield