Cannes Film Festival Competitors In 2009
Fish Tank – Mia, a foul-mouthed,stroppy fifteen-year-old, lives on an Essex estate with her tarty mother,Joanne, and precocious little sister Tyler. She has been excluded from school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit and spends her days aimlessly. She begins to develop an uneasy friendship with Joanne’s handsome, extrovert Irish boyfriend,Connor, who encourages her one interest, dancing, and eventually they have sex, after which he disappears from all their lives. When Mia tracks him down she finds that he has not been wholly honest with them and decides to take revenge, which almost ends in disaster. However, she does find consolation with Billy, a young traveller, after making up with her family.
Fuk sau – A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter’s family in Hong Kong, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.
Bakjwi – Beloved and devoted priest from a small town volunteers for a medical experiment which fails and turns him into a vampire. Physical and psychological changes lead to his affair with a wife of his childhood friend who is repressed and tired of her mundane life. The one-time priest falls deeper in despair and depravity. As things turns for worse, he struggles to maintain whats left of his humanity. Sang-hyun (played by top Korean star Song Kang-ho, of The Host) is a priest who cherishes life; so much so, that he selflessly volunteers for a secret vaccine development project meant to eradicate a deadly virus. But the virus takes the priest, and a blood transfusion is urgently ordered up for him. The blood he receives is infected, so Sang-hyun lives but now exists as a vampire. Struggling with his newfound carnal desire for blood, Sang-hyuns faith is further strained when a childhood friends wife, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin), comes to him asking for his help in escaping her life. Sang-hyun soon plunges into a world of sensual pleasures, finding himself on intimate terms with the Seven Deadly Sins.
Kinatay – If there’s one thing about widely marketed Filipino movies which should improve dramatically, it’s sound–I absolutely loathe the annoying synthesized staple background music being forced upon us each time the characters are set to spew their spit with their loud, hammy dialogues, or whenever someone is about to cry. That’s why I applaud local indie films which at least feature original scores or unusual songs to give better local color to the story. Some experimental films by some of the innovative, unpopular directors even skip background music in order to give a sense of realism to their films. And what a relief–here comes Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay”–which I believe outscores–pun intended–every Filipino film for its masterful exploration of sound and its effect on people. “Kinatay”–before it won the Best Director Award in the most prestigious film festival in the world–was butchered by various international critics when the film was screened in Cannes. They blamed the unsteady video and the lack of light in about half of the entire film. Even the famous critic Roger Ebert dismissed “Kinatay” as the worst film ever screened in Cannes, even going as far as saying that he wanted to apologize to Vince Gallo for saying the same remark about his “The Brown Bunny.”
Un prophte – Set largely within prison walls, the film details the prison career of Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim), a 19-year-old man of North African origin but estranged from the Muslim community. Sentenced to six years for what appears to be violence against police (albeit denied by Malik), he is chosen by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), feared kingpin of the prisons reigning Corsican gang, to kill a prisoner named Reyeb (Hichem Yacoubi) who had initially offers Malik drugs in exchange for sex. Reyeb is in prison awaiting testifying against the mob. Malik commits the bloody murder, and thanks to Luciani’s near-total control of the prisons internal workings – gets off scot-free. This makes him a lieutenant in the prisons Corsican gang, initially entrusted only with menial duties and disparaged as an Arab outsider.
Looking for Eric – Eric Bishop, a middle-aged postman working for the Manchester sorting office, is going through a dreadful crisis. For starters, his second life companion has not resurfaced although she was released from prison a few months ago. He is left alone with two stepsons to look after, which is no bed of roses since the two teens disrespect him and keep disobeying him. To make matters worse, Ryan, the older boy, fascinated by Zac, a dangerous gangster, has accepted to hide his gun in Eric’s house. On the other hand, he is asked by Sam, his student daughter who has a newborn baby,to get back in touch with Lily, his separated wife. Now, Eric left her not long after she gave back to their daughter. As a result Eric panics… Having lost all his bearings, Eric Bishop soliloquizes face to the poster of his idol, another Eric, French footballer Eric Cantona, when the latter appears just like the genie out of Aladdin’s lamp. Through a series of aphorisms peculiar to him, the footballer-philosopher will help remorse-ridden desperate Eric Bishop to get by.
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