Cannes 2009: Best Director Favorites

Best Director
Pedro Almodóvar for Broken Embraces
Jacques Audiard for A Prophet
Jane Campion for Bright Star
Michael Haneke for The White Ribbon
Alain Resnais for Wild Grass
 
Photos: Courtesy Festival de Cannes
 

Cannes 2009: Pedro Almodóvar’s BROKEN EMBRACES

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodóvar on the set (top); Penélope Cruz as the heroine (bottom).
In the mystery-melodrama, a director and his female star begin a passionate love affair that leads to all sorts of trouble.

Wendy Ide in The [London] Times:
"Certainly, it is unmistakably an Almodovar film. Nobody else does richly-textured melodrama quite like him; nobody else can encourage such overwrought performances without unbalancing the film; nobody else shoots Penélope Cruz with a reverence which borders on fan-worship. But what’s missing here is the warmth and emotional honesty that infuses Almodovar’s most successful features. What’s missing is, arguably, Almodovar himself."
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Eric Kohn in indieWIRE:
"Pedro Almodovar offers nothing new in his [...]

Pedro Almodóvar’s BROKEN EMBRACES Inspired by Darkness

Penélope Cruz, seen above in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, will not look like this in Pedro Almodóvar’s next film, Los Abrazos rotos, for the director asserts he doesn’t want his leading lady to "repeat those [hairstyles] she has worn in other films."
 
Pedro Almodóvar, on his website:
"Regarding the English translation of the original title, Los abrazos rotos, I have seen in some publications that it has been translated as ‘Broken Hugs’ and in others as ‘Broken embraces.’ I don’t have a sufficient knowledge of English to decide which is correct, or if both are, but I get the impression that in my story the ‘abrazos’ are more embraces than hugs.
"My ‘abrazos’ are not fraternal or [...]