In Contention

Tag: Le Havre

  • ‘Le Havre’ tapped to represent Finland in foreign film race

    I finally caught up with Aki Kaurismaki’s “Le Havre” at Telluride two weeks ago. “I don’t count myself as the biggest Kaurismäki fan,” I wrote at the time, “but it’s very difficult to argue with the heart in this film. It should melt you a bit, if you have warm blood pumping through your veins.” I should also note, though, that André Wilms’s performance is sensational, and much of the film’s emotional undercurrent is owed to his work.

    According to Variety, the film has now been chosen by Finland to represent the country in the best Foreign Language Film race:

    “Le Havre,” directed, written and produced by Aki Kaurismaki, will rep Finland in the foreign-language film Oscar race…The pic was selected by a jury supervised by the Finnish Film Chamber. Jury members included actress, singer-songwriter Kaija Karkinen, director Aku Louhimies, producer Liisa Penttila and director-scriptwriter Ville Suhonen…The film had its world preem in the official selection of Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded with the Fipresci prize and the special mention of the Ecumenical Jury. It also won best international film at the Munich Film Festival.

    Onto the on-going list of titles it goes.

    [Photo: Pandora Filmproduktion/Pyramide Productions/Sputnik/Yleisradio]

  • OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!

    This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.

    Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.

    His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.

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  • TELLURIDE: Gearing up yet winding down, ‘Le Havre,’ Herzog, Ballard’s long-lost ‘Rodeo’ restored

    The interesting thing about Telluride is, the moment things begin to heat up, they also feel like they’re beginning to wind down. I still have screenings of “Shame” and “A Dangerous Method” to come today, and may duck into Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” tomorrow morning before hopping the shuttle back to Montrose, but for the most part, it feels like we’re peaking now.

    I started the morning with a look at Aki Kaurismäki’s “Le Havre,” which played Cannes in May. I don’t actually think Guy ever got around to writing about the film in depth, but he did a wonderful pre-Cannes job of previewing it.

    Nevertheless, I don’t count myself as the biggest Kaurismäki fan, but it’s very difficult to argue with the heart in this film. It should melt you a bit, if you have warm blood pumping through your veins. The crowd was delighted by it and the director’s dry sense of humor.

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  • TELLURIDE: Settling in for the 38th annual

    So here I sit in Telluride, a nice view of the mountainside gondolas out the window, a swift flight and gorgeous shuttle ride later. As always, we were greeted with the festival program upon boarding the charter this morning, which also carried filmmakers Werner Herzog and Alexander Payne, actress Tilda Swinton, etc., their presence at the airport already hinting at what was likely to be inside.

    The three most expected films are here: Payne’s “The Descendants,” David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” and Steve McQueen’s “Shame.” Those will be at the top of my list this weekend. Rodrigo Garcia’s “Albert Nobbs” is, along with Payne’s film, the big first-look get for the festival. Though we’ll get looks at McQueen’s flick ahead of Venice, it appears. Also of interest to me are Cannes carry-overs “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Le Havre,” “The Kid with a Bike” and “Footnote.” And on the documentary front, there is Matin Scorsese’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” (centered on Beatle George Harrison) and Herzog’s latest, “Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life.”

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  • CANNES: What will win… and what should

    It’s a funny thing. For 10 days at Cannes, the Croisette hums with stimulating discussion and debate about movies; for the final two, all that chatter dissolves into a single blunt question: “What will win the Palme d’Or?” It’s a little like the Oscars, except without the initial stage of stimulating discussion and debate about movies. Let’s do it.

    On the one hand, I kind of want the beautiful, punishing 160-minute anti-procedural epic of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” to win, since there’s £140 waiting for me in London if it does. (Gamble responsibly, kids.) On the other, I can make more convincing cases for a number of titles. Unlike last year, when it was easy to single out “Uncle Boonmee” and “Of Gods and Men” for the top two spots, this year’s lineup has been higher in terms of median quality, as well as more contentious — which allows for a wider range of hypothetical jury-room arguments.

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  • Kaurismäki, Sorrentino among early Cannes winners

    The Cannes Film Festival closes up shop tomorrow with the announcement of the Competition awards — the final competing film, Radu Mihaileanu’s “The Source,” screened this morning to a tepid reception. Before we get to that, however, a wide array of smaller juries have their own trophies to dish out, and a number of them did so tonight.

    I’ve just returned from the tuxes-and-sneakers affair that is the Un Certain Regard awards ceremony, followed by a screening of one of their prizewinners, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s stunning “Elena.” (I’ll review the film later, but for now, allow to express my bafflement that this remarkable work wasn’t in Competition, particular when the director’s previous film, no more impressive a work, was.)

    There, a jury led by previous Palme d’Or winner Emir Kusturica (choice quote in opening speech: “I was the darling of this festival, and I did not behave myself very well”) infuriated critics across the Croisette by handing half their top prize (in a tie) to one of the festival’s worst-reviewed films: Kim Ki-duk’s documentary on himself, “Arirang.” It’s a handy reminder that critical response should never be the key consideration when predicting festival awards.

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  • CANNES CHECK: ‘Le Havre’

    The director: Aki Kaurismäki (Finland)

    The talent: Writer-director-producer Kaurismäki’s latest features a gaggle of names that should be familiar to his fans. Veteran French actor André Wilms, whose association with the filmmaker dates back to 1992’s “The Bohemian Life” (for which he won a European Film Award) takes the lead here, while other Kaurismäki alumni in the cast include New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud and, of course, the director’s favorite actress Kati Outinen. His regular crew returns as well, notably his career-long DP Timo Salminen.

    The pitch: The Finnish auteur’s second French-language effort (and his first since 1992) is a comedy-drama set and filmed in the French port city that gives the film its title. That the name also translates as “the haven” is no coincidence: the film tells the story of an elderly boot polisher (Wilms) who takes an African refugee child under his wing. The premise seemingly lends itself to Kaurismäki’s usual brand of melancholy whimsy, though perhaps with a touch more sentiment than usual.

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