“Three Monkeys” premieres to raves.

While I was off in the land of the Real World last night, more Cannes action went down. What seems to have been a better day for film than the fests opening day, with a number of films playing to rave reviews, my original dissatisfaction has subsided, the films included: Three Monkeys, Waltz with Bashir, Hunger, Leonera, Tokyo! and Four Nights With Anna.

In Competition:

“Three Monkeys” by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Justin Yang gives his opinion, “Seeing, hearing and speaking no evil comes all too easily to the tortured trio in “Three Monkeys,” a powerfully bleak family drama that leaves its characters’ offenses largely offscreen but lingers with agonizing, drawn-out deliberation on the consequences. Bad faith, simmering resentment, adultery and murder all figure into Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s darkly burnished fifth feature, giving it a stronger narrative undertow than his previous Cannes competition entries, “Distant” and “Climates.” But gripping as the film often is, its unrelenting doom and gloom offers fewer lasting rewards, making it unlikely to draw sizable arthouse crowds beyond the Turkish helmer’s fanbase.”

Jeff Wells, who seems completely blown away by the film, agrees about the film’s reach, saying that is “plays like gangbusters inside the Grand Palais but will barely be seen in commercial cinemas, and may even irritate the ADD crowd.” He also adds a ton and a half of enthusiasm, “I was hooked from the get-go — gripped, fascinated. I was in a fairly excited state because I knew — I absolutely knew — I was seeing the first major film of the festival. Three Monkeys is about focus and clarity in every sense of those terms, but it was mainly, for me, about stunning performances — minimalist acting that never pushes and begins and ends in the eyes who are quietly hurting every step of the way.” His review is a fantastic piece of work.

And finally Geoff Andrew chimes in with even more enthusiasm, saying: “It has the dry humour, assured pacing, astute psychological insights and sharp sense of moral and dramatic irony that has been conspicuous in all his work, but in many respects the film feels like an expansion upon ‘Climates’, not only in extending that film’s clear-eyed, unsentimental assessment of male-female relationships from a couple to a whole family and its acquaintances, but in exploring the rich potential afforded by digital technology; if you thought Ceylan’s photographer’s eye produced stunning images in ‘Climates’, ‘Three Monkeys’ pushes the envelope still further.” He “loved” it.

Sounds like a winner to me.

“Waltz With Bashir” by Ari Folman

After first hearing about the film over at Cinemascopian a while back, I almost forgot about the film. After a series of more than positive reviews, this film now seems set for the stars. Or the Oscars. Or into the hearts of 3D-loving moviegoers the world over.

The film, which is about the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 through a friend of Ari’s dreams, where a series of viscous dogs attack him every night, 26 of them. The two men decide that the dreams must be connected to their military mission in the first Lebanon War, and a surreal exploration separating the facts from the imaginings results. Apparently, it results in a completely marvellous film, in the same style as last year’s Persepolis {which I still have not seen}, but that the two are ultimately very, very different.

According to Andrew O’Heir, “the title refers to Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel, whose assassination inflamed Lebanese Christians to widespread anti-Muslim violence – is the unreliable and fantastic quality of memory itself.”

Ty Burr, “”It’s a strong, strong work – while the reliance on Flash animation gives the visuals an unnecessarily cheap edge, the voice-over work (in most cases by Folman’s actual army pals) leads the audience slowly closer to the event until the final, stunning moments almost erupt from the screen.”

Xan Brooks, “Stylistically, the film has the woozy, weightless intensity of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, while it circles its central horror in the same mercurial, questioning manner adopted by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five. Waltz With Bashir is an extraordinary, harrowing, provocative picture. We staggered out of the screening in a daze.” He looked forward to “Kung Fu Panda” after seeing “Bashir” in the hopes that it was not nearly as harrowing and demanding. He says that he is “starved of frivolity.”

Andrew Pulver, “Though Folman is to be commended for the seriousness and remorselessness of the accretion of detail, his is still very much a view from one side of the fence, however breast-beating.”

“Leonera” by Pablo Trapero

Andrew O’Hehir, “Lion’s Den is marvelously shot and acted, constantly surprising, and completely focused on Julia’s struggle to get from one moment, or one day, to the next one rather than through some formulaic story arc.”

Geoff Andrew, “It’s a fairly simply story, though Trapero makes the most of it by only revealing salient facts at sporadic intervals and by focusing so closely on character…..what can sometimes seem a fairly straightforward film of no particular originality or consequence is transformed by an ending that is at once pleasingly ambiguous and almost unexpectedly affecting.”

