Chris Tookey of the Daily Mail certainly gave Wind That Shakes the Barley a bad review (3/10 on his website). He often makes very scathing remarks (similar to Nothing's) about films 'financed by the British establishment', especially lottery-funded films. That pretty much seems to be his job, actually. I don't see most of these films so can't really comment on their quality, but I thought WTSTB was fantastic. I remember Bradshaw's review of that film (3/5) was very defensive, though.

Apologies, I should have been more specific: a journalist from a mainstream publication with centrist ideology, ie. publications that are sympathetic to the BBC, Channel Four and the government. Of course the Daily Mail - a far-right tabloid - is going to be against most anything the above organisations do (for equally ideological reasons)... However, the opinion and readership of the Daily Mail (and The Sun) are completely irrelevant to the successful launch of an arthouse film in the United Kingdom.

Peter Bradshaw keeps coming up, incidentally, because he is the most independent-minded of above crowd, the most resistant to peer pressure. Within limits, of course - he still won't sink below a 3.

In any case, has anyone yet spotted a review of Enter the Void?

Actually, he gave Inglourious Basterds a 1/5.

Now that's just begging for someone with more time than me to do some checking...

However, it's certainly NOT my experience - I have never been struck by the gushing reviews of British films by British critics. Indeed, some of the worst reviews of any films over the past few years have been British (OK - so I know Nothing isn't referring to films such as Sex Lives of the Potato Men or Lesbian Vampire Killers, but still). Even sticking to more attractive art-house fare (Loach, Leigh, Arnold etc.), the tone is often more 'not bad, but nothing new' than 'WOW!' This could well be because (arguably) the default mode of British 'Serious' Cinema is realist, and these directors largely fall within that tradition. Now this doesn't mean there is not a huge difference between Loach and Leigh in many substantial areas, but their films fall broadly within the realist' tradition.

So a new British art-house film is readily understood by mainstream critics as falling within the tradition of quality filmmaking - at least that branch that does not include corsets and frills. Therefore, there may well be a pre-disposed cultural preference for this mode of filmmaking - as well as the 'well it's good, but nothing we haven't seen before' (cf many of the reviews for Leigh's All or Nothing) - which is not really the same as a cabal of critics planning their reviews in order to con art house audiences to see the latest British film. As an aside, I remember when Barry Norman chose Distant Voices, Still Lives as one of his favourite films of its year, it was with the proviso that he respected it as an important film and admired the skill with which it was made - but didn't actually like it very much.

As a final thought - who remembers Splitting Heirs? An Eric Idle "comedy" actually selected for the Cannes main competition in the 90s. Not in the 'realist' tradition, and not a costume drama (it owes more to Ealing and Kind Hearts in particular) - and not very good (to put it mildly). Slated by the critics and disappeared at the box office.

Although we can assume the odds of this being true are slim, let's assume for the moment that it is. Would it work? Are art house audiences so intellectually malleable that they whistle their way to the theater to the tune of current critical appraisal? Or is it more likely that they would soon stop reading such reviewers, having been ill-advised in the past.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone cares what a reviewer says. I don't understand why anyone cares which film wins, and which film loses, festival prizes. Does Nothing think that such critical appraisals help determine which films get made, and which films don't get made?

Actually, from what I understand, this is the one area of film going which IS quite review led - I remember Barry Norman (him again!) saying the only times he seemed to make a difference was when he gave a foreign language film a rave review.

But of course this can only work if the film is actually pretty good in the first place. Of course some distributors rely on word-of-mouth and competition success - Artificial Eye (IIRC) who distributed 4 Months... in the UK did NOT show it to critics beforehand becuase they didn't want their target audience (who would presumably be reading the review pages) to be put off by the perceptions of darkness that might have been inferred from the reviews, no matter how positive. So, in this case, again IIRC, the film was marketed as a Cannes prize-winner - I don't know how the film ultimately fared though, but the reviews (a week late) seemed to be extremely positive.

Absolutely. Apart from a few core cinephiles, the majority of an arthouse audience (what one might call the 'crossover audience') is incredibly middle-brow.


The critical appraisals are only one part of the chain (perhaps the most visible part). Exhibitors (in particular the City Screen chain in the UK) heavily favour establishment films against independent films; because of this, distributors also favour these films (both Looking for Eric & Fish Tank were pre-sold in most major European territories long before their Cannes premieres); having effectively managed the coverage in Cannes, they are now pretty much guaranteed positive lead reviews across the board and this will increase exhibition exposure further, which the press can then use to justify even more coverage of said film - a cycle of amplification. On a funding level, then, UKFC and BBC can use this 'success' to justify a continuation of their policies. Therefore, the next time someone asks "what is the status with Terence Davies' new project?" they can answer: "Fish Tank and Looking for Eric were in Competition in Cannes, had amazing write ups and did excellent box-office." They control the process from top to the bottom, thus they control the agenda.


? Er, that's not a British film.


Not at all. Let's say, rather, that the default mode the establishment wishes to fund is social realist (centre-left).*

*edit: and period drama.

IN ANY CASE. First in on the Noe.

My bad -- I thought you were speaking generally, not specifically about his review of British films.

Interesting. I guess my basic solipsism has prevented me from seeing this herd mentality in the art house audience.


Truthfully, I won't read this or any other review of the Noe film until after I've seen it. I already know I enjoy Noe from his previous films, and I do not wish my personal appraisal of the film to be polluted by another voice. Perhaps this is the reason I am blind to your vision of critical conspiracies.

