Cannes honors Bardot with dog-friendly beach as Swatch watches sell out for 20x price.

Fjord review: Cristian Mungiu at sea with strange child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan Cannes film festival: The Palme laureate here makes a misstep with an odd, disquieting film that leaves too many issues unresolvedRomanian director and Palme laureate Cristian Mungiu – the winner here in 2007 with his stunning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – comes to Cannes with an anticlimactic, underpowered movie which it seems to me could be part of an odd phenomenon at this years festival, detectable also in films here by Kantemir Balagov and Ryusuke Hamaguchi: auteurs making coproduction movies outside their home turf and mother tongue with big foreign stars, perhaps as a result of creative conversations at international film festivals with admirers from all over the world – and losing focus. Fjord is an odd film, bearing Mungius signature, certainly, with enigmatic long shots and avoidance of closeups, and one very distinctive crowding of faces in a dinner-scene tableau. But the ostensible pain and trauma of its story is conveyed without the rewarding complexity that we have come to associate with him, and without revelation or mystery. Ultimately, the film does not compellingly deliver a blazing truth about its various relationships – but neither does it intriguingly withhold any such truth from us. Sebastian Stan plays a Romanian guy called Mihai, married to a Norwegian woman called Lisbet (Renate Reinsve); they have to come to live in the beautiful, remote village of Lisbets birth because Mihai, a qualified software engineer, can get an IT job and there is a strong church community thereabouts which is a great attraction as Mihai and Lisbet are fundamentalist conservative Christians who are very strict. They are given a warm welcome by their (non-Christian) neighbours, who are the schools headteacher and his wife. The film begins on a disquieting, ambiguous moment: Mihai has clearly just delivered a punishment of some sort to their teenage daughter who is now required to give him a penitent hug. The schools staff notice that the children have marks and bruises. They are gently but pointedly questioned and (perhaps) incriminate their parents because they are not sufficiently proficient in any language other than Romanian. Perhaps the language issue also contributes to the calamitous statement Mihai then gives to the police with no lawyer present. With lightning speed, the children are taken into provisional care pending a hearing and criminal trial. Things are complicated by a growing concern about their neighbours elderly disabled father and about Mihai and Lisbets daughter forming a close relationship with their neighbours rebellious teen daughter. There is something undoubtedly ingenious in the way Mungiu invites the audience to sympathise with the children, and side against this ice-cold patriarch – and then almost side with the patriarch against the blandly smug, supercilious officers of a system weighted against them. Liberal prejudice against them as Christians or as Romanians arguably plays its part. But the facts of the matter do not seem to be in doubt: Mihai concedes he smacks or slaps the children occasionally – quite normal in the robust world of Romania. But dont those bruises and marks show something worse than that? The matter is not resolved in court or in the film and then we have a strangely inert and suspense-free finale at the ferry terminal which reveals that the relationship between the teen girls Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) is something else the film has not sufficiently told or not told us about. Mungius technique will always be interesting but this is a disappointment.• Fjord screened at the Cannes film festival Continue reading...

theguardian · 2 days ago

Barfußschuhe: Das komplette Gegenteil eines herkömmlichen Schuhs Das Beispiel Birkenstock zeigt: Auch hässliche Schuhe haben das Zeug zum Klassiker. Für den Barfußschuh sind das gute Voraussetzungen. Lohnt es sich umzusteigen? Und für wen genau sind diese Modelle geeignet?

