If ever there was a cinematic guide to Roman debauchery — real or imagined — “Caligula” is it. That this bizarre and unforgettable film was directed by Italian softcore master Tinto Brass (“Salon Kitty”) and includes performances by some of Britain’s finest actors (Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, and Helen Mirren) adds to the salacious aspects of this infamous movie. Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione produced the film with an eye toward generating a new genre for mainstream pornography, though his vision proved to be doomed.
The rise and fall of Emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus (a.k.a. Caligula – played by Malcolm McDowell) is presented in an epic theatrical manner befitting a modern-day —pornographic — stage performance. Tinto Brass’s enthusiasm for sparsely appointed grand-scale sets lends an airy atmosphere to the sexually charged political environment of the story.
A quote from the Bible introduces the theme. “What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul.”
McDowell's brief voiceover narration plants his snide retort to the small-minded biblical premise: “I have existed from the morning of the world, and I shall exist until the last star falls from the heavens. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and so I am a god.”
Still referred to by his childhood nickname “Little Boots,” McDowell’s Caligula is a spun-off version of the hedonistic sociopathic character he incarnated as his stock-and-trade for such films as “A Clockwork Orange,” and “If…” With easy entre to his cunning historical character, McDowell’s smirking love god defiles all he touches. Not least of which is his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy), with whom he maintains an incestuous bond.
Called upon to visit his syphilis-suffering imperial grandfather Tiberius (Peter O’Toole) on the island of Capri, Caligula observes the orgiastic lifestyle to which he will soon aspire. Tiberius tutors Caligula in the art of meting out fatal warrantless punishments. A soldier is made to drink copious amounts of wine before being gutted so his intestines spill out.
The emperor instructs Caligula while a bevy of satyrs and nymphs carry on various sexual acts around them. Tiberius’s “speaking” statues fornicate and masturbate continuously. The filmmakers present a formal interpretation of Grand Guignol sexuality across a three-tiered stage. Giant gold phalluses adorn the area where sexual performers frolic. Some are deformed. Witness the man with four legs, another with two faces and three eyes.
Tiberius explains the distorted logic with which he rules. “Every senator believes himself believes to be a potential Caesar, therefore every senator is guilty of treason — in thought if not in deed.”
The quick-study Caligula soon turns Tiberius’s lessons on his master, enabling the murder of the emperor and usurping his role as leader of Rome.
However distracting the film’s titillating use of nudity, and outrageous set pieces of sexual conflagrations, “Caligula” remains true to the historical nature of its text. It also remains a towering example of erotic cinema.
Still one of the most admired Hollywood films ever made, “Gone With the Wind” is a stunningly beautiful adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s epic Civil War novel. Taking inflation into account, “Gone With the Wind” holds the record as the biggest moneymaking film in American cinema history.
On its surface, the movie is a celebration of the audacity of the Southern spirit — as embodied in Vivien Leigh’s pitch-perfect portrayal of anti-heroine Scarlett O’Hara. But a closer reading finds a cutting commentary on the South’s hypocritical, opportunistic, and racist attitudes that continue to infect American culture.
Scarlett O’Hara is a tactless shrew born into wealth. She lives on her family’s enormous mansion-appointed cotton plantation, Tara, in Georgia. The year is 1861. America is on the brink of civil war. Scarlett’s slight frame and button-nosed beauty belie a wellspring of simmering jealousy. Green is her favorite color. Scarlett’s romantic obsession with Leslie Howard’s Ashley Wilkes, knows no boundaries. Not even Ashley’s marriage to his own cousin Melanie (Olivia de Havilland) dissuades Scarlett from conniving to win him as her own possession. Scarlett only wants what she cannot have.
Scarlett and her circle of high society Ccoonfederate peers put up a façade of Southern politeness that hardly disguises their condescending arrogance and delusional ignorance. Branding someone outside of their social sphere as “white trash” gives them a brief sense of superiority, even if the derogatory term is more self-reflectxive than they care to recognize.
Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler is a rebellious cad of boundless masculine charm. His dark reputation precedes him. Thrown out of West Point and disowned by his Southern family in Charleston, South Carolina, the irrepressible “Mr. Butler” is a world traveler with no illusions about people or political realities. A constant smile and a quick wit make him a well-defended outlier able to effortlessly maneuver any realm of society he finds himself in. Rhett Butler is a “man’s man.”
