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Thursday, May 03, 2012

Rust and Bone

May is an exciting month for those who follow world cinema. It’s the time for Cannes film festival. It will set the mood for what films we are going to see in the next one year. This year’s line-up for Cannes film festival is already out and the buzz has gathered momentum, with critics complaining that this year’s competition section has more American film than there should be and there are no films by woman directors. Grumblings aside, masters of world cinema, including the venerable names like Jacques Audiard, Leos Carax, David Cronenberg, Michael Haneke, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Alain Resnais, and even Carlos Reygadas are here with their new films.

For someone in India, without much resource, even if I am cinema freak, and super exited to see the new films by my favourite directors, I will have to wait for at least for a year to lay my hands these titles. That’s what I’ve been doing in the last few years and so I shall do this year as well. Sometimes, this waiting has its charm; sometimes its killing, when you want to see a film badly and you cannot.

There were a number of Cannes films I wanted to see so badly when it premiered and had to wait more than a year before I could actually see it. I remember ‘Anti-Christ, ‘Uncle Boonmi Who Remembers His Past Lives’, ‘Broken Embrace’, ‘A Prophet.’

With ‘A Prophet’, we come to the film I want to see so badly this year — Jacques Audiard’s follow up to his 2009 prison drama, ‘Rust and Bone’. I have seen all the three previous film of the French director, including — ‘Read My Lips’ (Sur mes lèvres, 2001) and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté, 2005). (And I have a soft corner for ‘Read My Lips’, it’s a slow-burning, violent and beautiful film. Someone would remake this in Bollywood, with Vidya Balan and Ajay Devgn in the lead. Abbas-Mustan listening?) I cannot wait to see what he does this time.

There are other reasons for me to be excited about this film, based on a short story by Canadian author Craig Davidson. For one thing it stars Marion Cotillard. I can watch her in any film. Then, the film stars the young Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who was tour-de-force in last year Oscar nominated ‘Bullhead’, about which I have written elsewhere.

A long wait lies ahead.

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Rust and Bone (French: De rouille et d'os) is an upcoming French-Belgian film directed by Jacques Audiard, starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. Based on Craig Davidson's short story collection with the same name, it will tell the story of an unemployed 25-year-old man who falls in love with a killer whale trainer. The film has been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[Wikipedia.org]

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The Competition Films At Cannes This Year
"Moonrise Kingdom," Wes Anderson (opening film)
"Rust and Bone," Jacques Audiard
"Holy Motors," Leos Carax
"Cosmopolis," David Cronenberg
"The Paperboy," Lee Daniels
"Killing Them Softly," Andrew Dominik
"Reality," Matteo Garrone
"Amour," Michael Haneke
"Lawless," John Hillcoat
"Like Someone in Love," Abbas Kiarostami
"The Angels' Share," Ken Loach
"In the Fog," Sergei Loznitsa
"Beyond the Hills," Cristian Mungiu
"Baad el mawkeaa," Yousry Nasrallah
"Mud," Jeff Nichols
"You Haven't Seen Anything Yet," Alain Resnais
"Post tenebras lux," Carlos Reygadas
"On the Road," Walter Salles
"In Another Country," Hong Sang-soo
"Taste of Money," Im Sang-soo
"Paradies: Liebe," Ulrich Seidl
"The Hunt," Thomas Vinterberg

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