faz · 2 days ago

The Unknown review – Léa Seydoux gets invaded in uncanny and bizarre body-swap horror Cannes film festival: A man is terrified to wake up in Seydouxs body in this metempsychotic mystery film about gender identityArthur Hararis film is adapted from a graphic novel he wrote with his brother Lucas called The Case of David Zimmerman. It is a doomy, murky and intriguing supernatural noir mystery, hardly visible within the dark toxic cloud of its own strangeness, populated by people bearing stricken expressions of misery and fear. There are some genuinely uncanny and disquieting moments. Maybe it is a parable for the crisis of gender identity – or just identity, and everyones occasional experience of the profound, unreconcilable unknowability of our own bodies. There is also something of the mood of Blow-Up, or Basil Deardens Brit pulp chiller The Man Who Haunted Himself, or indeed David Robert Mitchells modern classic It Follows. But this one, sadly, is flawed by that perennial problem of how to end a story with a great premise.Niels Schneider plays David Zimmerman, a photographer in his late 30s documenting the way in which his home town has changed over the past century – a project inherited from his photographer dad. (He has an old photo of them both seated on the pavement, apparently mimicking Chaplin and the Kid.) David is overworked, dishevelled and depressed, but is just about persuaded to go along to a raucous New Years Eve party where he is stunned to glimpse a woman staring at him, played by Léa Seydoux, whom he realises he photographed a few months previously. Continue reading...

theguardian · 2 days ago

Éric Cantona takes centre stage at the Cannes Film Festival Football legend Éric Cantona is back on the Croisette with two films in Cannes: Marvellous Mornings, the debut feature from director Avril Besson, and Cantona, a British documentary exploring his turbulent years at Manchester United. Away from the premieres, the festival is also facing a growing political controversy after hundreds of film figures accused Canal+ and billionaire Vincent Bolloré of contributing to a far-right shift in French culture.

france24 · 2 days ago

Dogs allowed on glitzy Cannes beach newly renamed after French film star Brigitte Bardot A beach in Frances glitzy city of Cannes that was renamed in honour of Brigitte Bardot on Monday will be open to dogs in tribute to the late French film stars animal rights activism, local authorities said. Bardot is a controversial figure in France due to her passionate support of the both the animal welfare movement and far-right politics.

france24 · 2 days ago

Resellers offering Royal Pop watches for 20 times original price The new Swatch and Audemars Piguet pocket watch Royal Pop is already being sold on at massively inflated prices shortly after going on sale. The demand is causing chaos in front of shops worldwide. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox The Royal Pop pocket watch launched by Swatch and Audemars Piguet on Saturday has appeared on resale platforms at massively inflated prices shortly after going on sale. According to media reports, a complete set of the eight models was resold on StockX on Sunday for more than $25,000 (CHF19,600). On Ebay, individual models were on offer on Monday for the equivalent of over CHF7,300 ($9,300). The official selling price was around €400 (CHF365) or $400-$420, depending on the market. For many buyers, reselling was the plan right from the start. Outside the Swatch store in Times Square in New York, one buyer told the AFP news agency that many had waited up to a week to buy watches and resell them immediately at a significant ...

swissinfo · 2 days ago

Dogs allowed on new Brigitte Bardot beach in glitzy Cannes Dogs will be allowed on one of the normally tightly controlled beaches in Cannes that was renamed Monday after late film legend-turned-animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot.

france24 · 2 days ago

France announces team of architects for Louvre overhaul Frances wide-reaching redevelopment of the Louvre will be carried out by a team of international architects including STUDIOS Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects, the culture ministry announced Monday. The overhaul will include a new entrance for the Paris museum and a dedicated space for the Mona Lisa.

france24 · 2 days ago

France unveils architects to build new Louvre entrance and Mona Lisa space Frances wide-reaching redevelopment of the Louvre will be carried out by a team of international architects including STUDIOS Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects, the culture ministry announced Monday. The overhaul will include a new entrance for the Paris museum and a dedicated space for the Mona Lisa.

france24 · 2 days ago

Kristen Stewart on the red carpet in Cannes, while Javier Bardem slams toxic masculinity Eve Jackson brings us an update from the mid-point of the 79th Cannes Film Festival as Adam Driver joins Miles Teller and director James Grey on the red carpet for Paper Tiger, a film that explores corruption and moral downfall in the United States of the 1980s.

france24 · 3 days ago

Swatch watch triggers consumer frenzy from Europe to New York City The launch of limited edition Swatch watches descended into chaos on May 18 in several European cities and New York, with French police firing tear gas to restore order at one store near Paris. Hundreds of people waited through the night - and in some cases for several days - hoping to get their hands on the Royal Pop timepieces, made in collaboration with luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet.

france24 · 3 days ago