The Cannes movie premiere Roger Ebert called “disastrous”
Cannes Film Festival is one of the most prestigious events on the film industry calendar, with critics, stars and film fans from across the globe gathering to watch the newest releases from some of cinema’s biggest names.
However, the festival often becomes a hotbed for controversy, with many audience members revelling in the tradition of walking out of films. While at any other festival, it might seem rude, overdramatic or unfair to leave a movie while it’s still playing, it is perfectly acceptable at Cannes.
From Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible to The Brown Bunny by Vincent Gallo, Cannes has seen some pretty memorable displays of discontentment due to certain films. The iconic film critic Roger Ebert often discussed Cannes reactions in his reviews, and there was one movie’s premiere that he dubbed “the most disastrous Cannes press screening since, yes, The Brown Bunny.”
He was referring to Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, which was released in 2006. To add context, The Brown Bunny was egregiously panned by Ebert, who wrote, “I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.” It seemed like nothing could top Ebert’s comments on Gallo’s movie, and while his remarks against The Brown Bunny remain his funniest statements, he didn’t hold back when discussing Southland Tales, either.
He wrote, “I was dazed, confused, bewildered, bored, affronted and deafened by the boos all around me.” Kelly, who rose to prominence after directing the critically acclaimed Donnie Darko in 2001, struggled to find the same praise for Southland Tales, which most critics found hard to understand, with Ebert calling the dialogue “incomprehensible”.
As Ebert tried to give a brief plot synopsis in his review, he stopped and wrote, “I give up. A plot synopsis would require that the movie have a plot.” The movie starred an odd mix of actors, including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Wallace Shawn and Kevin Smith.
Ebert couldn’t wrap his head around what was going on in the film, and neither could most of the audience. He humorously wrote, “Every scene plays like something that was dreamed up with little concern for what went before or would follow after. It’s like the third day of a pitch session on speed.”
The Cannes premiere was panned by lots of other critics, who couldn’t believe such a disastrous movie was being screened. Eventually, a shorter, slightly more comprehensible version was released that fared slightly better. However, the damage was already done, and Kelly has only made one more film, the largely forgettable The Box, since then.
