Directed by Hal Hartley. Produced by Ted Hope. Original music by Hal Hartley and Jeffrey Taylor. Edited by Steve Hamilton. With Martin Donovan, Isabelle Huppert, Elina Löwensohn.

Coming off the heels of watching this year’s “Fay Grim” at the International Film Festival of Boston, I already had some idea of what a Hal Hartley film would entail. His cocktails usually involve a recipe of lovely European woman in danger (preferably wearing black vinyl or latex), off-beat dialogue, dark humor, and an anti-hero caught up in some brand of mysterious espionage. Those were the ingredients to “Fay Grim” as well as 1994’s “Amateur”. The story opens with said anti-hero Thomas Ludens (Martin Donovan) on the floor of a street somewhere in downtown Manhattan. He’s been pushed out a window and has lost his memory. The culprit is the fetching Sofia (Elena Löwensohn) who we see dashing off in the distance believing the man dead. He ends up in the arms of a nymphomaniac nun-turned-pornographer, Isabelle (played by Isabelle Huppert) and the rest of the film takes us on a journey as the two protagonists try to discover why the beautiful Sofia pushed Thomas out a window. Isabelle, who believes she is on a mission from God to reconnect the two, gradually begins to fall in love with the amnesiac Thomas - who we soon find out is embroiled in a dangerous scheme involving the government (”which one?” “it could be any”) and pornography. Suffice it to say that there are enough foreign accents speaking stilted bits of dialogue to satisfy any auteur aficionado. Though I found some of the acting a bit forced (Martin Donovan comes off as a nugatory composite of Kiefer Sutherland and James Spader), the two damsels are the real centerpiece here, as little can compare to the sight of Isabelle Huppert in heels, yielding a tool drill as a pistol in all earnesty. Also worth a mention is the carefully selected soundtrack, which features artists like My Bloody Valentine, P.J. Harvey, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, and Liz Phair in top Nineties form.

Half of them anyway! http://www.flickr.com/photos/dandig/sets/72157600255719616/

Unfortunately, Jordan’s camera was attacked by sand or some such destructive element, so for now, only my photos are intact.

I’ve read all about the notoriety of the Cannes audience for being the perfecters of the art of the walk-out. You know - the black silhouettes that get up in the middle of a film and stalk down the aisle, leaving nothing but the eerie, feline silence of their exit behind them. As I pride myself in the ability to sit through the worst of films, I wanted to experience this subtle display of cinematic snobbery for myself. And it was during the premiere of Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s quick as a snail film, “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”, that I was able to do just that. The film’s title refers to the amount of time one of the characters endures a pregnancy in Communist Romania (where Ceaucescu had banned abortion) before deciding to get rid of the child by any means necessary. So the film is lightly structured around that awareness - painting a subtle frame for the story to reside in but never bludgeoning you with sociopolitical factoids. Instead, Mungiu’s camera painstakingly follows every little move made by his lead actresses, blonde Anamaria Marinca and brunette Laura Vasiliu, until it finally rests on the combined end result of the girls’ actions - an uncomfortably long close-up of the aborted fetus on the bathroom floor. Almost fashionably on cue, black-tie’d Galls everywhere in the Palais got up and crept down the steps. And understandably so. It isn’t so much that the scene was unnecessarily shocking (although I have to admit it is really hard to successfully pull off an aborted fetus on film) - it’s more that so much depended on the legitimacy of that single scene. It was almost as if the majority of the film - which I found famished for liveliness of at least a miniscule amount - is supposed to be cinematically vindicated by the brief truth/resonance of one single image. For me, the value of the film lies in the choices the filmmaker makes. Call it an artistic morality, if you will. You can bet that a controversial filmmaker like Michael Haneke, for example, is able to back up his decision to show Isabelle Huppert delectably enjoying the whiff of a used tissue in a porn video booth. Bottom line is, I’m all about that artistic morality. So I’m still not sure what to make of this film, for there are certain moments - the neverending family dinner, the finale in the restaurant, the tortured morning-after - that I surely found haunting. And Mungiu is definitely, definitely an artist. Here’s an analogy: is it okay to make an audience arduously turn every single page of a largely empty book for the sake of possibly finding one sentence that enlightens? I’m not saying yes or no. But let’s open up the forum for discussion, shall we?

Just a quick report! Cannes is a festival unlike any American ones I have attended. Getting into premiere screenings is a strategic maneuver akin to accessing Pentagon plans; passwords, windows of time, credits, and kiosks are involved. Still, we managed to see a wonderful Romanian film, as well as Olivier Assayas’ latest. We are now able to access email for the first time in the American Pavilion, where all the Yanks hunker down to buy coffee and see panels. The Market is a hectic place, and we are just now getting the lay of the land down. Hopefully, we will be able to see a film at 2 pm, and then a panel of young filmmakers, including Harmony Korine and Marjane Satrapi (PERSEPOLIS). Jordan in a tux and shiny shoes must be seen to be believed. This evening, we have several meetings with short filmmakers at the Moving Pictures booth; this is an amazing place to target the international scene. Already, we have made connections with Russian, Northern Irish, Icelandic, Estonian, and Hungarian production houses and filmmakers.
More updates soon!! The South of France is an utterly beautiful place.

Well, Jordan and I leave for Cannes in just a few hours, and, restless with anticipation, it looks like we will meet at the airport a few hours too early. Hey, JFK is not a bad place. I only wish we were flying out of the terminal designed by Eero Saarinen.

That’s about all I can wrap my mind around right now.
Apparently, our terminal is equipped with a Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk and an Au Bon Bain, so how much better can life get?
Jordan and I will be, when not munching on brie and sipping champagne, working in the MOVING PICTURES MAGAZINE booth in the Market; spreading the Indiepix love to the world. My other aim is to get a quote about the future of distribution from Maddox Jolie. Or maybe Wong-Kar Wai. Not sure which would be better. In celebration of the grand tour, I am wearing a Jordan Mattos original cinema shirt (shown here).

Not shown are the silly white summer hat and orange heels I am also wearing. It’s a new me; the South of France me. Reports will follow daily! Avec amour!

Hey all,
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Following is a trailer of a lovely short film we distribute called DON’T NOBODY LOVE THE GAME MORE THAN ME . If you love it (and it’s hard not to), you can download it for a mere $4.25.

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