WORLDVIEW

Milos Stehlik's Commentaries

Cannes Film Festival: Lou Ye's Summer Palace and Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley
(Transcript)
Originally broadcast May 19, 2006

	Milos Stehlik

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Hours before The Da Vinci Code had its world premiere here in Cannes on Wednesday, British nuns and a priest supplicated themselves on the steps of the Palais des Festivals in protest of the film. Their protest didn’t stop anything and the screening went on as planned, to a generally poor reception. A black plastic pyramid was constructed on the beach. Sony Pictures flew in 250 people to work on the promotion of the film in Cannes. The cast and the crew of The Da Vinci Code traveled to Cannes by train from London. One star was installed in each carriage, and the journalists selected to make the journey were allowed only pen and paper—not luggage—so they could go from car to car, interviewing the stars. Perhaps the funniest quip here came at The Da Vinci Code press conference. Ian McKellan, who plays the Holy Grail scholar in the film, and who has been very open about being gay, said, “I’m very happy that Jesus was married. I know the Catholic Church has problems with gay people and I thought this would be absolutely proof that Jesus was not gay.”

Scandal of a different sort was brewing over the Chinese film Summer Palace, directed by Lou Ye, which had its world premiere here in Cannes. Ye is the talented director of Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River, and his two and a half-hour long Summer Palace is a long, episodic feature about a group of friends, with the story revolving around the central character, a pretty girl named Yu Hong.

This is the generation of students who came of age and were the nucleus for the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. The main character, the beautiful Yu Hong, leaves her small village, her boyfriend and her family, when she gets accepted into college in Beijing. There, she discovers a world of sexual experimentation, and falls in love with a fellow student, Zhou Wei. But their relationship turns into games. The personal turns political when the student demonstrations, demanding democracy and freedom, begin to shake Beijing and China.

It is sometimes hard to keep track of the characters and the various relationships, and the film ends somewhat confused, but there is no doubt that Lou Ye shows daring both in how explicitly he shows the sexual revolution which came to China in the 1980s, and the political liberation that accompanied it.

The confused situation here in Cannes stems from the film being submitted and accepted by the Cannes Festival before it had a chance to be approved by the Chinese censors. Summer Palace was resubmitted by the Chinese producer on Tuesday, and was rejected by the Chinese Film Bureau. This means that the film has to give up its competition slot in the Cannes Festival, according to the Chinese film producer Nai An. But the French co-producer disagreed, and said that the screenings, and the packed press conference here yesterday with the filmmaker and the cast, would go on as scheduled.

Perhaps the strongest film shown here so far is the new film by veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach. The Wind That Shakes the Barley is just a terrific piece of filmmaking about the Irish war for independence in 1920. Compressing a complicated piece of history, Loach sets his film in a group of ragtag young Irish boys who join the Irish Republican Army to fight for a free Ireland. The central character, Damien, is trained as a doctor, but joins his brother Teddy in fighting for the Republican cause. Impeccably written and acted, beautifully shot, The Wind that Shakes the Barley reveals the oppression of the Irish by the British army, the guerilla war, and the immorality of any war or conflict. Damien, the sensitive and smart soul who dreams of a socialist Ireland, in which the land and property as well as the right to work belong to the Irish, becomes a tragic hero who ends up sacrificed in a renewed struggle between the Irish who want to compromise with the British, and those who seek total freedom. Ken Loach, whose films like Raining Stones, Land and Freedom, Hidden Agenda, Carla’s Song, and Ae Fond Kiss have always been films of conscience, continues to be a filmmaker without compromise.

This is Milos Stehlik for Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview.

Worldview film contributor Milos Stehlik is the director of Facets Multimedia.

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