Cannes '09 Lineup Announced, And It's Loaded With Potential! Tarantino! Von Trier! Haneke! Noe! Ming-Liang!

Beaks here...

Looking over the lineup for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, I have but one word: brutal. Though the shindig promises to get off to a fairly sunny, if somewhat bittersweet, start with Pete Docter's UP, it looks like festival-goers are in for some serious cinematic punishment thereafter. There's a new horror film from Lars von Trier (ANTICHRIST), a vampire flick from Park Chan-wook (THIRST), a period drama about "ritual punishment" at a rural German school from Smilin' Michael Haneke (THE WHITE RIBBON), a "psychodrama" from IN MY SKIN's Marina de Van (NE TE RETOURNE PAS), and a movie about near-death experiences from Gaspar Noe (ENTER THE VOID). Someone want to give me an over-under on walkouts for Noe's follow-up to IRREVERSIBLE? According to Noe, here's what his audience is in for:

The visions described in the script are inspired partly by the accounts of people who have had near-death experiences, who describe a tunnel of light, seeing their lives flashing past them and "astral" visions, and partly by similar hallucinatory experiences obtained by consuming DMT, the molecule which the brain sometimes secretes at the moment of death and which, in small doses, enables us to dream at night. The film should sometimes scare the audience, make it cry and, as much as possible, hypnotise it.

Yikes. And just in case you think this talk of "astral visions" means Noe's gone all soft on us, consider this disclaimer which was attached to a poster at the Berlin Film Festival: "Viewers are advised that this film contains scenes of heavy drug use, graphic sex and extreme violence." As someone who's probably going to list IRREVERSIBLE as one of the ten best films of the decade... I'm fucking terrified by this thing. So where's the relief from this onslaught of (presumed) unpleasantness? There's Ang Lee's TAKING WOODSTOCK, Tsai Ming-liang's FACE (a "comedy" about a filmmaker exploring the Salome myth), and LES HERBES FOLLES, a new movie from eight-five-year-old master Alain Resnais. Here's the full list of entries. See anything that inflames your loins?

Opening UP U.S., Pete Docter, Bob Peterson Closing COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY, France, Jan Kounen In Competition BRIGHT STAR, Australia-U.K.-France, Jane Campion SPRING FEVER, China-France, Lou Ye ANTICHRIST, Denmark-Sweden-France-Italy, Lars von Trier ENTER THE VOID, France, Gaspar Noe FACE, France-Taiwan-Netherlands-Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang LES HERBES FOLLES, France-Italy, Alain Resnais IN THE BEGINNING France, Xavier Giannoli A PROPHET, France, Jacques Audiard THE WHITE RIBBON, Germany-Austria-France, Michael Haneke VENGEANCE, Hong Kong-France-U.S., Johnnie To THE TIME THAT REMAINS, Israel-France-Belgium-Italy, Elia Suleiman VINCERE, Italy-France, Marco Bellocchio KINATAY, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza THIRST, South Korea-U.S., Park Chan-wook BROKEN EMBRACES, Spain, Pedro Almodovar MAP OF THE SOUNDS OF TOKYO, Spain, Isabel Coixet FISH TANK, U.K.-Netherlands, Andrea Arnold LOOKING FOR ERIC, U.K.-France-Belgium-Italy, Ken Loach INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, U.S., Quentin Tarantino TAKING WOODSTOCK, U.S., Ang Lee Out of Competition THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS, Canada-France, Terry Gilliam THE ARMY OF CRIME, France, Robert Guediguian AGORA, Spain, Alejandro Amenabar Midnight Screenings A TOWN CALLED PANIC, Belgium, Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar NE TE RETOURNE PAS, France-Belgium-Luxembourg-Italy, Marina de Van DRAG ME TO HELL, U.S., Sam Raimi Special Screenings PETITION, China, Zhao Liang L'EPINE DANS LE COEUR, France, Michel Gondry MIN YE, France-Mali, Souleyumane Cisse JAFFA, Israel-France-Germany, Keren Yedaya MANILA, Philippines, Adolfo Alix Jr., Raya Martin MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER, U.S., Anne Aghion Un Certain Regard SAMSON & DELILAH, Australia, Warwick Thornton ADRIFT, Brazil, Heitor Dhalia THE WIND JOURNEYS, Colombia, Ciro Guerra DEMAIN DES L'AUBE, France, Denis Dercourt IRENE, France, Alain Cavalier AIR DOLL, Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda INDEPENDENCE, Philippines-France-Germany, Raya Martin LE PERE DE MES ENFANTS, France-Germany, Mia Hansen-Love DOGTOOTH, Greece, Yorgos Lanthimos NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THE PERSIAN CATS, Iran, Bahman Ghobadi EYES WIDE OPEN, Israel, Haim Tabakman MOTHER, South Korea, Bong Joon-ho THE SILENT ARMY, Netherlands, Jean van de Velde TO DIE LIKE A MAN, Portugal, Joao Pedro Rodrigues POLICE, ADJECTIVE, Romania, Corneliu Porumboiu TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE, Romania, Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru TALE IN THE DARKNESS Russia, Nikolay Khomeriki TZAR, Russia-France, Pavel Lounguine NYMPH Thailand, Pen-ek Ratanaruang PRECIOUS, U.S., Lee Daniels