Wenders and Shepard come knocking
'Sin City' bashes on Cannes' door
By CNN's Chris Burns
CANNES, France (CNN) -- German director Wim Wenders and American actor/playwright Sam Shepard screened their neo-Western "Don't Come Knocking" in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.
Starring with Jessica Lange and Tim Roth, Shepard plays a washed up cowboy actor in a halting search for his past.
Rich in cinematography, it makes Edward Hopper-esque portraits with light, shadow and time lapse in Montana, Utah and Nevada.
"It's as if Hopper had painted his entire work here," Wenders said.
But the film seems to lack the intensity and originality of Wenders' and Shepard's earlier collaboration -- "Paris, Texas" -- which won the Cannes Golden Palm in 1984.
Two days from the awards, Canadian David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" and Austrian Michael Haneke's "Cachi" ("Hidden") remained frontrunners for the gold, according to many critics.
But "Sin City," the whiplash-paced adult crime flick by Americans Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, starring Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke, was getting some strong reviews after screening here Wednesday.
In "Don't Come Knocking," Shepard plays Howard Spence, the hard-lovin', hard-drinkin', scandal-ridden main character who gallops off on his horse from the set of his latest film and heads for his mother he hasn't seen for years. Quite a catch for Wenders to have Mom played by Eva Marie Saint -- star of "On the Waterfront," Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" and "The Sandpiper."
Howard's mother points him to a ghostly and depressed Butte, Mont., to search for his long-estranged lover Doreen, played by Jessica Lange, and the son he never knew, played by Gabriel Mann.
Wayward fathers are a recurring theme at Cannes -- Jim Jarmusch's competing entry "Broken Flowers" has Bill Murray doing the same thing.
"It's what people all over the world are concerned with -- the disintegration of the family," Wenders told a post-screening presser.
Wenders denied there were any connotations about today's political leaders, "because I wouldn't want to have them as fathers. The father of one of them was president," he added, obviously referring to Presidents Bush father and son.
Wenders said his choice of setting makes a lot of sense.
"I grew up in postwar Germany," said Wenders, born three months after the collapse of the Nazi regime in a pile of rubble. "It was the opposite of the American West. The West became in my mind the ideal place on this planet. When I got there, I felt more at home than anywhere."
Like "Paris," Wenders -- who splits his time between Germany and Los Angeles -- said his new film is about "looking for a home, finding out where you belong. It's totally universal, because the landscape belongs to everyone on the planet. It's a myth we all share."
"Sin City" is an in-your-face, flash-and-gore, shoot-em-up portrayal of Frank Miller's graphic novels. A trio of short stories -- partly directed by Quentin Tarantino -- it's about troubled heroes, shapely babes in distress, sadistic criminals and corrupt officials, as if Raymond Chandler, Russ Meyer and Sam Peckinpah collaborated.
Willis plays Hartigan, a policeman nearing retirement who tries to save a young girl from the child-molesting son of a corrupt senator.
In the second story, Rourke is Marv -- with make-up looking like a cross between a satyr and the Hulk -- who's on the run after the prostitute -- Goldie (Jaime King) -- he's in love with is murdered.
And in the third, Clive Owen plays Dwight, defending his girlfriend Shellie (Brittany Murphy) from Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro).
Director Robert Rodriguez shot it with a new digital high-definition Sony in black and white, with splashes of primary colors and lots of special effects, cleverly blurring the margin between reality and computer-generated backgrounds, giving the impression of a comic book that jumps out off the screen and beats you up.
Already out in the United States for more than a month, it's taken in more than $72 million at the box office despite its "R" rating. How this kind of perverse humor and violence will play worldwide depends on how Cannes launches it, and whether the filmfest jury led by Emir Kusturica turns on to it. Kusturica has streaks of cruel humor in his own works, like his Golden Palm-winning "Underground."
Badboy actor Rourke is seen as making a comeback in "Sin City," his best performance since "Angel Heart" and "Barfly," according to Screen. The trade mag also called the film "wildly imaginative" and "a bruised, violent elegy to corruption and vigilantism that has the capacity to enthrall."
Variety magazine said that for "geeks, action freaks and sensation-seeking teenage boys of all ages, the price of admission will provide a one-way ticket to hard-boiled heaven."
