A Touch of Sin
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Cannes News, Weekend Round-Up: Controversy Over Kisses and Dominique Strauss-Kahn
While we took the weekend off from keeping tabs on news in and around Cannes, here are some highlights we missed: • Over at the Montreal Gazette, Liz Ferguson rounds up photos of red carpet activism, ranging from nearly the entire cast of The Expendables 3 holding papers reading “Bring our girls back” (after riding down the streets in two tanks) to Jauja director Lisandro Alonso, star Viggo Mortensen, screenwriter Fabian Casas and other cast members bearing a sign reading “We want the trophy” in Spanish — a message of support for Buenos Aires’ Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 19, 2014 -
“I Don’t Have to Pick Up a Gun, I Can Just Pick Up a Camera:” Jia Zhangke on A Touch Of Sin
“I really want to say that we are all connected,” Jia Zhangke said Monday night. “This is our issue.” If that makes his latest film, A Touch Of Sin, sound like some sort of Chinese Crash redux, it’s just a quirk of phrasing: the connection Zhangke’s thinking of is an epidemic of violence in China, which he describes as a response of the economically dispossessed trying to reclaim some form of dignity. Viewed as isolated actions, the four violent incidents dramatized in A Touch Of Sin might seem like singular occurrences; stitched together, they’re obviously connected symptoms of Chinese society […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 3, 2013 -
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: New York Film Festival I
I have both good and bad news about the New York Film Festival (September 27-October 13). First, the good news: For the most part, the films in this impressive, carefully balanced program are very good. And the bad: The fest has become so expansive that quantity just may overshadow quality. A bright, high-energy, and well-regarded expert in all things cinema, Kent Jones debuts as head of the NYFF. For the first time in its 51 years, the composition of the selection committee has been, wisely, revised. Traditionally it was guided by the fest director, always a professional programmer, but rounded […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 26, 2013 -
Cannes Film Festival 2013
For American independents, this year’s Cannes Film Festival felt like the end of an era, especially with the high-profile premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s final film, Behind the Candelabra, playing two decades after sex, lies, and videotape seemed to promise the emergence of a vital American independent film culture. These questions re-emerged not just because Soderbergh has announced that he is retiring from filmmaking, but also because he has been widely critical of a film industry that is increasingly focused on international blockbusters. But the events at this year’s Cannes also raised a number of questions about the role of the […]
by Chuck Tryon on Jul 18, 2013 -
Lesbian Lovemaking, Graphic Novels and a Changing China: Parsing the Cannes Awards
Sex sells, but it’s not the kind of thing that wins highbrow prizes—right? The fact that Abdellatif Kechiche’s explicit and entrancing Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie d’Adèle, chapitre 1 et 2) won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is a watershed moment, not least of which because its frank depiction of lesbian lovemaking wasn’t an obstacle towards being taken seriously. People may have tweeted their puerile snickering about the randy onscreen romps, but any sober viewer would acknowledge that those relatively brief moments (especially in a 179-minute film) were hardly exploitative — in fact, they […]
by Stephen Garrett on May 27, 2013 -
Cannes 2013: Jia’s A Touch of Sin and Ozon’s Young and Beautiful
Negotiating Cannes is a unique challenge, especially for someone attending the festival for the first time. Although the festival is commonly associated with red carpets and other assorted glamour, my clearest memories of the festival entail trekking from a borrowed condo in Antibes early in the morning — thanks to the monumental patience of my wife who drove me in — to queue up with other journalists for an 8:30 press screening (finding those lines the first couple of days is an entirely different matter). Rainy weather early in the festival also seemed to undermine Cannes’ reputation for sun and […]
by Chuck Tryon on May 19, 2013
