He's Germany's best known director, a welcomed guest at top international film festivals, a cultural icon whose reputation was boosted even more when he was elected to succeed Ingmar Bergman as president of the European Film Academy. Yet something has gone astray on the filmmaking side. To be blunt, Wim has not made a good Wenders films for the past decade and more. The Palermo Shooting was a critical disaster at Cannes.

The Palermo Shooting marked Wim Wenders's ninth entry in the Cannes competition – a record that alone puts him head and shoulders over others in contention for this year's Golden Palm. But there's more to the Wenders story than just that. Wim had become a kind of Cannes ritual, if such is possible in today's festival politics. One look at that record raises not only eyebrows, but also the question: How did he do it?

His first appearance in the Cannes competition was 32 years ago, when his Im Lauf der Zeit (Kings of the Road) (1976), photographed by ace cinematographer Robby Müller in black-and-white, was awarded the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize. Shot from a script that barely covered a page, Kings of the Road stands today as one of the high-water marks of New German Cinema. Improvisation, from that time on, became his directorial trademark.

"Most stories are quite self-centered and have a tendency to push everything else aside," he once said in an interview. "All the stuff you have to show in the course of a film just to satisfy the dramatic construction and keep the storyline going. But films can do so much more than just transport a plot!"

The following year, Wim Wenders returned to Cannes with Der amerikanische Freund (The American Friend) (1977). Loosely based on a Patricia Highsmith mystery thriller, The American Friend starred Dennis Hopper among a bevy of name directors: Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Daniel Schmid, and Jean Eustache (all since deceased). Fast forward thirty years, and Hopper has rejoined Wenders in The Palermo Shooting to impersonate Death, the mysterious cloaked figure pursuing the photographer Finn – an alter ego for the director himself, played by Campino, the leader of Die Toten Hosen rock-'n-roll band – from Düsseldorf to Palermo. Both Wim and Campino were born and raised in Düsseldorf.

Wenders's third visit to Cannes, with Hammett (1982), a production for American Zoetrope, is the one he least likes to talk about. The San Francisco story of hardboiled detective writer Dashiell Hammett living one of his own stories in real life, Hammett went through several rewrites before finally limping its way into production. While in Cannes with Hammett, he hit upon the idea of renting an hotel room in the Carlton to allow filmmakers an opportunity to speak undisturbed to a turned-on video camera about film art. Chambre 666 (1982) was the first of many amusing festival ploys Wenders used at random in the years to come. Other ploys he was to master were such image eyecatchers as changing the color of his glasses, cutting his hair to aptly fit the style of the film production, wearing chic Japanese dress, mumbling something cryptic into the camera during interviews to avoid answering direct questions, taking snapshots of his travels for exhibitions in world-wide Goethe Institutes, and exchanging female partners almost on a whim.

Defiant over the Hollywood Hammett debacle, Wim returned to Europe to shoot quickly on a shoestring Der Stand der Dinge (The State of Things) (1982), the wacky story of a film crew in Portugal about to run out of film. Featuring Samuel Fuller and Roger Corman in supporting roles, The State of Things was entered in the Venice film festival – and won the Golden Lion.

Supported by German and European film funds, Wenders enlisted American playwright Sam Shepard to collaborate with him on Paris, Texas (1984), awarded the Golden Palm at Cannes. Originally, Sam Shepard was to play the lead role in Paris, Texas, but due to scheduling conflicts the lot fell to Harry Dean Stanton instead. Natassja Kinski and Bernhard Wicki also starred in this rambling film about a man wandering around the Texas desert. At this stage in Wim Wenders career, he had already mastered the inside-out of festival politics. The print of Paris, Texas came directly from the lab to the projection room at Cannes. Interviews, given in three different languages, were with picked journalists. Also, the only preview of the film's contents before the press screening of Paris, Texas at Cannes was a "teaser" broadcast on French television. That, too, was an easy option, for Wenders had lived for a time as an art student in Paris and speaks French fluently.

From then on, like a magician, Wim Wenders was a welcomed guest in the Cannes competition, an auteur who could charm Cannes cineastes with a ever expanding grabbag of tricks. Veteran French cinematographer Henri Alekan replaced Robby Müller to lens his Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) (1984), the tale of a fallen angel set in Berlin. Wenders was awarded Best Director. In 1989, he served as President of the International Jury – under his aegis, Steven Soderburgh's Sex, Lies and Videotape (USA) was awarded the Palme d'Or. His In weiter Ferne, so nah (Far Away, So Close) (1993), the sequel to Wings of Desire, was awarded the runnerup Grand Jury Prize. Constructed on mood, rather than narrative, its overlapping dialogue seemed to free himself entirely from the burden of a screenplay.

About this time, Wim Wenders also became intrigued by the technological side of filmmaking. The End of Violence (1997), set in California, projected a future in which human life would be completely controlled by satellite surveillance. Since nobody could make heads or tails of the story, the film was a box-office flop. In 2003, he was back at Cannes again, this time as president of the Caméra d'Or Jury. Not surprising, Christoffer Boe's experimental Reconstruction (Denmark) in the International Critics Week was awarded Best First Feature. The film went nowhere on the commercial market.

Returning to the United States to film Don't Come Knocking (2005), a thematic update on Paris, Texas and Hammett, Wim pulled out all the stops to promote the film in the French press and media. His portrait appeared on the front page of the Le Monde special edition along with an article on films not-to-be-missed among Cannes entries. Die Zeit, the prestigious German weekly, also featured the director's remembrances of his many visits to Cannes – particularly the night he played flipper ("to calm my nerves") on a pin-ball machine in the bar of the Petit Carlton on the rainy night that Paris, Texas premiered in the Palais des Festivals.

Even Sam Shepard was back in Don't Come Knocking, this time not just as screenwriter but also as the actor playing Howard Spence, the burnt-out Western star who gallops off the set in the middle of production. Shot partially in Moab, Utah (John Ford country), partially in Butte, Montana (Dashiell Hammett country), Don't Come Knocking came across as a backlot B-Western – a film of pretense and without much depth.

Much the same is true of Wim Wenders's latest Cannes venture, The Palermo Shooting. "I wanted to make a film like Rock-'n-Roll again – bold and daring, adventurous without fitting a bill, without being afraid to 'say something,' without forethought or scheming," he stated in an interview. "That is where I wanted to pick up with The Palermo Shooting, by exploring once again the terrain of a character and his story – not knowing it fully in advance. I wanted to tell a story without knowing how it would end, to know my subject and my topics without having to peg them to a story from the beginning."