Perhaps, but for many years the overwhelming critical consensus on British Cinema has been to privilege those films seen as 'realist' (and, dear God, there's a can of worms daring someone to open it with just that one word) - and 'realism' is often taken as referring to working or lower-middle classes. I would suspect the more recent critical favour for costume drama (probably mid 80s onwards - say from Room With A View, as too many earlier examples, such as Gainsborough, were considered trashy) deserves another thread (tying in with conservatism in the 80s, nostalgia, and indeed anti-nostalgia). But these also get public financing, assuming you include the BBC with this (Miss Potter, The Duchess), and tend to be more likely to cross-over to the mainstream - Miss Potter made around £6m in the UK, more than any Loach or Leigh film.

Promising reviews for Haneke's 'The White Ribbon'. His chances of walking off with the Golden Palm must be very high, though I'm intrigued to see what Tsai Ming-Liang can do with 'Face'. Fingers crossed both get picked up for the London Film Festival.

I'm intrigued by Entering the Void as well, and that comes from someone who hates Irreversible with a passion. It wasn't the graphic rape and killing of a man with a fire extinguisher that angered me but the rampant homophobia (if there is a film more morally conservative, lionising heterosexuality as the only morally, socially and culturally acceptable orientation, a film more backwards in its judgement of the many different forms of sexuality than this piece of shit then I have yet to see it). There are thousands of straight rapists on this planet, yet Noe reveals the perpetrator to be a bisexual. And that's not even mentioning the gay club from hell. If Noe wanted to contrast the destructive element of the male against the female as pure and healing, life-giving, he could have done so without indulging in excessive minority bashing.

Add to that the embarassing Kubrick nods (pregnant Monica Belluci resting below a poster of 2001's Star Child), and the jaw-dropping banality of the second half, and it all amounts to very little. Even accounting for the fact that Marcus and Pierre are shown to be racist, and that the backward structure of the film admittedly denies you any identification with Marcus and Pierre when Pierre kills the man and shows up the killing for the senseless act it is, that still doesn't begin to balance out the sheer awfulness, stupidity and obnoxiousness of this film as a whole. Rotten to the core.

There, I feel better now... (at least Void doesn't sound like more of the same).

From Ebert's blog, on Enter the Void.

It doesn't nullify your homophobia argument (and other difficult questions that are raised about the fear of the other in the shifty vaguely criminal arabs and distrust of shifting sexuality and gender) but I remember reading a very interesting interpretation of Irreverisble as being all male at one end of the film and all female at the other, with the fateful meeting of the sexes in the gynaecological/anal tunnel at the central rape scene. I also feel that the heterosexual relationships at the other end of the film seem deeply flawed in their own, less violent, way that leads to the strange (happy?) almost immaculate conception ending that returns 'to the void' we all come from.

I'm still disturbed by the film beyond just the violence on display, and struggle with the meaning behind it, though I've always been fascinated by it for that reason. Along with the Haneke (and of course Antichrist!), I can't wait for the chance to see Enter The Void for myself.

Final predictions, now that all the reviews are in:

Palme d'Or: Les herbes folles, Alain Resnais
Grand Jury Prize: The Time That Remains, Elia Suleiman
Jury Prize: Enter the Void, Gaspar Noe
Best Director: Bright Star, Jane Campion
Best Actor: Fish Tank, Michael Fassbender
Best Actress: Vincere, Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Best Screenplay: Das Weisse Band, Michael Haneke

Anybody know where the award show can be watched in English as it happens on Sunday?

Colin, good point about the depiction of Arabs in Irreversible. One reviewer, I can't recall who, seemed to argue that the film raises questions about the issue of racial tensions in France. I just wish the film wasn't so crude and discriminatory, and flat out simplistic on so many levels. I would never object to gays and lesbians being portrayed as flawed and even unsympathetic but when a film demonises us like Irreversible does, I get very angry about it. In this respect it makes me grateful when a film like Brokeback Mountain, as flawed as it is, redresses the balance in how gays and lesbians are portrayed on film.

Re Entering The Void: I'll try my best to avoid any reviews before seeing it myself, now that I almost read too many spoilers about the Von Trier. Other films in the line-up that I'm going to see are the Audiard, the Haneke, the Tarantino (one critic said Harvey Weinstein sat stone-faced through the press conference, and a few people have speculated that the film may be recut) and maybe Bright Star (not the keenest on costume dramas, to be honest).
Would be very surprised if Haneke walks away from Cannes without a prize. I'd tip the lead from A Prophet for Best Actor instead of Fassbinder.

Quite possible. Unless Audiard takes Best Director. Maybe they'll create a special 'Lifetime Achievement' award for Resnais, therefore sliding Suleiman or Haneke in for the Palme d'Or. There are a variety of ultimate possibilities... However, I've paid my money and will take my choice

A booker?

Are you suggesting a move from Booker to Hooker?

heh:

"Speaking to Agence France Presse, festival director Thierry Fremaux responded, that it was a “ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship, (it is) scandalous coming from an ‘ecumenical’ jury which what is more is headed by a film-maker.”

It plays in french on TV5 (Canada). It start in 4 minutes

Thanks for the help, but I don't get Canadian television.

I'm commenting live on the other forum.

Already finished, the palme d'or goes to White ribbon Can't wait to see it...