"Midnight in Paris" features intermittent flashbacks to the golden ear of the 1920's, with Wilson's melancholy screenwriter character, who longs to transcend his hackery and become a novelist, going walking after midnight to escape his nagging girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) only to find himself strolling right into the gilded rooms of Parisian hot spots patronized by Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Salvadore Dali and countless other iconic artists and intellectuals from the time. Wilson interacts with these titans of culture, gaining wisdom and insight from these new peers, the greats he's always idolized, and trades notions on life and love with them too.I wrote about "Midnight in Paris" with a shrug last week, though I was sure to mention that yesterday's Cannes kick-off screening would seal the deal as to whether or not I'd be rushing out to see Woody's latest. The deal has been sealed: this one is a must-see. It helps that Marion Cotillard, Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, and even the French first lady herself, Carla Bruni, are also joining the festivities in Woody Allen's take on the City of Lights. "Midnight in Paris" opens in the U.S. on May 20, and should stroll its way onto Portland screens by the first weekend in June.
Today's only competition screening was the festival's first, with "Midnight in Paris" among the several Hollywood exports to play out-of-competition at Cannes for promotional reasons. The first of the 20 films squaring off for the Palme d'Or was Julia Leigh's austere *erotic drama* "Sleeping Beauty," which is "presented by Jane Campion" though the director of 1993's Palme-winning "The Piano" is not credited as a producer or anything else; essentially, Campion endorses the film and to Cannes particularly, her stamp of approval matters. Both filmmakers hail from Australia, where until now Julia Leigh has worked primarily as a novelist. For her transition from written to visual form to be selected by Les Gens du Cannes is a very big deal, indeed, which shot pre-fest interest in "Sleeping Beauty" through the roof.
Reactions have been rather modest to Leigh's directorial debut, which stars Emily Browning ("Sucker Punch," "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events") as Lucy, a university student who takes a job as a specialized prostitute to pay her tuition. The title alludes, of course, to the classic fairy tale, but also specifically to the actual services provided by the film's high-end brothel, where the girls are gently drugged into a deep sleep and given over to the desires of their male clients with only one prohibition: No penetration.
Which seems to be the film's biggest downside, that it doesn't penetrate deeply enough or even scratch the surface of eroticism. Naysayers yawn first, then dismiss "Sleeping Beauty" as living up to its name far too seriously. Sasha Stone (whose Awards Daily blog is indispensable from September-February every year; this off-season, she's reporting from Cannes for The Wrap) was bored to death, headlining her experience of the film to suit ("Nude Snooze"). Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter summarized Leigh's film as "soporific in every sense" (ouch!).
Not everybody who filed into that first screening of "Sleeping Beauty" ended up asleep, however; the majority consensus seems to be that Leigh is a definitive new director to watch, and that her film is designed to be polarizing with its ability to both seduce and repel audiences with its frank depictions of female sexuality, the transactional nature of sex, and the blatant objectification of women.
Guy Lodge, the London-based contributor to InContention.com, offers up a near-rave. He also notes that slapping the "erotic drama" genre label on the film is a sign of either misinterpretation of the film's externalized subtext or merely a case of glib copywriting (admit one!): "Anyone still describing 'Sleeping Beauty' as an “erotic drama” after its Cannes premiere can only have seen the marketing materials and skipped the movie; its atmospherics wound so tight that the breaking of a glass elicits an actual gasp from the viewer, we’re too busy fearing for Lucy to be remotely titillated by any of her exploits."
In any case, I'm looking forward to "Sleeping Beauty," whether or not the Jane Campion-approved tale wins the Palme d'Or. James Rocchi of Indiewire.com sums it up best, so I'll leave the final word to him (with the trailer for "Sleeping Beauty" below):
Like Soderbergh‘s “The Girlfriend Experience,” “Sleeping Beauty” is ostensibly about sex and control—but is really about work and wages..... As much as I am sure that “Sleeping Beauty” will start extensive arguments—I can imagine vast energies being devoted to both exalting it and tearing it down, making it a film fraught with the intellectual and cultural equivalent of potential energy—I am also sure that the film inarguably marks Leigh as a director to watch.
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