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Cannes Diary

Entry Five: Friday, May 17, 2002  --  Page Two

After the movie, we had just enough time to race back to our rooms to get showered and changed for the night’s big premieres at the Lumiere...

Bowling for Columbine
USA, Directed by Michael Moore
Lumiere: 05/17/02: 04:15pm
(****) of four
Time slept during: None

There’s nothing quite like extremely well done propaganda. From Triumph of the Will to Harlan County USA, the documentary is the perfect medium for amazingly persuasive propaganda of the highest order--and Moore’s new movie is another perfect example. Simply put, it was the best movie I saw at the Festival. A stunningly intelligent and well-crafted look at gun control and the culture of violence in America, Moore mixes together humor, real-life tragedy, and politics and gets the combination just right. Make no mistake about the film, though, because it truly is as deeply propagandistic as they come (his interviews and press-attracting spectacles are not examples of non-partisan filmmaking--and he makes no mistake in ensuring that every angle in the movie is turned to point exactly where he wants it), but at least it’s propaganda for the right side. While the saddest part of the film may be that the very people that most need to see it would never do so, it still is an astoundingly thought-provoking exercise in filmmaking that captivates during its entire two-hour running time and is more than worthy of the special jury prize that was awarded to it.

All or Nothing
England, Directed by Mike Leigh
Lumiere: 05/17/02: 07:30pm
(** and 1/2) of four
Time slept during: None

A gloomy, never-happy slice-of-life drama from Topsy-Turvy director Mike Leigh finds him back in Secrets and Lies territory. The result, though, is a film too trapped in its depressive quicksand to really provoke my interest. We are introduced to the sorry-sack characters and while a number of storylines are opened up, Leigh eventually pushes aside most of them to focus on the cab driver and his family. It’s a shame because some of the other stories were left somewhat hanging and could have propelled the movie into a more Altman-esqe landscape that would have been more interesting to watch. Acting from the two main leads is top-notch for the dour material given to them, but again, I just kept waiting for something to break the drone of sadness that lurks over the whole movie. As it stands, it was just a little consistent in its tone to keep my interest going. A disappointment after the fantastic Topsy-Turvy, which found Leigh in a completely different mode.


At this point, we went off to get dinner at a small Italian café where we ran into some major problems ordering. The waiter, not speaking very good English, mistook three of our orders, bringing us a completely different meal from what we ordered, even though we were very clear about what we wanted and we pointed to it on the menu. It took one of Stefan’s friends, who is French, to talk to the waiter until we got everything squared away. It was a pretty frustrating situation, though, and made me realize that it would be nice to get back into an English-speaking country in a few weeks so these kinds of mistakes don’t keep happening. Everyone was exhausted after dinner, so we went back to our rooms and turned in for the night.

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Right down the street from the Lumiere

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