Cannes. "Face" + "Ashes and Blood"

By David Hudson on 05/23/2009

[Updated through 5/25]

"The first walkout occurred fifteen minutes into the self-referential film, about a Taiwanese director making a movie of the legend of Salomé in the Louvre," reports Melissa Anderson for Artforum; "when the final credits rolled, about a third of the 350-seat theater - completely full at the beginning - was empty. In one of 'Visage's many longueurs, a triad of Gallic grandes dames - Fanny Ardant (who is also at the festival with 'Ashes and Blood,' her debut as a director), Jeanne Moreau and Nathalie Baye - gather at a dinner table. 'If we talk, time will go by,' Ardant says to her dining companions. Yet not even the estimable Fanny could make the minutes pass fast enough."

"Malaysian-born, Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang's films have always required a lot of work," writes Peter Brunette in the Hollywood Reporter. "He's a rigorous practitioner of the extreme long-take aesthetic, and audiences have been willing to stick with such demanding masterpieces as 'What Time Is It There?,' 'The River' and 'Vive l'amour' because despite the constant battle to overcome ennui, Tsai always pays off, either in humor, fresh insight into the human condition or a novel, strikingly profound combination of the visual and aural. Alas, that is not the case with his latest offering, the very bloated 'Face,' which starts off impenetrable and ends that way as well."

"This is actually the second time that Tsai has made a film in France," notes Jordan Mintzer in Variety, "and both 'Face' and 2001's 'What Time Is It There?' use similar Parisian locations, two of the same actors, and several repeated references to the French New Wave, especially to François Truffaut. But while 'Time' convincingly portrayed the urban solitude, 'Face' loses its narrative wind in clunky musical set pieces, misguided French-language thesping, and a near 2½-hour running time that far outstays its welcome."

"Less emotional and more theoretical than anything he has done before, Face will appeal exclusively to Tsai Ming-liang's devoted fans who find themselves in familiar territory here, but the rest of the audience may be baffled - to say the least." Dan Fainaru: "Replete with Tsai's trademarks - performances from Lee Kang-Cheng and Lu Yi-Ching, mention of his fear of water, aquariums and fish, odd musical numbers, homosexuality - this is once again a series of framing shots, each lending the picture a stunning visual look."

Cannes has notes on and video and audio from the press conference.

Online viewing tip. The trailer.

Meanwhile, I've only seen one review so far of "Ashes and Blood," a "Special Screening" at Cannes, and that's Dan Fainaru's for Screen: "Gorgeous landscapes and spectacular cinematography aside, Fanny Ardant's first feature seems to indicate that she might be better off staying with her day job as a highly respected actress. She seems uncomfortable behind the camera in 'Ashes and Blood,' and not terribly confident as a writer. Her tale of blood revenge, which takes place in an unspecified location but is shot entirely in Transylvania, is hesitant, confused, and too sketchy to follow."

Update: "Like other Tsai movies, 'Visage' deals with incredibly alienated people," writes Eric Kohn at indieWIRE. "It also reflects the director's sense of wonder about the contents of his art-filled set. 'I felt quite lost when I looked at the paintings in the Louvre,' he said earlier today at the press conference for the film. 'At the same time, they deal with important themes.' The themes come through well enough, although this often makes the so-called story a bit difficult to follow (I had to consult press notes afterwards to sort it all out, and I'm still a bit puzzled). On a visual level, however, it's undoubtedly the prettiest movie in the festival's main competition. As a project commissioned by a safe haven for art and based around its creation, you couldn't ask for much else."

Update, 5/24: Mike D'Angelo at the AV Club for the defense: "More than anything else, 'Face' seems to me an oblique requiem for the kind of movie Tsai has been making for his entire career - a style and worldview that seemed to reach its natural conclusion with the extreme nihilism of his best and most despairing picture, 2005's 'The Wayward Cloud' (also critically reviled). At the time, I wondered aloud where Tsai could go from there, and 'Face' seems to be asking much the same question; that the director himself appears alongside Lee in the final shot almost suggests a passing of the torch, to some degree.... It's a film so personal that it'll only likely appeal to his most hardcore fans. I'm one of them."

Update, 5/25: "About all of Tsai's movies concern some metaphysical phenomenon - sickness, ghosts, movie characters, and love - that manifests itself out of nowhere and nothing as a body, usually in the kitchen, to use the toilet, fuck, and eat some food." David Phelps in The Auteurs' Notebook: "'Visage' requires something like a Tsai primer, or maybe is one: the film develops in Tsai shorthand, the symbols, motifs, and even scenes of his previous films given about a shot apiece."

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

[Photos: "Face," Homegreen Films, 2009; "Ashes and Blood," Alfama Films, 2009']

Tags: Ashes and Blood, Cannes 2009, Face, Fanny Ardant, Jeanne Moreau, Lee Chang-dong, Lu Yi-Ching, Nathalie Baye, Tsai Ming-Liang