Jornal da Mostra
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Edição:
Renata de Almeida e Leon Cakoff
Film makers with a style of their own and the fascinating art of recognizing a film through a hallmark
Directors such as Ken Loach and Pedro Almodóvar have a long enough career in films to define their styles and communication with spectators the world over. Both are in Competition at the 59th Cannes Festival and will be judged by a jury presided over by Wong Kar Wai, also with an unmistakable melodramatic style of his own. Admirable it is, however, to observe how three directors also in the Cannes Competition, managed, with so few films, to build styles that are as characteristic as a signature, as unmistakable as a Picasso painting.
"Volver", by Pedro Almodóvar is a return of Almodóvar to a portrayal of a female world, with a wealth of detail - the essence of his hallmark. More than that, with each Almodóvar film, one of the actresses from his rich human universe is, in turn, crowned Queen. In "Volver", Penelope Cruz is the one to shine in all her splendor. To pay tribute to female strength in "Volver", Almodóvar is capable of annihilating any male morale. The few men in the film, one of which in memory alone, are either extremes - jerks - or lax individuals. One of these gives up running a restaurant in a village giving desperate Raimunda a free rein for creativity. Even to going as far as providing a rendition of an old tango by Gardel.
Turkish film maker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is also stylish and recognizable, although he is in Cannes presenting his fourth film - "Iklimler/ Climates/ Os Climas". His acknowledgement through the same festival was with a former film "Uzak". Although recognizable, his source comes from Michelangelo Antonioni`s cinema of non-communicability; moreover, this time, from the desolate winter landscapes depicted by Abbas Kiarostami. "Iklimler" is obsessively focussed on the image of the film maker himself: he invariably assigns the main role in all his films to himself. His wife, Ebru Ceylan, shares the other half of the screen with him and plays the main female role. On film, the couple cannot reach any degree of understanding. Happiness for one annihilates happiness for the other. The real world seems not to exist, for both also work for different television teams. One of the delights of the film is the fact it is high-definition digital. For the first time, the Cannes Festival is showing a film from the Competition list in digital - a most beautiful and impeccable projection. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the future of a digital film on screen evolves.
As opposed to the Turkish film, the Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki "Lights in the Dusk/ Laitakaupungin Valot" was filmed in classic mode and has proved exhuberant in its selection of dense colors, in the perfect equilibrium for characters that are overcome by the hardships of real life. The insignificant hero is an innocent nightguard who falls in love with a cold and seductive woman. She is under oath to a gang and wants only the access code to a jewelry store. Like Almodóvar, Kaurismäki has also built up his style over the course of time and bears a hallmark. Even the objects on view seem to bear his mark. In the films by the Finnish director, reality is fraudulent and human beings have their primary instincts all of them corrupted. With characters thus stunned, Kaurismäki`s film making is also unmistakable.
Mexican Alejandro González Iñarritu is, yet again, one of these
recent phenomena that are possible to recognize by a style of their own. "Babel"
is only the third film he is making (the other two were "Amores Perros/
Love`s a Bitch" and "21 Gramas/ 21 Grams", Iñarritu can
be said to be acknowleged by a hallmark of his own in fragmented narrative that,
little by little, forms a mosaic that is understandable to the spectator. With
the long-awaited "Babel", in Competition, characters in Japan, in
the U.S., on the Mexican frontier, and in the Morrocco desert make up a frail
network that identifies itself by means of various cruel nuances of intolerance.
As can be seen, Wong Kar Wai, one of the greatest stylists in cinema, will find
it difficult to award a Festival prize to an equal. Possibly to Almodóvar?
For further information:
www.festival-cannes.org