An opportune nap enables the lusty Rhett to overhear a divulging romantic discussion between Scarlett and Ashley wherein all cards are laid on the table. Mr. Butler sees Scarlett for exactly what she is, and yet he is nevertheless attracted to her on a sensual level. He represents the oil-and-water antidote to her devious nature.
As much as the film is about the North’s devastating defeat of the Confederacy, it is about the doomed relationship between a woman incapable of love, and the a man who foolishly makes the mistake of thinking he can handle her. Keeping hope for hope sake doesn’t mean that Scarlett’s glass is half-full. Rather, it means it will forever remain empty.
Creaking narrative construction succumbs to gigantic cracks of exposition and a maze of disjointed flashbacks in Roland Emmerich's disastrous attempt at demystifying the identity of the Bard. Even if you go into the film curious about such an esoteric matter, "Anonymous" should effectively cure you of caring anything in the least about the subject. John Orloff's tediously wordy script subscribes to the "Oxfordian theory" that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, penned the plays and sonnets attributed to the one known as William Shakespeare. Certain similarities between Hamlet and the tortured Edward (Rhys Ifans) are teased up but presented with the flatness of a marble tombstone. Although stalwart Shakespearean talents such as Derek Jacobi and Vanessa Redgrave lend their efforts, the cinematic context is so shabby that it does them no justice. Arriving just in advance of Ralph Fiennes's brilliant filmic adaptation of Shakespeare’s "Coriolanus" (also starring Vanessa Redgrave), "Anonymous" is infuriating for all the wrong reasons. It manages to take itself too seriously and yet not seriously enough. It tells rather than shows what it wants to express. One thing is certain; whoever William Shakespeare was, he had nothing to do with writing this disappointing waste of time and talent.
Rated PG-13. 209 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)
Hungarian director Alexander Korda's 1933 production of "The Private Life of Henry VIII" became Britain's first internationally successful film. Charles Laughton won an Oscar for his portrayal of the corpulent King with a reputation for incurring the death of his wives.
The film's sense of British nationalism shines through in Loughton's earnest delivery of the line, "Diplomacy, diplomacy." "I'm an Englishman; I can't say one thing and mean another!" Although larded with historical inaccuracies, "The Private Life of Henry VII" carries off its promised tone of gossipy behind-the-scenes Tudor action. There's humor in the film's early juxtaposition of the former Queen Anne Boleyn's beheading on the same day as King Henry's third marriage to Boleyn's maid Jane Seymour (Wendy Barrie). Henry already has his eye on Lady Katherine Howard (Binnie Barnes), an opportunist courtesan involved in a private affair with Henry's courtier Thomas Culpeper (Robert Donat). A "secret" visit to Katherine's room allows her to exert the upper hand. She questions whether he seeks admittance as a Henry the King or as Henry the man. Only when he admits that it is a command from the King does she open her bedroom door.
Charles Loughton's real-life wife Elsa Lanchester mugs up a storm as Henry's sexually naive yet masculine-minded fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. Her comic performance sticks to the film like chewing gum on a 500-year-old statue.
Korda encouraged several benchmark cinematic moments. For example, Loughton breaks the fourth wall on two dramatic occasions to play directly into the camera lens. The first comes at the moment when King Henry discovers his third wife has died after giving birth to a son. Laughton plays the emotion for all of its political import, uttering an obligatory "God rest her sweet soul," before breaking the sentiment to focus to his infant prince, Edward. The jolting scene represents a flourish of confidence on the part of the director and his star actor. The film's most famous bit, however, involves Laughton eating a chicken with a primal gusto that clearly defines King Henry's character as a gluttonous man devouring whatever is put before him.
Naples-born Francesco Rosi built on the filmmaking experiences he shared working as assistant director to such great Italian filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti and Michelangelo Antonioni. With "Salvatore Giuliano" Rosi deconstructs neorealist methodologies toward an authentic form of epic historic "psychodrama." Made in 1961, it was Rosi's fourth film. To tell the story of the 27-year-old Sicilian folk-hero bandit whose bullet-riddled cadaver mysteriously appeared in a Castelvetrano courtyard on July 5, 1950, Rosi convinced natives of Giuliano's home village of Montelepre to recreate incidents they'd lived through when Giuliano was alive. Filming in the exact houses, streets, and surrounding hills where Giuliano commanded his ragtag army of guerrilla soldiers fighting for post-war Sicilian independence, Rosi attains a "proof of reality" that is unimaginable until you experience it firsthand. Told out of chronological order, the film is didactic without giving way to political propaganda. Past events and forward-moving narrative events weave randomly in vividly choreographed sequences that frame the region's macro/micro reality of Sicilian experience.
