Screen2011_107x304mm5Ads_Layout 1 28.04.11 10:23 Seite 5
NEW GERMAN FILMS AT CANNES 2011
TUESDAY, 17 MAY RIVIERA
2
09:30 h Sebastian Grobler
DER GANZ GROSSE TRAUM LESSONS OF A DREAM 113 min
11:30 h Jan Schomburg
ÜBER UNS DAS ALL ABOVE US ONLY SKY 88 min
13:30 h Peter Dörfler
THE BIG EDEN 90 min
15:30 h Hans Steinbichler
DAS BLAUE VOM HIMMEL PROMISING THE MOON 100 min
17:30 h Florian Cossen
DAS LIED IN MIR THE DAY I WAS NOT BORN 95 min
19:30 h RP Kahl
BEDWAYS 79 min
Walk Away Renée CRITICS’ WEEK
US-Fr. 2011. 90mins Director/screenplay Jonathan Caouette Production companies Morgane Production, Polyester, Love Stream, agnes b Productions, Hummingbird 72 International sales
www.wildbunch.biz Producers Gérard Lacroix, Gérard Pont, Pierre-Paul Puljiz, agnes b, Christophe Audeguis, Charles Anthonioz, Jonathan Caouette Cinematography Noam Roubah, Andres Peyrot, Jason Banker, Jorge Torres Editor Brian McAllister Main cast Jonathan Caouette, Renée Leblanc, Adolph Davis, Rosemary Davis, David Sanin Paz, Joshua Caouette
REVIEWED BY HOWARD FEINSTEIN
Artful fragmentation of old footage from his own and his unu- sual family’s lives in the 2004 Tarnation, assembled for next-to -nothing on a Mac, put Caouette on connoisseurs’ talent radar, but pigeonholed him as a festival darling. Walk Away Renée is a gigantic leap forward: a real documentary crew and more refined footage, but with enough of an accessible, more linear structure — a quasi-road movie with many more naturalistic scenes than Tarnation, in which he takes his mentally ill mother by U-Haul truck from an assisted-living facility in his home town of Houston, Texas, to his residence in New York City — that it will still play festivals and will cross over into the alterna- tive and arthouse circuit. Once again, it took the French designer agnes b, who has
supported the wildly unusual forays of Harmony Korine, to finance the work of an edgy young US film-maker. This is patronage, and the financial pay-off will be small by commercial movie standards. The film is guaranteed to be critic-driven at first, then word-of-mouth among those attracted to edgy works will guarantee it a relatively fruitful release in larger, more cos- mopolitan cities in many territories. Caouette’s mother, 58-year-old Renée Leblanc, suffers from
acute bipolar and schizoaffective disorder. Diagnosed with depression at the age of 12, she received the first of hundreds of electroshock treatments. The life of this once beautiful, ani- mated woman has been downhill ever since: institutionalisa- tion, a huge daily regimen of psychopharmacologic medications, especially lithium, to quiet her demons, and a manic, passive-aggressive demeanour when she is off the pills. In a role reversal, son has taken on the role of parent to his
now brain-damaged mother. Through time shifts in which he shows Leblanc at various ages and in assorted states, as well as footage of their interaction at different phases of their lives, we come to understand the strong bond which attaches him to her so closely he puts his own needs aside to make sure she is not mistreated by the medical establishment. On top of the sequences documenting the trying ride through
In Cannes:
GERMAN PAVILION · #126 INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE
phone +33-(0)4-92 59 01 80 fax +33-(0)4-92 59 01 81
the South from Texas to New York (she loses her pills), gorgeous shots of moving clouds help structure the film. According to a cult called Cloudbusters, which aims to legitimise a fourth dimension, and for which Caouette is commissioned to direct an outreach video, clouds are a reservoir of energy. He has made no secret of his interest in parallel universes, but he treats the cult and his own video with a welcome sense of humour. Few film-makers working today can meld the formal wiz-
ardry on display here with a relatively straightforward account of a serious personal subject. With a soundtrack of quiet stand- ards (Under The Boardwalk and the nostalgic title song made popular by The Left Banke in the 1960s, among many others) accompanying some imaginative apocalyptic abstractions, Caouette has achieved a balancing act bordering on genius.
n 22 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 17, 2011 REVIEWS
BREAKINGNEWS For the latest film business news see
ScreenDaily.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56