Cannes Film Festival | Cannes 2011 Special

Day 10: Friday, 20th May 2011

The Skin I Live In

Cannes (Official Selection) – When plastic surgery goes bonkers, Pedro Almodóvar is the director spinning a yarn around such unpleasantness. Scrubbed and gowned, Paul Martin makes a beeline for the operating theatre.

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Drive

Cannes (Official Selection) – Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Refn team up a tale of burning rubber in the LA underworld. Paul Martin tags along for the ride.

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Oslo, August 31st

Cannes (Un Certain Regard) – Joachim Trier fired a gust of fresh air up the arse crack of European cinema with his 2006 debut, Reprise. Can he repeat the trick with his second feature? Paul Martin finds out.

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Day 9: Thursday, 19th May 2011

Skoonheid

Cannes (Un Certain Regard) – South African-born director Oliver Hermanus pitches up in Cannes with his second feature, and he's not yet even 30. Makes you sick, doesn't it? The last sliver of solace for an underachieving Paul Martin will be if the movie turns out to be cobblers. So, does it?

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Day 8: Wednesday, 18th May 2011

Jeremie Elkaim and Valerie Donzelli, creators and stars of War is Declared.

Cannes 2011: War is Declared interview

The opening film of the 2011 Critics' Week, War is Declared (La guerre est déclarée) is the second feature from French writer-director-actress Valérie Donzelli, and is both a deeply personal family affair and a consistently inventive artistic triumph. Which meant that I was very excited to speak to she and her co-star, co-writer and real-life partner Jérémie Elkaïm in Cannes last Saturday.

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The Tree of Life

Cannes (Official Selection) – Premiering at the busiest press screening at Cannes, expectations were at fever pitch for the latest film from Terrence Malick. Emma Rowley takes a look at a film that situates the universal within the autobiographical.

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Day 7: Tuesday, 17th May 2011

The Palais des Festivals in Cannes during the Saturday premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides.

Pirates of the Premiere: On Stranger Behaviours

It is a well-known fact that we live in a strange world, and few aspects of it are perhaps quite so strange as what happens to otherwise sane and rational people when they are placed within sniffing distance of global celebrity. And anthropologically-minded sort that I am, where better to observe this curious phenomenon first-hand than at the Cannes premiere of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie?

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Take Shelter

Cannes (Critics' Week) – Look out! A storm is brewin'! The newly-commissioned General Zod, Michael Shannon, faces up to the end of the world in an American indie which has already impressed at Sundance. Paul Martin battens down the hatches and settles in for the night.

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Day 6: Monday, 16th May 2011

The Artist

Cannes (Official Selection) – The historical switch from silent to sound cinema has already sired one legendary screen chronicle, in the shape of Singin' in the Rain. Does The Artist deserve to be mentioned in such exalted company? Paul Martin investigates.

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Day 5: Sunday, 15th May 2011

The Other Side of Sleep

Cannes (Directors' Fortnight) – A corpse in the forest unsettles a rural Irish community and unnverves a local girl. Emma Rowley takes a look at a first feature that successfully combines social and psychological threads.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Cannes (Out of competition) – We know Johnny Depp can delight as Cap'n Jack Sparrow, but can Rob Marshall's supporting movie match up to its main attraction? And, wonders Paul Martin, can this blockbuster be the one to span the treacherous sea that's opened up between Tinseltown and its critics?

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The Silence of Joan

Cannes (Directors' Fortnight) – Given the sheer volume of art, literature and, yes, cinema she's inspired over the years, you really need to do something special to make your particular Joan of Arc stand out from the crowd. Paul Martin checks out the latest screen version.

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Day 4: Saturday, 14th May 2011

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Cannes (Official Selection) – Lynne Ramsay's third feature is her most ambitious to date, a clever adaptation that makes for exciting cinema. But it's the phenomenal central performance from Tilda Swinton that'll get everyone talking, says Emma Rowley.

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Day 3: Friday, 13th May 2011

Hard Labor

Cannes (Un Certain Regard) – A first-time feature from a directorial duo still blessed with the gift of jeunesse (Marco Dutra is 31, Juliana Rojas just 29), Hard Labor unleashes a wellspring of horror in the unlikely environs of a São Paolo supermarket. Paul Martin checks out a story of darkly comic dread which proves to be anything other than hard work.

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