The most surprising aspect is Rosi's refusal to glorify his title character, but rather to expose all sides of a deeply traditional society pulled between military, criminal, and disparate political factions. We only see Giuliano's face in death. During sequences where the bandit leads his gang against Italy's carabinieri and separatist socialist groups, Giuliano wears a long white lightweight coat that blends with Sicily's arid landscape. Rosi's virtuosic compositions include lengthy, static, deep-space shots that capture a breadth of social communication from a shrewdly subjective viewpoint. His frequent use of a bird's-eye imagery surreptitiously puts the viewer into the mindset of Salvatore Giuliano who hides in the hills overlooking Montelepre.
"Salvatore Giuliano" influenced directors like Gillo Pontecorvo, Glauber Rocha, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. It is truly a seminal film whose innovative cinematic inventions breed insight into a complicated cultural reality. There are no actors acting in "Salvatore Giuliano," only people living and dying for what they believe.
Rated R. 109 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)
Alejandro Amenabar ("The Sea Inside") makes a receding leap of faith toward creating a sword-and-sandal epic reinvented as an examination of how philosophy, religion, and astronomy collided in 4th century Alexandria, Egypt. This macro/micro attempt to shed light on modern planetary issues of war and ecology places astronomer and philosopher Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) at the center of a brewing storm between pagans, Jews, and Christians. Hypatia's students follow her lessons with an added amount of sexual tension that evokes the competing romantic efforts by Orestes (Oscar Isaac) and Davus (Max Minghella), Hypatia's personal slave. A bloody uprising by Christians costs the city its library of ancient wisdom,and places Hypatia in the arms of the politically ambitious Roman Orestes. Davus aligns himself with the Christians. The film is a shorthand condemnation of how religion is used by politicians to seize power and control the masses. For all of the massive sets and overstated rumination on the design of the universe, "Agora" is film that fails at every step to be believable.
Not Rated. 126 mins. (C) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)
Masterfully conceived and skillfully executed, Marco Bellocchio's examination of Mussolini's rise to power, at the great expense his first wife, is an unforgettable blending of elevated cinematic language. "Vincere" means "win," and its import becomes apparent during the young Benito Mussolini's passionate affair with a woman named Ida Dalser (powerfully played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno - "Love in the Time of Cholera"). Ida sells all of her property and possessions to finance the propaganda-driven newspaper that Mussolini (played with fury by Filippo Timi) dreams of starting in 1914. In spite of birthing Mussolini's first-born child in 1915--a boy bearing his father's name--Ida is rejected by the would-be dictator after he marries another woman, even if Ida briefly serves as his mistress. When Ida publicly demands to be recognized as his first wife and mother to his heir, Mussolini exiles Ida and their son to her sister's guarded house from which she continually writes letters to public officials, begging for their assistance. In 1926 Ida makes the terrible mistake of attempting to carry out an assassination on Mussolini, and is imprisoned in a mental institution that will serve as her cage for most of her life. The filmmaker makes fantastic use of historic archive footage of Mussolini, along with brilliantly stylized sequences of tragic beauty, to give the film an epic scope that mints itself in the viewers mind. The terrible suffering that Ida endures in the mental institution becomes a kind of totem upon which the hopes and dreams of Italy are set asunder by its maniacal leader. Here is a deconstructionist masterpiece about Italy's fascist history that will sweep you up in its personal connection to one woman's passionate story at the hands of a monster.