Set in the mythical city of death, The Palermo Shooting is a story about Death personified. Death in a clinch with a burnt-out photographer-filmmaker. Death, too, of Wim Wenders cinema. Finn, a high-paid chic-fashion photographer, whose mobile-phone is always ringing, is tired of globe-trotting fashion shoots. Campino's battered face and tattooed physique tells half the story. The other half is Campino's encounter with Death. One evening, on a Düsseldorf Autobahn, Finn nearly plows his red antique convertible into an approaching vehicle while shooting wildly with his wheel-around camera. By accident, one photo captures the image of Death – Dennis Hopper cloaked behind in a grey hood – who is so enraged that he takes off in pursuit.

A score of pop songs on Campino's iPod later, Death catches up with the hip photographer in Palermo, a Mediterranean city bathed in sunshine with a striking medieval core and a traditional Festival of Death. Along the way, Death has been firing spectral arrows at Finn that hit and pain, but leave no trace immediately after impact. The mystery is half-solved when Finn meets the beautiful Flavia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), an art restorer working on a 14th-century painting by an unknown Sicilian master. The painting features Death shooting arrows at the Wicked and Depraved in Church and State. When Campino and Death finally meet face-to-face, they exchange pseudo philosophical thoughts on the nature of existence, the way of worldly flesh and fetish, and Death's view that analog film is more artistic than digital snapshots. Also, Death is "sick of playing the bad guy"!

As if to underscore that Death is the final arbitrator, Wim Wenders dedicated The Palermo Shooting "to Ingmar and Michelangelo" – that specious ploy drew spontaenous boos at the Cannes press screening. According to reports, next on Wim's shooting schedule is a horror movie shot in Tokyo. Willem Dafoe in the role of Dennis Hopper. In between, he has been asked to serve as president of the international jury at Venice.

Atom Egoyan's Adoration (Canada/France) (2008)

He's one of the auteur directors the Cannes festival takes pride in supporting. Atom Egoyan's Adoration (Canada/France) marks his 10th appearance at Cannes. No mean accomplishment for the Armenian-Canadian filmmaker, whose CV reads more like a diplomat's Who's Who. Yet his latest Cannes competition entry says nothing new and borders on the pretentious.

Born (1960) in Cairo to refugee Armenian parents (Joseph and Shushan Yeghoyan), Atom Egoyan (the family name was Anglicized) was raised in western Canada (British Columbia), studied International Relations and Music (plays classical guitar) at the University of Toronto, received an Oscar Nomination for Best Director (The Sweet Herafter, 1997), won seven Canadian Genie Awards, and was nationally honored as an Officer of the Order of Canada (1999). That's just the tip of the iceberg. For Atom Egoyan also directs opera and television (Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape), finds time to serve as president of the Yerevan "Golden Apricot" International Film Festival (dubbed a "crossroad of cultures and civilizations"), has opened a 50-seat cinema lounge in downtown Toronto (called "Bar Cinema"), currently teaches at the University of Toronto ("dean's distinguished visitor in theatre, film, music and visual studies"), and was recently awarded the lucrative purse-endowed Dan David Prize (for "creative rendering of the past") by Tel-Aviv University.

Among cineastes, however, Atom Egoyan is best known for his regular appearances at Cannes, where he has bagged four major festival awards, in addition to serving in 1996 as a member of the international jury. Over the past two decades at Cannes, mostly during the délégée général tenure of Gilles Jacob (currently festival president), Egoyan has been a regular guest on the Riviera. Queried in 1999 as to the reason for his unswerving regard for the vagabond filmmaker, Jacob simply cited his own liking for "balance" in the competition – meaning a mixture of art and entertainment. "Sometimes we get both in one film," he mused. "As in Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey – and that's always a welcomed sign."

As a teenager, Atom Egoyan set his sights on becoming a playwright along the lines of Beckett and Pinter. However, during his studies at the University of Toronto, when he tried his hand at making a couple short films – Howard in Particular (1979), After Grad with Dad (1980), Peep Show (1981), and Open House (1982) – he caught the bug. In short, he found the film-and-video medium more appropriate for exploring his favorite themes of isolation and alienation. Further, Egoyan became fascinated with the medium's possibilities for non-linear dramatic structure, particularly the ploy of deliberately placing sequences out of chronological order. By thus teasing audiences, usually by withholding vital information, he sought to provoke a pro or contra response.

This multi-layered approach to cinematic expression has been criticized as both a strength and weaknesss in the later films of Atom Egoyan. All too often, his critics say, Egoyan submerges the narrative in a labyrinth of intellectual games – like role playing inside close circles, reality perceived through memory, painful interactions spurred by media technology, exotic soundtracks underscoring a psychological mood. Moreover, once the viewer is on to his games, the viewing experience easily runs adrift on intellectual sandbars. Besides role-playing and catch-phrases, he also takes pleasure in a pandora box of images and citations thrown in just for the fun of it.

Atom Egoyan's first feature film, Next of Kin (1984), won him a Genie Nomination for Best Director. Shot in 16mm on a minuscule budget of C$ 37,000, it was invited to participate in the competition at the Mannheim film festival. The story of a lad unhappy with his own family life, Next of Kin explores a mind immersed in video therapy that's supposed to help resolve his antipathy towards his parents. During the therapy, however, he hits upon the idea of posing as the missing son of an Armenian couple, who in turn deeply regret having given their child up for adoption in infancy.

Family Viewing (1987), Egoyan's second low-budget feature film, focuses on the troubles of a disturbed young man in search of his missing mother. His search takes him through a labyrinth of video tapes, telephone sex, mistaken identities, family breakdown, cultural alienation, and the dark humor of the porno trade. Invited to compete at the Locarno film festival, Family Viewing was awarded the FIPRESCI International Critics Award. Presented afterwards at the Montreal World Film Festival, where Wim Wenders's Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) was awarded the festival's Prix Alcan, Wenders publicly requested that his prize be given instead to Atom Egoyan's Family Viewing. With such spectacular festival launches at Locarno and Montreal, Family Viewing went on from there to receive eight Genie Nominations, including Best Director. Almost overnight, Atom Egoyan had become Canada's best known independent film director. Adding to his mystique as an authentic auteur director was a jury decision that occurred two years later at Cannes. With Wim Wenders serving as head of the international jury, the Palme d'Or was awarded to Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), a film remarkably similar in theme and style to Egoyan's Family Viewing.

