Cannes 2011 reviews: Le Havre and The Beaver

Watching so many films flash before our eyes in Cannes presents a kaleidoscope of perspective shifts contrasting the cultural differences between countries. While The Beaver purely crystallizes America in 2011, Le Havre is purely a snapshot of France. Both films deal with a search for happiness. Both involve a youngish man and a married couple. Both films explore pathways to meeting the right people, finding ways to know them better, and discovering love is the key to a serene and satisfying existence. It’s funny that both films come around to the same spot, essentially, from totally different directions.

Le Havre turns out to be one of the true delights of Cannes 2011, along with The Artist and, in its own way, The Tree of Life. It’s a film that deals with a serious subject, illegal immigration, in a not-so-serious way. Like The Artist, it’s one of those films that makes you smile, continually, throughout and renews your faith, even if just for a few hours, in the goodness of human beings.

Finnish Writer/Director Aki Kaurismaki turns to the North of France to tell his story. A wife becomes gravely ill and is taken to the hospital. She can’t tell her husband the truth because, she says, he’s really just a big baby who can’t really handle the truth. He also can’t seem to manage without her, despite all evidence to the contrary.

But that‚Äôs the funny thing about this movie: people say things whether they mean them or not. For the entire movie, the wife is in the hospital. She believes she‚Äôs dying but tells her husband it‚Äôs nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, the husband happens upon a group of immigrants — specifically, a young boy who escaped a police raid (as he ran, they didn‚Äôt have the heart to shoot). The man begins looking after the boy, feeds him, gives him shelter, teaches him how to shine shoes. Soon, his neighbors are also involved in the cause – the baker gives him free bread and babysits, the grocer hands over free cans of vegetables and beans — soon, it becomes a village effort to care for this boy and to help him find his way to his mother who’s in London.

What’s so enjoyable about this film is that Kaurismaki has such a light touch with this heavy subject. What it also shows is something I’ve come to discover of late: the fundamental kindness of the French people generally in this region, the South of France. The French get such a bad rap for being rude, in Paris anyway, but the majority of locals I’ve come across since I’ve been here have been helpful, funny, chatty, kind and warm Рif you’ll excuse a sweeping generalization.

Like so many films here Le Havre offers up an ending that is open to interpretation. Even if good deeds are done by men and women, there are some things beyond our individual capacity to fix – it takes something like a miracle to fix those. How you read the ending here will depend on whether or not you believe in miracles. We choose to see the best in life, as we choose to see the best in people. Le Havre is one of the best films of the festival thus far.

Leaving nothing really open to interpretation is Jodie Foster‚Äôs affecting, somewhat controversial film, The Beaver. While the purple elephant of Mel Gibson’s recent past does nearly obscure all of the good things about the movie, it certainly doesn‚Äôt obliterate them. Ironically, Gibson gives his most accomplished work as an actor here, just as Foster delivers her best work as a director to date. What a shame, then, that this really wonderful film must beat back Gibson being the latest to be publicly stoned by our tragedy-hungry culture. We want blood and we‚Äôll do just about anything to get it. This isn‚Äôt to ‚Äúexcuse‚Äù Gibson at all – but just to say, why should I be put in the position of judging him at all? His life and his relationships are his business. They have nothing whatsoever to do with me or anyone else. We can say, well now that his inner demons have been revealed how can we forgive him? If he‚Äôs supposed to be your friend or your husband, sure, judge away. But if you‚Äôre in the business of judging his performance? Well, you won‚Äôt get better than this one.

The Beaver is about a toy executive who becomes so depressed he can‚Äôt really speak to anyone unless he uses a hand puppet with a cockney accent, referring to himself as ‚ÄúThe Beaver.‚Äù Meanwhile, he is on the verge of divorcing his wife (Jodie Foster), with two sons at home. One who loves and admires him, the other who mostly hates him. This is the story of a family coming apart who try to pull themselves back together again. Again, family problems and dynamics haven’t been a major part of the foreign films I‚Äôve seen in Cannes – the reason being, happiness is pushed like a drug here in America and the prescription usually involves buying something for the cure. Many of us dutifully do as directed – we consume. And yet, the happiness that‚Äôs promised to us never arrives. So what could possibly be wrong with us? The pressure for self-fulfillment doesn’t feel so obsessive overseas. In Le Havre, for instance, personal happiness isn‚Äôt a necessity. It is a momentary result of having done something good for another person.

The Beaver isn’t just about “crazy Mel Gibson.” It’s about a whole family affected by depression. A teenage son (Anton Yelchin) who is getting in trouble in school for writing essays that “sound like other people.” He falls hard for a smart, artsy cheerleader valedictorian (only in the movies) played by Jennifer Lawrence. This story is as important in this film as the story about the married couple (Jodie Foster and Gibson). Part of it is that these two have no baggage whatsoever, so you’re not really preoccupied by trying to forget the news stories of the past year.

Lawrence is particularly interesting here, shedding her Southern accent and playing someone very different from Ree in Winter‚Äôs Bone. Foster effectively manages double duty as director and star. She’s totally believable as the titular characters‚Äô long-suffering wife, but her work as a director just gets better with each effort. Her visuals have always been strong but here she‚Äôs reached an entirely different level – the stuff with Gibson and the beaver puppet, in particular, are shot so well — the puppet itself looking and reacting like a real actor in the film.

The movie, though, is really all on Gibson, who pulls it off without a hitch. That is, until his real life overshadowed his ability to disappear into a character; now, it’s impossible to separate them. So when you’re watching Gibson try to fight with the beaver you’re thinking about Mel Gibson losing it with his wife, the cops, etc.

It its very American way of laying it all out completely and honestly, The Beaver hits some hard core emotional notes. If it seems odd that it’s showing up here in Cannes after already opening in the states, perhaps it’s because Foster is determined to go to any lengths to get her movie seen on its own terms. If audiences can’t forgive, can they at least forget? If they can forget, maybe they can take a break from being jury and executioner and find a little compassion for these characters cast adrift yet undaunted, struggling with the roots of their depression, facing their fears to overcome avoidance, and ultimately realizing emotional vulnerability is an asset not an illness.