Producer/co-writer Bernd Eichinger associates himself so strongly with "Downfall" (2004), the terrific Hitler biopic directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, which Eichinger produced, that audiences might be led to believe that Eichinger himself directed "Downfall" and "Baader Meinhof." However, it's director/co-writer Uli Edel ("Last Exit to Brooklyn") who failingly struggles to corral "Baader Meinhof's" goopy screenplay into some kind of cinematic narrative shape. Based on Stefan Aust's book about Germany's version of the SLA, called the "Red Faction Army" (RAF), the film maps out the alliance of lefty journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) with political activist Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and his like-minded girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) in Berlin after Baader and Ensslin are arrested along with two others for setting off a bomb in a department store to protest "the genocide in Vietnam." The small anti-capitalist-imperialism group go through bouts of prison terms and escapes, bank robberies, assassinations, bomb attacks, and petty in-fighting while other cell members plan and execute doomed hijacking and kidnapping missions. The story devolves into a mishmash of transitory characters and locations punctuated by politically charged meetings held by Germany's anti-terrorism chief Horst Herold (well played by Bruno Ganz), speaking the narrative's theme lines regarding understanding the motives behind acts of terrorism that serve to replace bigger wars when they are not going on. "The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a dense historic stew crammed with too many events--the RAF's seven-month Stammheim trial is barely comprehensible--and not enough context or character development to fill out what could have been a compelling film. (Vitagraph Films) Rated R. 150 mins. (C) (Two Stars)
Boring, punishing, and lacking in necessary circumstance, Mel Gibson’s movie straddles a line between being a self-indulgent exorcism of his own personal demons and a story of the crucifixion of Christ that most people already have embedded deep in their own imaginations. In his merged-gospels telling of the last 12 hours of Christ’s life, Gibson sets a historically erroneous whipping scene as the film’s centerpiece. Two Roman soldiers cane Christ (James Caviezel) bloody before lashing him with a cat-o’ nine-tails that rips out chunks of his flesh exposing bone and gristle over his muted cries. Overuse of a bombastic musical score and slow-motion shots pose insurmountable odds against plot choices that are overtly mawkish and misdirected. Satan takes human form, as a shrouded woman with shaved eyebrows, following Christ’s every step toward Golgotha. The film’s lack of discretion robs the viewer of his or own conception of Christ’s crucifixion. It is an exploitative disservice to “the greatest story ever told,” that reduces that illustrious narrative to an extended torture episode. Rated R. 126 mins. (F) (Zero Stars)
Cinema’s least potent leading man, Orlando Bloom, stinks up the screen in Ridley Scott’s unsatisfying "epic" about the Crusades, in which Christians promoted century-long bloody battles with the Muslim world in the 11th and 12th centuries. Bloom portrays Balian, a blacksmith who ventures to Jerusalem to absolve his sins, after the suicide of his wife after the death of their son, and ends up leading the military defense of Jerusalem. Grandly staged battle sequences pad the oddly bland story while performances by Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, as Muslim warrior Saladin, and Brendan Gleeson enliven the narrative. Edward Norton does a terrific vocal characterization as the leprosy-suffering Christian king Baldwin IV, who is hidden behind a sliver mask. Rated R.165 mins. (C+) (Two Stars)
The Wind that Shakes the Barley - Classic Film Pick
As winner of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or, Ken Loach’s film enables a look forward by looking back in time. Set in West Cork, Ireland in 1920, the story fixes on the strife within a group of Irish freedom fighters, the IRA’s Flying Column, attempting to reclaim Ireland’s independence from Britain’s cruel Black and Tan squads occupying the land. The formerly apolitical Damien O’Donovan (Cillian Murphy) gives up a budding career as a physician to join the resistance with his fiercely idealistic brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) whose familial and political loyalties will be sorely tested by the story’s end. It evokes a lesson that governments refuse to learn—occupied people always fight back with more at stake and nothing to lose. The film is an exceptional work of vigorous cinematic art filled with dynamic performances by its all-Irish cast. Not Rated. 126 mins. (A) (Five Stars)
As the first German-made film about Hitler’s ruination since G.W. Pabst’s “Der Letzte Akt” (“The Last Act” - 1956) “Downfall” is a stunning cinematic achievement that illuminates minutiae about the last 10 days of the nefarious German leader who won the hearts of many and destroyed the lives of many more. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel (“The Experiment”) takes a clear-eyed approach to Bernd Eichinger’s impeccable script based on the books “Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days Of The Third Reich” (by Joachim Fest) and Traudl Junge’s memoir “Until The Final Hour: Hitler’s Last Secretary.” Swiss-born actor Bruno Ganz (“The Manchurian Candidate”) gives a tour de force performance as Adolph Hitler and leads a stellar cast of German thespian heavyweights. Most unmistakable in the film’s subtext is the deep contempt Hitler had for his own people whom he blamed for Germany’s failure and damnation due to their headlong support for him. Rated R. 154 mins. (A) (Five Stars)
"1900" (made in 1976) is Bernardo Bertolucci's crowning achievement of collectivist socio-political cinema. It is a grand scale, formally composed, Italian drama about a society of peasant farmers over a period of nearly 50 years, as seen through the eyes of two socially opposite boys. That the internationally-cast epic was made possible as a result of the vast success of Bertolucci's controversial "Last Tango In Paris" (1972) contributes to the mystique of "1900." The 35-year-old director's newfound status allowed his unhindered imagination, at the height of his powers, to finish his trilogy of fascist-themed films with an original script co-written with his brother Giuseppe and Franco Arcalli (both were co-screenwriters with Bertolucci on "Last Tango"). Where the first two films in the trilogy ("The Spider's Stratagem"--1970 and "The Conformist"-- 1971) live in a stylish bourgeoisie noir world of cloaked deceit, "1900" explores the familial identity existing between a group of socialist farmers, the landowners they work for, and fascist factions penetrating rural Parma, Italy. Its half-century scope provides a raw macro/micro slant on psychological, generational, political, and cultural changes in the region of Bernardo Bertolucci's birth.