Invited to present his next three feature films in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes – Speaking Parts (1989), The Adjuster (1991) and Calendar (1993) – Atom Egoyan was swiftly proclaimed by press and public as a major writer-director-producedr to keep an eye on. All three films, each made in collaboration with his actress wife Arsinée Khanjian, work their magic like intricate detective stories that have to be pieced together backwards. Or, as one critic put it, like elaborate visual jigsaw puzzles. In Speaking Parts, a movie about a movie, the setting is a movie office in an elegant hotel. Sex and death are examined in close range with callous movie-making and video technology, the central figure being a woman screenwriter whose script focuses on the tragic death of her brother. When the film was screened in the Cinéma Les Arcades venue at Cannes, the third reel jammed in the projector and prompted a delay – a happenstance that added to the programming event. In The Adjuster, an absurdist take on social mores, the central figures are a couple whose lives are warped by their demands of their jobs, she as a movie censor and he as an insurance adjuster for fire cases. The film, remarkable for its black humor, is often cited for its satirical blast aimed squarely at the Ontario Censorship Board. In Calendar, his wittiest film to date, a dim-witted calendar-photographer (Atom Egoyan) loses his wife (Arsinée Khanjian) to an Armenian taxi-driver while the pair are on an assignment to photograph ancient churches in Armenia for a calendar. It turns out that the taxi-driver, who knows Armenian architecture like the back of his hand, transcends the photographer's bland interest in just getting the job done. And, to the photographer's surprise, the taxi-driver wins the heart of his wife. Inspired by Sergei Parajanov's illegally shot Sayat Nova (aka The Color of the Pomegranate) (1968), Calendar also took the pulse of the Armenia shortly after the republic had declared its breakaway independence from the former Soviet Union.

Following these three critically acclaimed entries in the Directors Fortnight, Atom Egoyan was invited to present his Exotica (1994) in the competition at Cannes. Set in a strip club with the same name, it was billed as an "erotic thriller" by some critics in an attempt to define the core of the film's title. "For me, the obvious definition of the exotic is something outside our immediate experience, Egoyan said in a fumbled-through interview. "But ultimately what really drives the film is the exoticism we feel towards our own experience, that point at which our own memory, and our own relationship to the things that are closest to us, become exotic."

Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997), his first large-scale production, marked a new direction for the Canadian director. Based on a haunting novel about the disintegration of a community by American writer Russell Banks, who also collaborated with Egoyan on the screenplay, The Sweet Hereafter was awarded the Grand Jury Prize, the Ecumenical Prize, and the FIPRESCI Critics Prize at Cannes. In this story of an apparently good-willed "ambulance chaser" on a round of queries as to what really caused an tragic schoolbus accident in ice-bound British Columbia, the film also questions why the legal wizard couldn't save his own daughter from drug-addiction. When the Oscars rolled around, Atom Egoyan was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenwriter.

For his next feature, Felicia's Journey (1999), Egoyan again adapted a novel to the screen. Based on William Trevor thriller, the story of a serial killer who preys on young women in the British Midlands, the film failed to convince as a psycho thriller with a fresh twist. It's mostly memorable for a visual citation from Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (France, 1946), inserted to plumb the depths of dream-state perversity. Apparently believing that the thriller was an apt genre for his puzzle-pronned cinema, Egoyan adapted another crime novel for the Cannes screen, this time with rather disastrous results. In Where the Truth Lies (2005), adapted from a Rupert Holmes novel, he squeezes his time-worn obsessions into a Hollywood whodunit without rhyme or reason. Set in the 1950s, with one-upmanship played by an entertainment team reminiscent of Martin & Lewis, the story line is lost in the game.

In between these two lean crime tales, however, Atom Egoyan returned to his Armenian roots to make Ararat (2002), presented out-of-competition at Cannes, and Adoration (2008), awarded the Ecumenical Prize for aptly "exploring cultural intolerance and misinformation." In Ararat, a film within a film, Clarence Ussher's 1917 memoir, An American Physician in Turkey, is effectively explored in a docu-drama that underscores one of the frightful genocides of the past century. Charles Aznavour - of Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste (Don't Shoot the Piano Player) (France, 1960) fame - plays the film director, whose performance supports the best moments in the film.

In Adoration, linked to the chat phenomenon of the internet age, a high school lad attempts to come to terms with clichéd prejudices of Canadian society. Of far more significance for Egoyan fans, however, Adoration echoes Atom's own Toronto high school when, as an adolescent, he immersed himself in film and video technology to explore role playing at its most fundamental level. This time, however, the internet chatters assume identities online. And few of these blabbermouths have anything relevant to add to the story, which may or may not be the point of the film - for, after all, the ploy itself is part of the lad's school project to explore the reasons behind a known terrorist act. For, as it had happened in real life, a husband had once tried to smuggle a bomb explosive into his wife's baggage on a plane flight. In the schoolboy's fantasies, however, he expands that news event to probe the reasons behind his own parents' death in a car accident, all the more significant because he is the offspring of a muslim-christian marriage. Further, as it turns out, his schoolteacher, who subs as a drama instructor, also had been previously married to his father. Finally, to add some symbolic depth to the film, this just happens to be the Christmas season, and there's a dying racist grandfather who still suspects foul play somewhere along the line that caused his daughter's death.

Sound confusing? It is, but nothing really to get too concerned about. Because, as in most of Atom Egoyan's films, this is only the tip of the multicultural iceberg. The only puzzle that begs solution is where "adoration" fits in. That's anybody's guess. And apparently the way Egoyan likes to have it.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uc Maymun (Three Monkeys) (Turkey/France) (2008)

Uc Maymun (Three Monkeys) (Turkey/France) marks Nuri Bilge Ceylan's fourth visit to Cannes. His status as a genuine auteur grows with each film. This time around, he has come closer than ever before to paying homage to the director he respects the most - Andrei Tarkovsky.

Back In 1995, he made his first appearance at Cannes in the short film section with Koza (Cocoon), starring his own parents in a tale of family alienation that has become his cinematic trademark. Even then, as an aspiring auteur director, his style of filmmaking was visibly influenced by Tarkovsky's cinema. Cocoon explored personal feelings within an already finely honed stylistic vision. Further, in this and succeeding portraits of the inner self, he made sure to control every phase of production: as producer, screenwriter, director, cameraman, set designer, editor - in short, the image as the defining element of the whole film.

Ceylan's journey into the self continued in Kasaba (The Small Town) (1997), programmed at the International Forum of New Cinema at the 1998 Berlinale. Shot in black-and-white, The Small Town, an impressionistic portrait of family life in an isolated village, is remarkable for its misty images, as though the entire film is rendered as the director's own nostalgic dream of times past.

Two years later, Ceylan presented his tender and affectionate Mayis the Sikintisi (Clouds of May) (1999) in the competition at the 2000 Berlinale. Viewed as an autobiographical treatise, Clouds of May is the story of a documentary filmmaker, whose next project takes him from Istanbul to the Anatolian village of his birth. The filmmaker's overriding concern for the merits of the production, however, prevents him from appreciating the rather obscure distress of his father, who needs his son to help validate his legal claim to a piece of land on which he has already built a house. As the title implies, Clouds of May is flooded with shots of natural beauty – indeed, images reminiscent of Turner's landscape paintings. The viewer is beseeched to feel the peace of a idyllic wooded retreat and the languid beauty of a spring evening, to which are added the faces of people reflecting their deep roots in the rhythms and traditions of a rural community.