Jay Weissburg, “Situated somewhere between neo-realist study and standard women in prison pic, Lion’s Den too frequently wanders into common territories to make the material its own.”

Howard Feinstein, “He [Pablo Trapero] successfully and gracefully shifts in the reverse direction, creating a suffocating, claustrophobic environment within women’s prisons – specifically those that house mothers and their young children.”

Un Certain Regard:

“Hunger” by Steve McQueen

The film focuses on the death of Bobby Sands, a key figure in the IRA struggles of the 1980s, who died after he went 66 days without food, apparently resulted in a mixture of applause and walk-outs at it premiere.

Charlotte Higgins, “A visceral, violent and deeply disturbing vision of life in the Maze prison, set during the “dirty” protests and the second hunger strike of 1981, is offered up by Britain’s most prominent entry in the Cannes film festival……Though the film is even-handed, unjudgmentally following the lives of both inmates and guards, the film will doubtless stir bitter memories of one of the darkest moments in recent British and Northern Irish history.”

Peter Bradshaw, “It is outstandingly made; long wordless sequences are composed with judgment and flair and expository dialogue scenes are confidently positioned. It surely confirms McQueen as a real filmmaker.”

Leslie Felperin, calls it a “not entirely perfect debut for British visual-artist-turned-feature-helmer Steve McQueen, who demonstrates a painterly touch with composition and real cinematic flair, but who stumbles in film’s last furlough with trite symbolism.”

“Tokyo!” by Michel Gondry, Leos Caraz and Joon Ho Bong.

Justin Chang, “Like a nastier Eastern sibling to “Paris, je t’aime,” “Tokyo!” reps a playfully ragged attempt to capture (and skewer) the multiple shifting identities of its eponymous city…First and arguably best of the bunch is Gondry’s deviously titled “Interior Design…Less subtle in moniker and execution, monster-movie parody “Merde” may prove the most intriguing offering to viewers…Merde” is the collection’s roughest-looking and most thematically barbed effort — which makes the beguiling simplicity of Bong’s “Shaking Tokyo” all the more welcome.” 

Ty Burr, “”Ayako Fujitani stole my heart as a bohemian newcomer to the city who loses her nerve and turns into a chair (yes, that’s right). The Leos Carax installment, starring Denis Lavant as a kind of evil Id that crawls from the sewers and stalks the city, is fun for a while, but Bong Joon-Ho’s final chapter, about a recluse who discovers he’s not alone – in so many ways – bears real emotional/metaphorical fruit.”

Manhola Dargis, “Far superior is the metaphorically inclined short “Shaking Tokyo,” a story about a shut-in from Bong Joon-ho, last in Cannes in 2006 with “The Host.” Mr. Bong’s short is the final chapter in the triptych “Tokyo!,” which, as you might expect, mostly takes place in that city. The first, “Interior Design,” is a bit of predictable whimsy from Michel Gondry and involves a wallflower who metamorphoses into a chair; the second short, named for a French vulgarity, finds its director, Leos Carax, in an absurdist mood and throwing scat all over the screen. Too bad that the tough female prisoners in the Argentine drama “Leonera” weren’t around to reply in kind.”

Out of Competition:

“Kung Fu Panda” by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson.

Todd McCarthy, “a nice looking but heavily formulaic DreamWorks animation entry.”

Allan Hunter, “Kung Fu Panda ticks all the boxes for must-see family entertainment and the cute factor is only enhanced by the vocal expertise of Jack Black.”

James Rocchi, “Perhaps the best thing about Kung Fu Panda is that it’s an action comedy that doesn’t skimp on the action.”

Directors’ Fortnight:

“Four Nights With Anna” by Jerzy Skolimowski

Ty Burr, “The film’s small, bleakly funny, quite sad, and beautifully controlled – a tale of peeping-tom passion about a hospital handyman who drugs his favorite nurse’s nighttime tea so he can sit and watch her as she sleeps. Creepy, yes, but the film teases the pathos and even nobility out of this wretched man.”

Glenn Kenny found it frustrating, but, “Jerzy Skolimowski’s first directorial effort in ten years, and he’s doing a pastiche of Bruno Dumont and Béla Tarr?’… Truth to tell, the film’s still sinking in for me, and my enthusiasm is growing.”

A pretty awesome day, I know I should have posted it yesterday, but Life got in the way, sorry. Look forward to more news and reviews from the happenings today.