Only Renee Zellweger maintains a Southern accent in this laughable attempt by director Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) at filming Charles Frazier’s love story set amidst the turmoil of the Civil War. Zellweger acts circles around Nicole Kidman who plays a lovelorn woman-in-waiting to Jude Law’s wounded AWOL Confederate soldier. There’s hardly a believable character to be found as iconic actors like Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi and Brendan Gleeson give contrived performances that fall as flat as their wretched accents. While Renee Zellweger errs on the side of caricature, as a drifter who helps Ada (Kidman) with her dilapidated farm, she chews up language and scenery like a seasoned pro. Jude Law (Inman) makes a strong showing in spite of his paltry Southern diction and Minghella’s heavy-handed direction. Filmed in Romania, Minghella’s version of the war torn South is about as a far from the Blue Ridge Mountains as Virginia is to the Transylvanian Alps. Rated R. 155 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)
John Sayles' suburb period drama is set in the '20s era West Virginia coal mining community of Matewan where union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) arrives with a group of black miners being brought in by the Stone Mountain Coal Company to break striking Italian miners. Sayles' meticulous script manifests the stark social influences of government, corporation, religion, race, and personal struggles pervading the Appalachian region at the time. James Earl Jones gives a powerful performance as a Black miner called "Few Clothes," and David Strathairn creates a distinctly un-stereotypical sheriff in the guise of Sid Hatfield. Layered with a beautiful musical score by Mason Daring, it's Chris Cooper's union leader that captures the imagination in an unforgettable picture of essential American history. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler contributes greatly to the look and feel of a truly special cinematic achievement.
"Mongol" slipped by unnoticed as a 2007 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, but is destined to be recognized by world audiences for its elegant storytelling, powerful performances, and detailed attention to aspects of Genghis Khan’s brutal life that might have been sugar-coated if they’d been given a Hollywood treatment. Asano Tadanobu plays Termudjin, later known to the world as Genghis Khan, with a controlled intensity and underlying intelligence that is as poetic as it is transparent. For anyone even slightly interested in Mongolian history or in the life of the man who would conquer a fifth of the Earth’s landmass, "Mongol" is a movie that demands repeated screenings.
The biggest buzz of the festival was Steven Soderbergh’s unconventional two-for-one Che Guevara biopic that ran four hours and twenty minutes long. “The Argentine” begins with Che’s famous 1964 speech at the United Nations, and finishes with Batista’s overthrow at the hands of Che’s well-organized guerilla troops. The second half “Guerilla” picks up after Che’s lost year in Africa when he slipped into Bolivia to help lead a doomed revolution. Problematically, the two films are scheduled to be released separately, drawing into question tonal differences between them. Soderbergh doesn’t attempt to consolidate the story of Guevara’s life, but rather to concentrate on the way the rebel leader attempted to build on his success in Cuba to spread revolution around the world. Benicio Del Toro is predictably mesmerizing as Che, and however flawed the concept “Che” was the most gratifying screening experience in Cannes.
Elie Chouraqui ("Harrison’s Flowers") directs a self-conscious screen adaptation of the novel by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre about the complex time-stamped events leading up to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. An overlong prologue introduces two American friends studying law in New York, where their Jewish and Arab backgrounds are fuel for lively debate. Bobby Goldman (J.J. Field), an Ashkenazi Jew and Said Chahin (Said Taghmaoui), an Arab from Jerusalem and the son of a great Palestinian leader, venture to Jerusalem as friends, but take opposing sides in the fight for control of Jerusalem. Elie Chouraqui makes use of archive footage to underpin the chronology of violent events leading up to British Forces turning over the key to the city to the Jews. In its struggle to present an unbiased portrait that balances Jewish and Palestinian viewpoints evenly, the film loses some narrative focus. Nevertheless, it presents a valuable history lesson that points out the dire effects of British occupation in the region.