Ceylan returned to Cannes in 2003 with Uzak (Distant), awarded the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor Awards to Mehmet Emin Toprak (post mortem) and Muzaffer Özdemir. Distant picked up where Clouds of May had left off. The rural cousin in Clouds of May, who asks the filmmaker to help him find a job in the city, is the same young man who comes knocking of photographer's door in Distant. The theme of Distant is found in its title: the slow passage of time, a space giving way to nothingness, a relationship that dies on the vine, a void that is never filled with anything meaningful, a life shown for what it is – barren and colorless. Twice, as though the film needed a frame of aesthetic reference, the estranged photographer is seen viewing a videotape of a Tarkovsky film.

Ceylan returned to Cannes again in 2006 with Iklimler (Climates), awarded the FIPRESCI Critics Prize. As the title hints, Climates is shot in intersecting episodes against the changing seasons of a blistering summer, a rainy autumn, a frosty winter. Only spring is missing, although Bahar – Turkish for "spring" – just happens to be the name of the female protagonist. An excruciating tale of a relationship slowly falling apart, Climates stars Nuri Bilge Ceylan himself as a university professor fascinated by ancient architecture. His wife, Ebru Ceylan, plays his loving but wounded companion.

Now comes Three Monkeys, Ceylan's third invitation to compete for the Palme d'Or. On the surface, Three Monkeys – referring in the title to the well-known "monkey metaphor" of hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil – appears to be little more than a family story about human failings. About how covering up the truth can lead to more extravagant lies and then tragic consequences. Four people are intertwined in a web of lies. A politician, who is involved in a hit and-run accident, persuades his driver to take the blame and go to jail, for which money is paid to the family. While the driver is serving the sentence, the politician seduces the wife. They are discovered by her grown son, a do-nothing who bears the inner burden of having caused the death of his younger brother by drowning. Ebru Ceylan, the director's wife, cowrote the screenplay and plays the driver's wife.

In a personal statement Nuri Bilge Ceylan underscored the theme of Three Monkeys as follows: "It has always astonished me to see in the human soul the coexistence of the power to rule and the potential to forgive, the interest in the most holy and that of the lowest banality, of love and hate." This said, Three Monkeys is Ceylan's first film to deal directly with the human soul. It brings him closer to Tarkovsky than ever before.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence) (Belgium/France/Italy/Germany) (2008)

For many Cannes critics, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's were an odds-on favorite for top festival laurels with the promising Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence) (Belgium/France/Italy/Germany). And one can surmise from some inside reports that the Belgian brothers team worked hard to find the proper thematic material to become the first to score a hat trick - the third Palme d'Or after Rosetta (1999) and L'Enfant (The Child) (2005). But in the end the best that could be squeezed from the international jury was a double-back Best Screenplay Award.For the record, the Cannes festival can look back with a measure of pride on three Golden Palms awarded to talented brother directorial teams. The Italian Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, won a Palme d'Or for their Padre Padrone (Father Master) (1977), the story of an illiterate shepherd who rose to become a noted Italian linguist. Then the American Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, were awarded the Palme d'Or for Barton Fink (1991), the comic tale of a would-be playwright trying his luck in Hollywood. Topping the list, however, are the Belgian Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, who score as the only brother-directorial-team to win two Golden Palms. The first Palme d'Or was for Rosetta (1999), the story of a poor 18-year-old girl who will take any menial job she can get, even if it means losing a friend.. The second Palme d'Or was for In L'Enfant (The Child) (2005), the street tale of a young couple barely out of their teens who become parents of a new-born baby – she happily, he just the opposite. When the father hits upon the idea of selling the baby to a mafia band, the decision crushes the hyper-sensitive mother, who collapses on the spot and is committed to a hospital.

Jean-Pierre Dardenne (born in 1951), the older of the two brothers, originally studied acting. Luc (born in 1952), the younger, holds a degree in philosophy. Queried once about their artistic collaboration, in regard to who writes the screenplays and who directs the films, they responded that they are equal partners on both ends. In 1975, the Dardenne brothers founded their own Dérives production workshop. Over the next 30 years, the pair produced some 60 documentaries, many of which they directed themselves, and seven feature films. In 1994, they founded a second production company, Les Films du Fleuve. Nearly all of their films were shot in or around the industrial city of Seraing, the place where they spent their childhood.

After two modest attempts to direct a feature film, Falsch (1987) and Je pense a vous (I'm Thinking of You) (1992), they scored a hit with La Promesse (The Promise) (1996). Invited to the Directors Fortnight at Cannes, The Promise went on from there to win a bundle of prizes at international festivals. The Promise is one of those feature films in which the lines between fiction and documentary are seemingly wiped out altogether. The 15-year-old Igor, a nonprofessional actor the Dardennes picked from the streets, spends days picking wallets and working for his abusive father, who exploits illegal immigrants from Africa and Bosnia in search of work on construction sites. One day, when a black laborer from Burkino Faso, is fatally injured on a construction job, Igor promises the dying man to take care of his wife and baby. That's the day the lad comes of age and rebels against his father.

Rosetta (1999), invited to compete at Cannes, also features a nonprofessional in the title role. Emilie Dequenne as Rosetta, an 18-year-old with little education, struggles to find her place in the world. She has to fight for every job she gets. And when it's taken away from her, she's bounces back, determined as ever, to find another job. Indeed, Emilie Dequenne practically carries the film on her presence alone – a trademark of the Dardenne brothers – and won Best Actress award at Cannes for her committed efforts to do the job well.

Pretty much the same is true of the acting performances in the Dardennes' Le Fils (The Son) (2002). Olivier Gourmet's straightforward interpretation of a working man's confrontation with a lad who had unintentionally murdered his son is the scene that holds the entire film together. Olivier Gourmet was awarded Best Actor at the 2002 Cannes festival.

Now comes Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence), the Dardenne brothers' imposing try for a third Palme d'Or. For Lorna's Silence, they return to the illegal and criminal scene in Liège, an environment they know only too well from childhood. Lorna (Arta Dobroshi), an illegal Albanian immigrant working in a clothes-washing establishment, has married Claudy (Jérémie Renier), a junkie, at the instigation of Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione), a slick taxi-driver with mafia contacts. The scheme is to pay both Lorna and Claudy for their mutual services so that Lorna can obtain her Belgian citizenship. Then, when Claudy will die from an expected overdose, Lorna can then marry a Russian mafia boss so that he, too, can obtain Belgian citizenship. Meanwhile, with the money earned from the sham marriages, Lorna can open a small bar-restaurant with her Albanian boyfriend, who also works as an illegal for Fabio.

