2008 Cannes Competition Preview

They want to upgrade their Cannes press accreditation card.

Always gracious, yet forever firm, Christine will ask the same questions: Why did they fail to file their reviews of competition films from the Palais des Festivals? Why did they wait until the film premiered in their home cities, sometimes months after the Cannes festival had closed?

Without that timely review from Cannes, the critic gets bumped up from the parquet to the balcony for press screenings in the Lumière and the Debussy. And has to stand in long lines to gain entrance to choice special screenings.

To say nothing of suffering the shame of having his card with the exclusive rose dot replaced by a get-lucky blue card.

As a longtime critic for the trade papers - this is my 41st year - I can easily guess why many lazy critics do not file on time from the queen of all film festivals: The parties are so much fun.

Besides, the news editor back home only offers ample space when the film premieres in the critic's own backyard. After all, film advertising can be a horn-of-plenty. Also, by this time so much has already been written on a "hot film" that for the "critic" to pen a eulogy is a snap.

Most important of all from a personal point of view, the erstwhile party-goer hasn't had to risk showing off his cinematic ignorance with an on-the-spot sloppy review that could later endanger a job.

Christine Aimé knows all the tricks. She also knows who are the best critics on her beat. And she usually greets them with a warm smile at the door of the Debussy.

Last year, when Cannes screened Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a dour Romanian tale set during the last years of the Ceauscescu regime, not many critics I know would bet on a Golden Palm for a film about an illegal abortion.

The same was true of the Golden Palms awarded to the Dardenne Brothers' Rosetta in 1999 and L'Enfant in 2005, both sketches of hardships faced daily by young people on the fringe of Belgian society. Look at the lists of critics voting in the festival trade papers (Variety, Screen, Le Français), and you will find that JeanPierre and Luc Dardenne were always considered dark horses, probably overlooked because of their preference for casting nonprofessionals.

Will the Dardennes break the Cannes record this year by winning a third Golden Palm for Le Silence de Lorna? Quite possible, considering the theme and the makeup of the international jury under Sean Penn.

Lorna's Silence is the kind of film that challenges committed critics by kicking them in the belly. It's the story of an Albanian woman who marries a drug addict to obtain Belgian residency. My guess is that it will win a handful of awards, particularly on the nonstatuary side of the ledger.

The film to keep an eye on this year for the Golden Palm?

Try the Turkish entry: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys. Cannes juries in the past have had a way of rewarding directors whose careers are closely linked to the festival because they were first discovered here.

Three Monkeys marks Nuri Bilge Ceylan's fourth visit to Cannes. Thirteen years ago, in 1995, he was present in the short film competition with Cocoon, starring his parents in a trademark tale of family alienation. A couple in their 70s, separated because of a painful experience in the past, meet in a futile attempt to rid themselves of the lingering pain.

Ceylan returned to Cannes in 2003 with Distant, awarded the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor Award, followed in 2006 with Climates, awarded the FIPRESCI Critics Prize. Both are autobiographical in that the main actor - played by Ceylan himself in Climates - is a lonesome photographer reluctant to abandon his stubborn ways.

As for Three Monkeys - referring to the metaphor of monkeys who hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil - the story underscores how human failings to cover up the truth can lead to extravagant lies and tragic consequences. The psycho-drama, about family troubles reluctantly faced by a businessman's driver, stars Ebru Ceylan, the director's wife, and Yavuz Bingol, currently Turkey's singing idol.

Other Cannes front-runners are Wim Wenders's The Palermo Shooting (Germany) and Steven Soderbergh's Che (USA), both directors with previous Golden Palm wins for, respectively, Paris, Texas (1984) and Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989).

The press corps will jump on Soderbergh's Che simply because it's easy and fun to write about. Also, Che is two films in one: first Guerrilla and then The Argentine, in a four-hour epic on the life and times of Che Guervara. So all the better to fill copy.

"For the first time in 15 years, I have shot a film again in Germany and Europe," said Wim Wenders in a Berlin interview. "And I am particularly pleased to present the film at a festival that has been connected with my work in a special way."

Indeed, this marks Wim Wenders's seventh appearance on the Croisette. The story of a tired middle-aged fashion photographer - Finn, played by Campino, the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen rock band in his first screen appearance - The Palermo Shooting (Germany/Italy) is a trademark Wim Wenders Road Movie production.

It opens in Düsseldorf (Wim's birthplace and homebase of Die Toten Hosen) and closes in the Sicilian capital of Palermo. Along the way, Campino encounters Hollywood legend Dennis Hopper, rock stars Lou Reed and Patti Smith, starlet Milla Jovovich and a bevy of German screen personalities. Finn's batteries are recharged when he meets lovely Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno.

Considering Wim's past triumphs at Cannes, his chances to win a third Palme d'Or are better than even. The trick for the critic is to find the red thread running through his films from The American Friend (Cannes, 1977) onwards.

The dark horses in the 2008 Cannes competition?

Kornel Mundruczo's Delta (Hungary). Before arriving at Cannes, Delta had already won top awards at the Hungarian Film Week in Budapest. Shot in the picturesque Danube delta, Mundruczo draws upon classic motifs in Shakespeare and Euripides to tell the tragic story of siblings seeking shelter in an isolated retreat. The film was five years in the making and had to be interrupted upon the death of lead actor in the middle of shooting.

And Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, an Israeli-French-German coproduction. Waltz with Bashir marks the first time a feature-length animated documentary has been invited to contend for Golden Palm laurels. Setting his film in west Beirut during the Lebanon Conflict, Ari Folman takes the viewer on a eye-catching journey into the pop culture of the 1980s. With the Libanon Crisis surfacing again, a Golden Palm could boost chances to resolve the ongoing conflict.