Nearly half of the films seen by this viewer, 11 of 26
premiered at Cannes, where 24 Cannes films were featured overall this year,
including 10 of the 21 films screened in competition, while in the previous
year the fest showed 21 Cannes films overall, with only 4 of 18 in competition
films, probably making this the highest number ever seen at the Chicago
Festival, which may account for much better scores this year than in years
past, even though it was considered a weak year at Cannes according to the
attending critics. Perhaps what was missing at Cannes this year were
overblown, overrated offerings from big named directors, where instead the
overall quality was more impressive than first believed. While it
is likely there are fewer consensus masterpieces premiering at Cannes these
days, nonetheless there are outstanding, albeit smaller films to
discover.
Jonathan has created a Google spreadsheet allowing a small
group of us to enter grades for each film we see:
While again there are some major differences, as two of my
highest rated films, Mountains May Depart
and Mustang, an A and A-, were both
mysteriously graded D’s by Evan and were his lowest rated films at the
festival, as he was not impressed by the “sincerity” of the characters or the
visual design of the first and found the second “unbearable.” Both were
award winners, as Mountains won Best
Original Screenplay and the Audience Choice Award at the recent Golden Horse
Awards honoring Chinese language cinema (Best Film, Best Director, and Best
Cinematography was awarded to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin), while Mustang won
the Europa Cinemas prize at Cannes for Best European film in the Directors’
Fortnight. It’s always curious how that works out, but it is the 3rd
festival in a row where someone’s favorite, top-rated film was also someone
else’s lowest rated and least favorite film experience overall. This
divisiveness and extreme variance in critical reception may account for the
winners announced at Cannes as well, where there are fewer films being made
today that draw universal praise, which may actually reflect the diminished
influence of important film writers and powerful newspaper critics due to the
advance of social media. Much like the world of Hollywood, where box office
numbers in the first week usually determine a film’s success, social media has
a similar effect on festival films, where the initial reaction has a major
impact, as evidenced by the critic ratings from Cannes, http://cannes-rurban.rhcloud.com/index.pl/2015.
The graders this year include:
Jonathan Dabian, free lance software informer
Evan Wang, Masters in Biology from IIT and Film Center
volunteer
Kirk Madsen, former Facets projectionist and House Manager
Frank Biletz, college history professor
Ivan Albertson, perennial Film Center volunteer
Waydell Walker, television production manager
Robert Kennedy from Cranes Are Flying
Robert at Cranes Are Flying
A
A-
Mustang
93
B+
Dheepan
91
B
Youth
88
Body
(Cialo)
83
B-
Homesick
81
C
D+