Eastern Europe films tell bleak tales at Cannes
Saturday, 22 May 2010
CANNES, France, May 21 (AFP): Bleak films of murder, police brutality and Soviet dictatorship -- some of them three hours long -- are among the central and eastern European offerings furrowing brows at the Cannes festival.
"Some people make comedies. Others have a different point of view," said Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, whose film "My Joy", about impoverished peasants and sadistic cops in snowy rural Russia premiered Wednesday.
"A single artist cannot present all the points of view at the same time," he added, to justify the unremitting bleakness of his film, set in Russia but filmed in Ukraine -- the first Cannes entry ever from that country.
The ironically titled "My Joy" is in competition for the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the world's biggest film festival, which is awarded Sunday.
Film magazine Screen called it "an intriguing but often messily impenetrable dramatic debut... It's hard to imagine that many viewers will consider their patience sufficiently rewarded."
Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo is meanwhile tapping the central and eastern Europe region's gothic associations, which date back at least as far as Bram Stoker's Transylvanian vampire Dracula.
Mundruczo's Palme entry "Tender Son", a modern retelling of the Frankenstein story, screens Friday.
Mundruczo recruited Rudolf Frecska, a 17-year-old orphan who had never acted before, as his male lead: a lost young man who murders a family while searching for his father.
Frecska "was kicked out by his parents when he was two years old and grew up in an orphanage," Kornel told AFP. "This shows in his face and you feel it and understand it."
Mundruczo sees central European countries as a "bridge" between east and west and used a western classic, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", to tell a story set in a crumbling Budapest apartment building.
"Eastern and western Europe, on paper it's getting closer and closer, but 'inside' (psychologically) it's further and further away," Kornel said, acknowledging that grim subject matters risk fulfilling a gloomy stereotype.
"That sadness, deepness... for the Hungarian people is very close," he said.
"Some people make comedies. Others have a different point of view," said Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, whose film "My Joy", about impoverished peasants and sadistic cops in snowy rural Russia premiered Wednesday.
"A single artist cannot present all the points of view at the same time," he added, to justify the unremitting bleakness of his film, set in Russia but filmed in Ukraine -- the first Cannes entry ever from that country.
The ironically titled "My Joy" is in competition for the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the world's biggest film festival, which is awarded Sunday.
Film magazine Screen called it "an intriguing but often messily impenetrable dramatic debut... It's hard to imagine that many viewers will consider their patience sufficiently rewarded."
Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo is meanwhile tapping the central and eastern Europe region's gothic associations, which date back at least as far as Bram Stoker's Transylvanian vampire Dracula.
Mundruczo's Palme entry "Tender Son", a modern retelling of the Frankenstein story, screens Friday.
Mundruczo recruited Rudolf Frecska, a 17-year-old orphan who had never acted before, as his male lead: a lost young man who murders a family while searching for his father.
Frecska "was kicked out by his parents when he was two years old and grew up in an orphanage," Kornel told AFP. "This shows in his face and you feel it and understand it."
Mundruczo sees central European countries as a "bridge" between east and west and used a western classic, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", to tell a story set in a crumbling Budapest apartment building.
"Eastern and western Europe, on paper it's getting closer and closer, but 'inside' (psychologically) it's further and further away," Kornel said, acknowledging that grim subject matters risk fulfilling a gloomy stereotype.
"That sadness, deepness... for the Hungarian people is very close," he said.