Disappointment seeps through every element of director Shekhar Kapur’s ineffectual sequel to his superior 1998 precursor "Elizabeth," which introduced the world to the exceptional acting abilities of Cate Blanchett. In spite of her familiarity and ease as the woman who reinvented 16th century England, Blanchett’s best efforts are routed by an overly compartmentalized script that seeks to add a romantic groundwork to the character. Screenwriter Michael Hirst ("Elizabeth") teams up with William Nicholson ("Gladiator’) to detail Elizabeth’s jealous relationship with Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), while giving scope to her ruling abilities in the context of waging war with Spain.
You know from an early scene of tiresome exposition by Anthony Hopkins that Oliver Stone's three-hour sword-and-sandal epic is doomed when a giant scar across the right side Hopkins' forehead mysteriously moves to the left side of his head between shots. Then comes Colin Farrell's Irish accent that wrestles against Angelina Jolie's faux Russian intonation like a cat and a monkey fighting in a burlap bag. For all of its attention to detail in two reasonably good battle scenes Stone's movie fails to tell the complex story of one of the most enigmatic conquerors in history. But more than that Stone doesn't present characters that the audience can believe in, even for one moment, as representative of their historic roles.
"Black Book" is Paul Verhoeven's first film created in his native born Netherlands since 1985, and he brings to it valuable lessons he learned working for 20-years in Hollywood (see "Robocop," "Starship Troopers") to forge an unprecedented World War II-era masterpiece. The film’s iconic title comes from a secret list of Dutch collaborators. Much of its success emanates from the nimble performance of its leading lady Carice van Houten. In the role of a once wealthy Jewish singer, who joins a Dutch resistance group after barely escaping a massacre that claims the lives of her family, van Houten plays Rachel Stein with a naive blitheness that registers as a tour de force. Stein represents a quietly contained moral code wherein romantic loyalty is as much a part of her physiology as her determination to exact retribution from those responsible for her family’s death. At once the most expensive and successful Dutch film ever made, Verhoeven created the fast-paced script with his well-aquatinted screenwriter Gerard Soeteman (co-writer on "Soldier of Orange") based on historical events researched in the Dutch War Museum and in scholarly publications over a period of more than 20 years.
"Mongol" slipped by unnoticed as a 2007 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, but is destined to be recognized by world audiences for its elegant storytelling, powerful performances, and detailed attention to aspects of Genghis Khan’s brutal life that might have been sugar-coated if they’d been given a Hollywood treatment. Asano Tadanobu plays Termudjin, later known to the world as Genghis Khan, with a controlled intensity and underlying intelligence that is as poetic as it is transparent. For anyone even slightly interested in Mongolian history or in the life of the man who would conquer a fifth of the Earth’s landmass, "Mongol" is a movie that demands repeated screenings. 
The biggest buzz of the festival was Steven Soderbergh’s unconventional two-for-one Che Guevara biopic that ran four hours and twenty minutes long. “The Argentine” begins with Che’s famous 1964 speech at the United Nations, and finishes with Batista’s overthrow at the hands of Che’s well-organized guerilla troops. The second half “Guerilla” picks up after Che’s lost year in Africa when he slipped into Bolivia to help lead a doomed revolution. Problematically, the two films are scheduled to be released separately, drawing into question tonal differences between them. Soderbergh doesn’t attempt to consolidate the story of Guevara’s life, but rather to concentrate on the way the rebel leader attempted to build on his success in Cuba to spread revolution around the world. Benicio Del Toro is predictably mesmerizing as Che, and however flawed the concept “Che” was the most gratifying screening experience in Cannes.
Disappointment seeps through every element of director Shekhar Kapur’s ineffectual sequel to his superior 1998 precursor "Elizabeth," which introduced the world to the exceptional acting abilities of Cate Blanchett. In spite of her familiarity and ease as the woman who reinvented 16th century England, Blanchett’s best efforts are routed by an overly compartmentalized script that seeks to add a romantic groundwork to the character. Screenwriter Michael Hirst ("Elizabeth") teams up with William Nicholson ("Gladiator’) to detail Elizabeth’s jealous relationship with Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), while giving scope to her ruling abilities in the context of waging war with Spain. 