Cannes: Day Six

François Ozon and Sérgio Machado's new films screen on the Croisette.

May 16 2005

Perhaps the most enjoyable movie in Cannes so far, David Cronenberg's 'A History of Violence' lives up to its title in two respects.

On one level, it refers to the lead character – Viggo Mortensen's seemingly peaceful, perfect family-man café-proprietor, whose calm small-town life takes a turn for the worse when two murderous villains turn up and expect rather more from his place than the coffee and pie they initially order.

On another level, it's metaphorical, since the movie reveals with ruthless but dazzling logic not only how violence begets violence but also how there is probably a monster lurking in us all.

What first looks set to be a family-in-peril thriller turns into a philosophical drama that transcends genre even as it delivers suspense, action, gore and comedy.

It would be wrong to reveal more here, save that William Hurt gives a wondrously witty and multi-layered performance in the last act.

It may not be as fine a film as 'Spider', but it is certainly more audience-friendly, and impresses once again for the superb control Cronenberg has over his material.

In 'Regarde la Mer' François Ozon displayed similar skill, but since then we've most seen him failing to fulfil that early promise.

His 'Le Temps Qui Reste' ('What Time Remains') is another movie likely to disappoint those who, like me, are bewildered by the esteem in which he's held in France.

Melville Poupaud plays the gay photographer who finds, at the age of 31, that he probably has just months left to live, and decides, more or less by instinct, that he has to settle a few things before he dies.

The narrative structure, of course, is familiar from 'Le Feu Follet' and countless other movies, and Ozon manages to contribute nothing new or interesting to the subgenre.

Most of his encounters – notably with a predictably sympathetic and similarly rebellious grandmother played by Jeanne Moreau – are tainted by cliché. An implausibly convenient meeting with waitress and would-be mother Valeria Bruni Tedeschi also demonstrates how contrived the movie often is.

Poupaud himself is fine as the dying man, but he's not helped by Ozon's over-insistent use of music by Preisner (his requiem for Kieslowski) and Silvestrov on the soundtrack.

The Ozon played in the Un Certain Regard strand, as did the Brazilian 'Lower City' by Sérgio Machado, former assistant to Walter Salles (who produced this first feature).

Though no masterpiece – the film is far too modest for any such ambitions – it's one of the delights of the festival so far, effortlessly avoiding all the pitfalls of 'Jules et Jim'-style stories by allowing the characters to breathe properly.

The two twentysomething male friends and the young prostitute they give a lift to and fall for are never once romanticized.

They're not the most morally upright citizens, nor are they exactly reconstructed in their sexual politics (they've probably had little or no education) – but they become, during the course of the movie, some of the most credible and engaging creations to grace the Festival's screens.

The acting is superb, the direction unflashy but expressive, and the film moves along at an agreeable pace, leaving time for us to get to know them better without ever boring us.

Unlike the Ozon film it is, despite generic expectations, cliché free, and even manages to get the ending just right.

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