The tables are turned when Lorna really does help Claudy to shake the habit by embracing him one evening in an act of love and sympathy. Claudy is saved, and Lorna believes she is pregnant. But not for long. For when Fabio kills Claudy by forcing the overdose, Lorna suspects the truth – and is now not liable to keep quiet about the operation to the police. Her papars are taken away from her, and a ride to nowhere on the highway is planned. Tough when the chips are down, Lorna manages to escape at the last minute and flees into a forest, where she finds safety in an abandoned hut. For herself, and the child she believes she is carrying. Arta Dobroshi, a Kosovo actress born in Pristina, learned French to play Lorna with the proper Albanian accent. She was favored in the French press to win Best Actress at Cannes, particularly since a third Palme d'Or for the Dardenne brothers was questionable from the start, as good as the first half of Lorna's Silence is. Instead, the international jury awarded the the directorial duo Best Screenplay. Quite good enough, and certainly well deserved, under the circumstances. The hat trick will have to wait.

Arnaud Desplechin's Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) (France) (2008)

Critically acclaimed in the French press and media – along with Luc Besson, Leos Carax, Claire Denis, and Olivier Assayas – as one of the key directors in what is often tagged as the "new" nouvelle vague, Arnaud Desplechin rose to the top of that list when his Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) was screened at Cannes – the fourth time he has competed for Palme d'Or laurels. A a crowd pleaser, it was only that.

Slotted in the Cannes festival calendar on a prime Friday evening, the scheduled screening enabled thousands on French television to catch a glimpse of favorite stars as they posed on the red carpet before the Grand Staircase of the Palais des Festivals. Only the steady fall of rain marred the event. Running at two-and-a-half-hours, A Christmas Tale is yet another Desplechin talk show, a specialty enjoyed by Gaulic audiences. Packed with veteran stage-and-screen thespians, headed by Catherine Deneuve, the doyenne of French cinema, it is a sure bet to entertain the home audience when it opens in France later on May 21. As for the arthouse audience abroad, they need only wait until the Christmas season to catch up. A longer release in the States is questionable at best. Since the film was once listed in its preproducton data as A Christmas Tale: Roubaix!!, the director serves notice that he is returning to his roots.

Born in 1960 in Roubaix, Arnaud Desplechin graduated from IDHEC in 1984, worked as a cameraman for Eric Rochant and Nico Papatakis, then debuted in the International Week of the Critics at the 1991 Cannes festival with the short feature La vie des morts. A treatise on suicide, it was awarded the Jean Vigo Prize for Best Short Film. A year later, Desplechin was invited to compete at the 1992 Cannes festival with La Sentinelle. The story of a German medical student on his way to study in Paris, he is surprised on the train to discover a human head in his baggage. The Sentinel was awarded the Prix Georges Sadoul for Best Debut Feature. Two more invitations to compete at Cannes followed: My Sex Life … or How I Got Into an Argument (1996), his most commercially successful film, and Esther Kahn (2000), about a Jewish girl in pursuit of a theatrical career in 19th-century London. Shot in English, Esther Kahn also drew critical attention because the costume drama benefitted from an added dramatic effect: a tone-deaf protagonist. The film ran for a year in Parisian cinemas. Desplechin penchant for theatrical themes was explored even further in Playing "In the Company of Men", invited to open the Un Certain Regard section at the 2003 Cannes festival. A screen adaptation of Edward Bond's blistering play about the iniquity of boardroom power games, In the Company of Men was published in 1989 and first staged at Avignon in 1992. In Desplechin's view, the play was a timely scathing attack on sweeping corruption at stock exchanges and business centers the world over. The key factor in the critical success of Playing "In the Company of Men" was Desplechin's approach to filming an ensemble of actors as they, in turn, set about to stage Edward Bond's play.

Much the same approach to ensemble acting was used in A Christmas Tale. Running at two-and-a-half-hours, the talk-fest production is packed with veteran stage-and screen thespians at their loquacious best. The setting of this fast-paced family drama is an estate in Roubaix. Here, a painful reunion takes place at Christmas, during which sparks begin to fly from the very outset. The root of the animosity was a family tragedy that happened years before. After Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) and Junon (Catherine Deneuve) had two children, their afflicted son Joseph needed a bone-marrow transplant to survive. Neither the parents, nor the daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), were compatible, so a third child, Henri (Mathieu Amalric), was conceived. Again incompatible, so Joseph died. And the family never recovered. From that point on, family relationships were strained to the limit, with the daughter Elizabeth eventually taking over the family reins when Henri turns out to be a cynical wastrel and is thrown out of the household. The Christmas reunion, bringing together other members of the family circle, is primed for an eruption – one well worth two hours of chatter to figure out the plot. It turns out that now Junon is seriously ill with an affliction that requires another genetic compatibility to ensure a few more years of life. Catherine Deneuve has seldom been better. Her surprising approach to a possible painful death sentence, as frightening as it is, draws a measured and pragmatic response. She was awarded the Special 60th Anniversary Prize.

Ari Folman's Waltz with Basir (Israel/France/Germany/USA) (2008)

An antiwar film of the first rank, Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (Israel/France/Germany/USA) tackles a tabu theme never treated before in Israeli media. Programmed in the competition at Cannes, this feature-length animated documentary chronicles apparent Israeli complicity in the June 1982 massacre of hundreds (estimated as high as 3,000) Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Phalangists in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Although a release in Israel seems fairly certain, the questioning in the film might well diminish its chances for full acceptance by the Israeli and Jewish communities at home and abroad. Similarly, at last year's Cannes festival, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis, a feature length comic-book animation film about the suppression of freedom in today's Iran, was awarded a Special Jury Prize by the International Jury. Persepolis has yet to be shown in Iran, although it was released in Lebanon.

Waltz with Bashir is the traumatic journey of the filmmaker himself into his own past as a young soldier during the Lebanon Crisis. In June of 1982, when Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and attacked Beirut itself, the stated intent was to drive the Palestinian forces out of southern Lebanon. Three years later, in 1985, with the conflict still unresolved, Israel withdrew from Lebanon, leaving the conflict between the country's religious groups unresolved. Queried as to why he had made Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman replied in his pressbook that it was "a journey that tried to figure out a traumatic memory from the past, a commitment to a long term therapy." He also underscores how difficult it was for him to make this journey. "My therapy lasted as long as the production of Waltz with Bashir – four years." Further: "I'd say the filmmaking part was good, but the therapy aspect sucks."

