Cannes: Day Seven

Jim Jarmusch's 'Broken Flowers' turns out to be one of the highlights of this year's festival.

May 17 2005

If Cannes has yet to produce any surprises, that's partly because the greatest filmmakers in the competition are proving themselves reliable enough to turn in predictably terrific films.

Following Haneke and Cronenberg, we now have Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's 'L'Enfant'.

'Rosetta' won them the Palme d'Or a few years ago, and when 'The Son' premiered in Cannes in 2002, many felt it was that film's equal.

In many respects, their latest, while having traits in common with those films, is a little closer to the likewise wonderful 'The Promise' (made three years before 'Rosetta'), in that its visual and narrative style are just a little more conventional than its two immediate predecessors. Which certainly doesn't make it any less powerful or intelligent.

The film stars Jérémie Regnier ('The Promise') as a young thief living from hand to mouth on the streets of Liège and not exactly facing up to his responsibilities as the father of a son born only days ago.

But, even his teenage girlfriend – who does at least have an apartment of sorts to go to – isn't quite prepared for what turns out to be his alarmingly cavalier attitude to parenthood.

To reveal more of the plot would spoil your future enjoyment of the film. Suffice to say that the Dardennes' account of life on the margins – begging, doing deals, stealing and selling – is at once spot-on in realist terms and absolutely convincing as a study in… well, not so much redemption as character development.

It also succeeds as superbly suspenseful drama; a chase sequence towards the end is far more heart-stoppingly tense than any number of Hollywood action scenes. The movie certainly should be a contender for major prizes.

That could well be true, too, of Jim Jarmusch's delightful 'Broken Flowers', even though comedies almost never manage to pick up the Palme d'Or itself.

Perhaps Bill Murray might have a chance of Best Actor for his pitch-perfect playing of Don Johnston (note that 't'!) a middle-aged serial monogamist who is left by his frustrated girlfriend (Julie Delpy) at the very same time as he receives an unsigned letter from an old flame claiming she bore his son after they broke up and now the 19-year-old boy has gone in search of his father.

Egged on by his mystery-novel-nut neighbour (Jeffrey Wright), Murray embarks on his own cross-country quest to find out which of his exes might have sent the letter, leading to some hilarious encounters and – just maybe – a reassessment of his attitude to relationships and parenthood.

What's extraordinary is how Jarmusch has made a more mainstream-friendly film than previously while remaining absolutely true to himself.

The deadpan, faintly absurdist humour, the minimalist but expressive mise-en-scène, the feeling for the American landscape, the imaginative use of music and the sense of life as a journey are all present and correct in a tale that's both deliciously funny and strangely touching.

Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton are among the old flames revisited, but the starry cast does nothing to diminish the artistic integrity of the project; indeed, Jarmusch's reputation as perhaps the most enduringly independent and idiosyncratic of American film-makers remains wholly secure.

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