Festival in Cannes

I really enjoyed this movie.

It simultaneously captures the feel of a glitzy French film festival and the deal making that go into getting a movie made.

The entire cast is superb, and Mr. Jaglom's technique of allowing the actors to do a lot of improvising makes for scenes that feel like real interaction between people, as opposed to a couple of actors reciting lines from a screenplay. The French pop ditties within the score was also a nice touch.

Do yourself a favor and see this film.

As a long-time fan of Henry Jaglom, I'd have to put Festival in Cannes slightly behind his last couple of films, the wonderful "Deja Vu" and "Last Summer in the Hamptons." His work is definitely not to everyone's taste -- none of his characters is free of either self-absorption or self-destructiveness -- but those who don't need clear heroes and villains are well-rewarded with psychologically complex and often highly comic portrayals.

This is more in the spirit of "Venice/Venice" and his earlier, more confessional films with the difference being that Henry's not onscreen. Still, his longtime collaborator Zack Norman gives his best performance ever, Anouk Aimee and Maximilian Schell fully embody both the mystery and deluded romanticism they're meant to evoke and a fine array of new faces (especially Alex Craig Mann and the two female writer/producers) step up to Jaglom's "process" and execute it more seamlessly than ever before. Henry's somewhat distracting habit of arhythmic cross-cutting within dialogue scenes has been almost completely cured -- "Festival" has gorgeous long takes that allow the scenes to completely develop their internal tensions. The production values are also the best ever for one of his films; he and his crew really conveyed the spirit of a festival that is really a market.

My main quibble is that his ending is not as satisfying as those of his last films; it, too, harks back to the looser wrap-ups of his earlier work -- even a bit more certainty about the resolution of a couple of the storylines would have helped this feel a little grander in conception.

I saw this at a preview given by Talk Cinema at the local SUNY college. As with all Jaglom movies, there is some good dialogue and moments, but it really doesn't hold together well for its entire length. I wouldn't recommend it, but I doubt it will get a wide distribution.

Henry Jaglom, who knows his way around movie deal-making from the inside, made a vicious thrust at the film industry, located at Cannes with an all-star cast and a wealth of cameos. Critics who panned this brilliant non-lampoon missed the point. If movie nuts (like myself) ever entertained fantasies of making a big time film, Henry Jaglom's satire will cure them.

Sorry that some fans didn't care for this film, I found it deliciously decadent and oh-so-painfully-truthful! It had all the schmaltz and flavor of a run down fan dancer. So delicate at one time, and now so abused. If you really desire to see the Festival as it is, then view this movie. Mr. Schell is excellent, as well as the gentleman that plays the sleeze-ball Kaz. Truly a remarkable film in that it makes you think/feel documentary. Ala Robert Altman and his unscripted dialogue. The audience in my theatre snickered half the film, and there were some real good laughs at some of the irony. Only drawback was the cameraman. He gave us a splitting headache whenever filming Ms. Aimee and Mr. Schell on the boardwalk. Otherwise, go see it. Enjoy!