So far as the title of the film itself is concerned, the reference is to Israeli armed assistance given to Bashir Gemayel, the young charismatic leader of the Christian Phalangist Militia. Deemed to be elected President of Lebanon, and proposed friend of Israel, Gemayel was killed by a massive explosive detonation while giving a speech in East Beirut. Basir Gemayel's murder triggered a drive for revenge by fired-up Phalangists to find and kill armed PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) fighters in the two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, Sabra and Shatila. These camps were subsequently surrounded by a circle of Israeli tanks. By this time, however, the PLO combat fighters had already left Lebanon under a truce agreement. Only civilians – women, children, old men – were left in the refugee camps. Over the next three days, nearly all were massacred by the Phalangists, some with cruelty that defines description. When camera crews were finally allowed to enter the camps, the news shocked the world. Only a few minutes of this authentic TV footage can be seen – at the very end of Waltz with Bashir. Occasionally, along the way, portrait images of Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin can be seen in the background, as if to key that these were the responsible figures pulling the strings of the invasion in the first place.

Waltz with Basir begs description. It originated as real video, most of it shot in a sound studio. From this material a storyboard with some 2300 illustrations was drawn that was later turned into animation. The story begins with a man's recurrent dream of ravaging dogs racing down empty streets and alleys. Since the dream gives the man no rest, he visits a bar to tell the story to a friend, a filmmaker, one who had shared his frightful military experiences during the Lebanon Invasion. The filmmaker is Ari Folman himself. To his surprise, he tells his friend that he cannot remember anything about those distinctly unpleasant times. So Ari Folman sets out on a journey to visit others who, as young soldiers, had participated in the Lebanon Invasion and had experienced the horrors of war firsthand. Of the nine ex-Israeli soldiers interviewed for the film, seven agreed to be rendered in the animated version as actual people. Two others, who did not want to appear on camera, were played by actors.

Although overlooked for an award at Cannes, Waltz with Basir is an extraordinary film. By replacing talking-head interviews with animated action sequences, the viewer is attuned to experience what happened on the outskirts of Beirut firsthand. Asked in an interview why he felt he had to make a film to refresh his own memory, Ari Folman responded: "I believe that there are thousands of Israeli ex-soldiers that keep their war memories deeply depressed. They might live the rest of their lives like that, without anything ever happening. But it could always burst out one day, causing who knows what to happen to them. That's what Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is all about."

Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah (Gomorra) (Italy) (2008)

The most talked about film at Cannes, Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah (Gomorra) (Italy) is based on the non-fiction bestseller with the same title written by Roberto Saviano about the inner workings of the Camorra mafia in Naples. According to one unofficial report, the worldwide earnings of the Camorra is estimated at well over $200 billion annually, with the income reaching from drugs and extortion to waste disposal and the haute culture fashion market. Further, with the author-researcher Roberto Saviano currently living under police guard – he is also one of six writers contributing to the screenplay – Gomorra can lay claim to being the most authentic mafia film made.And the since the book has sold over one million copies in Italy alone, plus in translation in some 50 countries, the Italian release of the film (just two days before the Cannes opened) was expected to set box-office records despite its 136-minute running length. And so it was. In addition, an award at Cannes – although the film was not considered ripe enough for a Palme d'Or by the press corps – would certainly add to the aura of Gomorra. It received the runnerup Grand Jury Prize.

A talented director with a portfolio of shorts, documentaries, and features, Matteo Garrone prefers to spend his free time painting. Born in 1968 in Rome, he graduated from an Art Lyceum in 1986 and worked as an assistant cameraman while devoting free time to painting. When his first short film, Silhouette (1996), was awarded, he switched to filmmaking and founded his own production company, Archimede. In 1997, Garrone made two films back-to-back. His experimental debut feature, Terra di mezzo (Middle Ground), was awarded the Special Jury Prize at Turin, and his documentary, Bienvenido Espirito Santo (Welcome Holy Spirit), about Pentecostal traditions, was shot in New York City. More international recognition came in 1998, when Matteo Garrone codirected the short film Un caso di forza maggiore (A Case of Brute Force) and shot the documentary Oreste Pipolo, fotografo di matrimoni (Oreste Pipolo, Marriage Photographer) in Naples. To these, he added his second feature film, Ospiti (Guests) (1998), awarded at Venice and Valencia. His third feature film, Estate Romana (Roman Summer) (2000), was also invited to Venice.

The breakthrough at Cannes came when his L'Imbalsamatore (The Embalmer) (2002) was programmed in the Directors Fortnight. Later awarded a David di Donatello for Best Screenplay, The Embalmer sketches a tale of tormented and denied love in the lives of three people who meet by chance. Peppino, an embalmer, is too short. Valerio, a waiter, is too tall. And Deborah, a girl whose mouth has been surgically repaired, continually changes jobs. What brings them together are their related dreams, their secret desires, and the feeling that fate has denied them the fulfillment of a normal life. Unable to communicate with others, they are castaways who cling to the uncertainty of a love relationship that might justify their existence.

Similarly, Matteo Garrone's next feature film, Primo amore (First Love) (2004), dealt with personal obsessions and unrequited love. In this psychological tale about a goldsmith in love with a lovely intelligent young girl, whose innocence verges on passivity, the compulsive tradesman feels compelled to mold her to his like and thus gradually destroys the relationship. Invited to compete at the Berlinale, the film received a Silver Bear for Best Soundtrack, awarded to Banda Osiris.

Upon reading Roberto Saviano's Gomorra, Matteo Garrone wanted immediately to film the novel. "The raw material I had to work from with was so visually powerful that I merely filmed it in as straightforward a way as possible, as if I were a passerby who happened to be there by chance." This approach is both the strength and the weakness of the film. The setting is the crime-soaked Neapolitan suburbs of Scampia and Secondigliano, where decrepit and rundown housing blocks, shot in bleak ash-white colors, signal that crime is not only a way of life here but the only hope for survival amid daily shootings.

Five stories are intertwined in the narrative. In the most intriguing of the episodes, 13-year-old Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) can't wait to join one of the warring Camorra families in the neighborhood. Pushed to show his loyalty, he arranges for the killing of a woman in the block whom he had previously helped with food deliveries. Teenagers Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone), crazy about Brian de Palma mafia films, steal guns and break our on their own in a gun-shooting spree, to be eliminated by the mafia. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato), a pay-runner to families with mafia members in jail, feels the sweat run down his back when the war between Camorra families escalates. Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), a fashion-model tailor who cannot resist a bribe from a Chinese underground operator, sees his new benefactor rubbed out before his eyes. Franco (Toni Servillo), a political manipulator, and Roberto (Carmine Paternoster), a young university graduate on his first job, don't see eye-to-eye when the poor rural people become innocent victims of the Camorra's waste-disposal scheme.

