Cannes 2012: A celebration of art films
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E-mail Chinesefilms.cn, May 28, 2012
Heavy rain dampened the closing ceremony of this year's Festival de Cannes, but it did not spoil filmmakers' enthusiasm for the annual grand gala.
After a delay of about half an hour, the curtain finally rose for the closing ceremony last night. Italian director Matteo Garrone was the first to walk onto the red carpet, and the arrival of Chinese actress Gong Li, who was also an award present guest at this year's Cannes, raised a stir among the audience.
Awards in the Un Certain Regard section were given out in the morning before the closing ceremony. While Despues de Lucia, a Mexican film by Michel Franco, won top prize, Mystery, the only Chinese film selected, did not win anything.
No Best Actor award was handed out in this section, but both Suzanne Clement and Emilie Dequenne were awarded Best Actress.
The other two awards given out in the morning were the Special Jury Prize, which went to Benoît Delepine and Gustave Kervern for Le Grand Soir; and the Special Distinction prize, received by Aida Begic for Children of Sarajevo.
In a world that is flooded with Hollywood-made blockbusters, the Cannes Film Festival still holds on to its tradition - art films.
"[Most of the films nominated at Cannes] are the strong personal visions [of directors] and art," said movie critic Li Zhong who often goes by Neilu Feiyu. "Many of the directors there are non-mainstream directors, who insist on using their own styles in their works."
He added that these filmmakers are avant-garde, egocentric and sometimes have extreme ideas, not to be grouped with Hollywood directors, whom he believes to be more market focused and mainstream. Li uses Australian filmmaker Michael Haneke as an example; Haneke debuted Amour this year.
"His films are calm, restrained, and seldom use music," he said. "He never creates grand scenes, or creates solely for entertainment. [His films] purely reflect humanity."
Chinese at Cannes
The Oscars tends to care more about Hollywood-made business blockbusters, while political films tend to be the favorites at the Berlin International Film Festival. The Cannes Film Festival, however, is influenced by the Renaissance and the New Wave, and focuses more on how a film reflects the filmmaker's idea.
"Cannes is a place where art films, which some people may think are boring, are gathered," Li said. "I think that over half of the films screened to the common audience would cause the audience to fall asleep, or leave them lost in the plot."
Cannes can be compared to literary works that win the The Nobel Prize in Literature. Only a small handful of people tackle the books.
Another characteristic of Cannes is that the majority of the nominated films are works by European filmmakers. Li attributes this shift in attention to different countries.
"US [filmmakers] pay more attention to the Oscars than Cannes. The US is a giant business industry in and of itself, and many of the filmmakers do not care about art films," he said, adding that though Chinese films win awards at Cannes, it's a passing moment. Now China studies the Hollywood mode of success.
He attributed the decline of art films in China to several reasons. "First filmmakers have hit a glass ceiling with their talents. The censorship of films prevents them from making films they want to. Last, there is a struggle between business ambitions and personal ambitions."
Asian countries' interest
Japan is another special example, Li added. "As a culture giant that once had a number of masters, it does not care much about Cannes. Japan's media do not even cover the event much, and wouldn't be ecstatic about winning a prize."
But these years, as the great directors have passed away, "Japanese films are declining while South Korean films are emerging," said Li.
Compared with Cannes last year, it feels like this year there are more big names, like Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, and David Cronenberg, and the quality of nominated films are higher than those in 2011.
There's no preference on the topics of films at Cannes. "It's just about the explanation [a director has] in the film," Li commented.
"The most valuable element about art is innovation, which often means being different from the mainstream, which makes it hard to be accepted by the tradition," Wang Zun, a reporter at Shenzhen Special Zone Daily wrote in an article. "[But] art and innovation are the two basic standards in Cannes. And each year extraordinary works will participate at Cannes."
Wang took the example of Sátántangó (1994), a film that runs over seven hours, by Hungary filmmaker Béla Tarr, and Japanese film In The Realm of the Senses (1976) directed by Nagisa Oshima, both of which were nominated at Cannes. Oshima's film received the Award for Best Director at the 31st Cannes Film Festival in 1978.
However, In The Realm of the Senses has been banned from screening in Japan, and Tarr is recognized as a brave pioneer in films.
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