What makes this film hard to watch is that we know it is true. The sex tourism of European women in Africa is growing, and the neediness of the women and the exploitation of the boys strikes us as very real.
The buzz at Cannes is that Margarethe Tiesel, the lead in Ulrich Siedl's Paradise: Love, may take the Best Actress award for her exuberant performance as the dumpy woman who comes to Kenya to pick up beach boys.
In an earlier interview I had with Jacques Audiard, we had had a long discussion about his dislike for "ethics" in art. Clearly he was pulling my leg. His new movie is extremely ethical, if not moralistic.
Moonrise Kingdom is an imaginative journey into the world of a boy and girl who escape their alienating home environments to discover love on an island.
John Hillcoat's new film, Lawless, premiered at Cannes this week, with a star cast including Shia Labeouf, Jessica Chastain and Tom Hardy, and co-written by Nicolas Cage, the director's longtime friend and collaborator in Australia.
The film -- as the title suggests -- is a testimony to love. It is one of my favorite films at the festival -- and clearly a great hit with the public.
I never thought I would have Isabelle Huppert burn-out, considering she is a favorite actress, but Hong Sangsoo's new film In Another Country , here at Cannes, drove me to the limit.
Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love, tells the story of a beautiful young prostitute in Tokyo and her charming rapport with an elderly prof, and the comic difficulties with her fiance which ensue.
The famed Bernardo Bertolucci's new film Me and You is about a pimply alienated 14-year-old boy who lives alone with his single mom.
The story of a fishmonger in Naples obsessed with the possibility of being on a Big Brother, Reality is about how easy it is for a human to become consumed by artificial dreams to the point of mental illness.
There were no women directors represented in this year's "Competition" at Cannes, a point that was acknowledged with misgiving by some of the attendees of the festival. For this reason, I went to see Catherine Corsini's film Three Worlds in the "Certain Regard" category.
Everyone speaks about Nastassja Kinski's fragility. I saw strength. We sat together on the Terrazza Martini at Cannes, and she spoke to me with excitement about her new project, a documentary.
Everyone thinks Cannes is exciting for the movies, parties and celebrities. That is half of it.
The creativity of this cynical movie and the quirkiness of these characters make The Taste of Money a worthwhile experience.
David Cronenberg's new film Cosmopolis depicts a world so skewed by capitalism that rats are about to become the unit of currency. The shots are masterful. But what makes the film brilliant is the startling dialogue from Don DeLillo's novel.