Gomorra shows the nitty-gritty of the Camorra imperium – without the diamond rings and smoke-filled rooms of Hollywood mafia genre films.

Kornel Mundruczo's Delta (Hungary/France/Germany) (2008)

Awarded the Golden Reel and International Critics Prize at the 2008 Hungarian Film Week in Budapest, Kornel Mundruczo's Delta (Hungary/France/Germany) arrived at Cannes as one of the front runners for Palme d'Or laurels. It received the FIPRESCI Critics Prize, enough to certify Mundruczo as a creative name to watch in the Hungarian national cinematography already packed with awarded auteur filmmakers at key international festivals – among them, Bela Tarr (The Man from London, Cannes 2007), Benedek Fliegauf (Milky Way, Locarno 2007), Gyorgy Palfi (Taxidermia, Cannes 2006), and Nimrod Antal (Control, Cannes 2004).Four years in the making, Delta had to be largely reshot due to the death of the lead actor (Lajos Bertok, to whom the film is dedicated) in the middle of shooting. The film then went through plot changes to fit the personality of the new lead actor, musician Felix Lajko, in order to accommodate someone who had never stood before a camera before. Flooded with the striking visual scenery of the Romanian Danube delta, a lush wildlife haven, this aspect of the film alone made it a standout at Cannes. Add a haunting musical score composed by violin virtuoso Felix Lajko, and you have a creative work of film art that deserves recognition on multiple fronts.

When Mihai (Felix Lajko) returns to the Danube delta after many years, arriving too late for the burial of his father, he finds his mother already married to another man. And he is introduced to his half-sister Fauna (Orsi Toth, the star of Mundruczo's previous Joanna film-oratorio), whom he did not know even existed. Retreating to an isolated corner of the delta, Mihai sets about building his own house with the help of Fauna, whose decision to live with her brother leads to incest and thereby spurs the scorn of the community. When Fauna is brutally raped by the stepfather – depicted in an emotionally charged long shot – the tragedy then runs its course. Nursed back to health by her Mihai, she is more determined than ever to hold her ground against her family and the community. However, their "unnatural" relationship triggers a vengeful reaction amongst the backward community, leading to a fatal outburst at a feast organized by the pair to make peace with their neighbors.

Born in 1975 in Budapest, Kornel Mundruczo graduated from the Budapest Film and Drama Academy in 1998. After a handful of shorts and documentaries, he directed This I Wish and Nothing More (2000), a short feature in an experimental vein, followed by the equally impressive Afta (Day by Day) (2001), a short film that caught the drudging atmosphere of small-town life in its depiction of a boy's encounters on a blazing hot day. The breakthrough on the international scene came when his debut feature, Szep Napok (Pleasant Days) (2002), shot on a shoestring, was awarded the Special Jury Prize and International Critics Prize at the Hungarian Film Week in Budapest. Invited later to compete in the Debut Features section at the Locarno festival, it won a Silver Leopard. In Pleasant Days Mundruczo takes a grim look at small-town mores in this exacting tale about a 17-year-old girl bearing a child at a public laundromat and then selling it to a barren mother in a prearranged deal. Impressive for its frank realism, upfront sexuality, and black humor, Pleasant Days was reedited at the recommendation of French producer Philippe Bober for entry in a new version at the 2003 Rotterdam film festival. An immediate hit at Rotterdam, as well as later on the festival circuit, Mundruczo's new version of Pleasant Days also won him a six-month stay for young filmmakers at the Cannes Residence Program in Paris.

While at the Cannes Residence, Mundruczo hit upon the idea of filming an opéra court titled Joan of Arc on the Night Bus (2003). The 24-minute episode was programmed as part of the omnibus film A Bus Came… Intrigued by the possibility of fashioning an oratorio loosely based on the story of Jeanne d'Arc, he then expanded the footage of Joan of Arc on the Night Bus into his second feature film, Johanna. Presented in the Un Certain Regard section at 2005 Cannes festival, Johanna drew high critical praise as a rare example in cinema history of a film-oratorio. Johanna opens at a bloody traffic accident. Johanna (Orsi Toth), a drug addict in a coma, is taken to a hospital in a pool of blood. Upon rising from her coma, she proclaims to the astonished doctors that she has been miraculously cured. Deciding on the spot to dedicate her life as a nurse, she soon discovers she can dispense her miraculous powers to terminally ill patients by lying down next to them in bed. Rebuffed by a lecherous member of the medical staff, Johanna is medically disposed of, her body stuffed into a bag, and her corpse thrown upon a garbage dump to be incinerated.

Much the same fate awaited Mihai and Fauna in Kornel Mundruczo's Delta. In contrast to its slight dramatic narrative line, the film's imagery effectively enforces metaphorically the timeless primeval tragic elements of a story that was apparently inspired by similar murderous and revengeful elements found in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Euripides' Electra. "I tried to understand the kind of freedom that allows someone to transcend the norm, rather than talk about sexual deviance," stated Kornel Mundruczo in an interview. "It is not the incest that is at the heart of the story, but the courage it takes to accept what is a natural attraction, even it if breaks with conventions. What is intolerable is that there are people who believe they have the right to persecute those who do not fit the norm." Munduczo aimed high to make Delta a tragic universal tale of incest - and nearly succeeded.

Pablo Trapero's Leonera (Lion's Den) (Argentine/Brazil/South Korea) (2008)

As films about women's prison's go, Pablo Trapero's Leonera (Lion's Den) (Argentine/Brazil/South Korea) doesn't offer much new, save that this one in Buenos Aires is only for pregnant women whose children are about to be born. After the child is born in prison, permission is given to the mother to keep it with her up to the age of four, when a sometimes painful decision has to be made. Either the child is raised thereafter by another member of the mother's family until the woman is released from prison, or it is given up for adoption. And that's what makes this prison tale well worth seeing.Lion's Den gets off to a shaky start when Julia, a university student – played by Martina Gusman, who also happens to be the film's coproducer – wakes up on her apartment couch with blood on her hands. Dazed, and fully unaware that anything drastic has happened, she takes a quick shower and hustles off to the university. Upon returning home, Julia finds her lover-boyfriend lying dead of knife wounds in the bedroom. Next to him, also lying in a pool of blood, is her boyfriend's seriously wounded gay lover, Ramiro – played by current Brazilian heartthrob Roderigo Santoro. When the police arrive, Julia is arrested – and accused of murder. Although she cannot remember exactly what had happened, she does know that she did not commit the murder. She argues that since she is pregnant, why would she want to kill the father? However, during the initial court hearings, Roderigo testifies against her. But since she is pregnant, Julia is not sent to a women's prison for hardcore offenders, but to a half-way "lion's den" until the date for the official trial is set.

At this point, Lion's Den shifts into high gear as a film – for the actress-producer Martina Gusman is, indeed, pregnant. Over the next weeks and months, until the baby is born, the audience is invited to share her pregnancy-purgatory in this rundown prison. Further, her character begins to change. From a taciturn, stand-offish rebel who hates her unborn child, she slowly awakens to the thrill of childbirth – and then watches as Tomas grows into a personal treasure who needs all the help she can offer. Meanwhile, Julia's estranged mother, Sofia, appears on the scene – played by popular Paris-based, Uruguay-born singer Elli Medeiros After neglecting her own daughter over years while living abroad, she, too, suddenly takes an interest in Tomas. An affection that doesn't sit well with Julia. But fortunately Julia has hardened into a lioness ready to fight to keep her child by any means possible. Moreover, her fiery spirit has made friends in prison, among them a lasting friendship with Marta (Laura Garcia). Together, they hatch a scheme to get Julia out of prison. And Tomas away from the clutches of a domineering mother detested by Julia.

When the day of the trial arrives, Romiro saves his own neck by putting all the blame for the murder on Julia. As trials go these days in Argentina, and despite a veteran feminist lawyer arguing Julia's case, she loses – and receives an 8-year sentence for manslaughter. At this stage of the game, Julia knows she cannot trust her mother to raise her child in her stead. So when Tomas spends some time out of prison with his grandmother, her nerves break – and she instigates a rebellion in prison to get her son back. The film ends as a fairy tale. With the help of her friend Marta on the outside, she waits for the day when visiting rights are allowed. Once outside of prison, she dupes her probation guard, hails a taxi, and heads for the bus station. There Marta is waiting to give her false identity papers to escape over the border.

Pablo Trapero, born 1971 in Buenos Aires, is a respected name in the Argentinean independent scene. His first feature, Mundo Grua (Crane World, 1999), the story of a youth's dreams shattered by the Argentinean economic crisis, was invited to the Venice festival. El Bonaerense (2002), his second feature produced together with Martina Gusman, won critical praise in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes as a honest indictment of the Buenos Aires police force. Lion's Den apparently owes much to Brazilian coproducer Walter Salles, who apparently brought Roderigo Santoro onboard. Martina Gusman's performance in Lion's Den is the glue that holds the film together from start to finish despite its lengthy two-hour run. Her last scene alone guarantees a favorable response at arthouse bookings. During an anxious ferry-crossing at an isolated border, we see her holding her breath as she counts the seconds to freedom and a new life.

Fernando Meirelles's Blindness (Brazil/Canada/USA/Japan) (2008)

Take a book by a Portuguese Nobel Prize winning author (José Saramago), an Oscar-nominated Brazilian director (Fernando Meirelles), and a four-time Oscar nominated actress (Julianne Moore), plus a dozen rather well known actors in supporting roles (Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga), and the mix appears to be the right kickoff for the opening night at the 61st Cannes film festival. But Fernando Meirelles's Blindness (Brazil/Canada/USA/Japan) is arthouse fare at best, although the film might be saved for general release with a new version edited down from the present tedious two-hour length.The difficulties of adapting José Saramago's Essay on Blindness (published in 1995) to the screen are apparent. The story is an allegory, not a narrative piece of writing easily shaped into a flowing screenplay The essay, a bestseller written three years before he won the Nobel Prize of Literature, "is a violent book, and I didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands," said Saramago in an interview. But Fernando Meirelles, fresh from his triumph at Venice with The Constant Gardener (2005), a international hit that merited an Oscar for actress Rachel Weisz, liked Saramago's story of an entire city blinded by an eye-afflicting epidemic. Enough, at least, to throw his hat into the ring to obtained the rights from Saramago himself.

The permission came only after Canadian screenwriter Don McKellar (The Good Samaritan) persuaded Saramago to take a chance by fashioning a script that approached the sensibilities of the Portuguese writer. José Saramago, a former member of the Portuguese Communist Party, had remained an socialist man-of-letters (poems, essays, plays, novels) all his life, one whose parables set against realistic backgrounds enraptured readers after the fall of António Salazar dictatorship in the mid-1970s. In fact, it was Don McKellar who talked a reluctant Saramago into adapting his "essay" for the screen in the first place. McKellar then contacted the Brazilian-based Fernando Meirelles as the proper director to film Blindness.

It doesn't take much movie savvy to know that Danny Glover, the friendly black man in the film with a patch over his eye, is José Saramago's alter ego. His off-screen narration set the tone for the entire film: "I don't think we did go blind. I think we always were blind. Blind but seeing. People who can see, but do not see." As for the Meirelles rather pretentious screen allegory, Blindness is set in a big city with the rumble-tumble of honking and yelling Manhattan street life. When an Asian white-collar worker is driving home from his job, he suddenly goes blind at a busy traffic crossing. Helped out a thief, who then aptly uses the opportunity to steal his car, the afflicted man eventually finds his way home to have his wife bring him to a clinic for an eye examination. That's when it's assumed that his Asian man's blindness is triggering an epidemic, for which there is no known cure. The next person to go blind is the eye doctor, then the patients at the clinic. Only the doctor's wife (Julianne Moore), for whatever reason, remains immune to the illness.

Hustled off to a fortress-like brig and guarded by heavily armed police, and left there to protect the rest of the urban population, the lone person in the group who can see is the doctor's wife, who has pretended to be blind in order to accompany her husband to the enclosure. From here on out, Meirelles's Blindness takes on a Sartre No Exit game of war between the good people and the bad people. As the enclosure is filled with more and more afflicted blind people, the fight for food among the separated wards leads to dictatorship and depravity, as an ex-bartender from Ward Three announces he has a gun and proclaims himself king. Robbery, rape, death, and humiliation follow – until the doctor's wife finds a way to lead her small flock of followers out of the darkness and into the sunlight – when they find the whole city in ruins and people losing all sense of morality to act like marauding blink scavengers.

Appropriate to the blind element in the story, Blindness is flushed with the veneer of steel-like digital video shooting (César Charlone), giving the film a futuristic effect. Moreover, the director appears intrigued by the screen possibilities of fantastic nightmares. Otherwise, the story makes little sense. As expected, some veteran Cannes critics ended up handling Fernando Meirelles with kid gloves. After all, it was at the 2002 Cannes festival that his internatonal hit, The City of God (Brazil), was discovered in the International Week of trhe Critics. By contrast, Blindness will be lucky to receive broad international release exposure.