Cannes Blog: 2

Four stars

While you can't really knock the idea of sitting through five films a day then putting away Campari Sodas with cream-suited hacks until the wee hours, Cannes can still be quite the harsh mistress when it wants to, with scenes of misery and heartbreak occurring as much outside as inside the cinema screens. The corporeal queuing system could easily be the subject of a scholarly essay on emotional torture, and the myriad levels of press accreditation mean that waiting patiently for two hours outside a screen will still not ensure entry.

First up on the second two was a stroll down the Coisette (via, it must be noted, some roadside self-abuse by one of the less well heeled onlookers) to the Hilton Hotel for a screening of one of only a handful (last count was two) of British films, famed rock photographer Anton Corbijn's Joy Division biopic, 'Control'. Soon to be hogging a style mag front cover near you is Sam Riley whose portrait of the band's tragic lead singer Ian Curtis offers much more depth than mere impersonation. The unremitting glumness of Macclesfield is beautifully captured in high contrast black-and-white, and the dialogue is peppered with enough humour to lift what could have potentially been a lesson in pure miserablism into something quite poignant and even handed. And if there's any justice, Tony Kebell (the bullied younger brother from Shane Meadows Dead Man's Shoes), who plays their manager Rob Gretton will get his own movie franchise on the back of a hilariously sarky performance.

Those still blighted by scars of the ever-reliable Coen brothers' ill-advised foray into caper comedy remake territory will be pleased to hear that their latest - an adaptation of Cormac McCarthey's 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men - is a crashing return to form for the pair. Stripping back to a bare-bones form of filmmaking (the film's barren vistas and lack of a musical score supply it with a vibe of ruthless desolation), Josh Brolin plays the slow-witted Vietnam Vet Llewellyn Moss, who stumbles across the scene of a bungled drug deal in the middle of the desert and pockets two million dollars in cash. As his thoughts catch up to him, he decides to return to the scene and is instantly spotted by another party who are looking for the money.

Coming across like a composite of their early work, the film merges the down-home vernacular of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Zen notions of what it takes to be a man from The Man Who Wasn't There, the subsequent emotional fracture that comes with regular guys get mixed up in the world of crime from Fargo and the pure lurking evil of Miller's Crossing, to stunning effect.

Javier Bardem is electric as Chigurh, a T1000-like crook who sports a mop-top haircut and, with his air-powered cattle stun gun in tow, will stop at nothing to retrieve his loot. Though the film is possibly one of the brothers' most violent to date, it is also their most wistful and overtly philosophical with a script that is punctuated with plenty of delightful black comic set-ups. The only problem is the overriding sense that, like Moss, it's too desperate to go in its own direction, and while this works beautifully when genre expectations are confounded (especially in the scenes where Moss is being hunted by Chigurh), it does mean that the ending is a little garbled. Other than that, hugely entertaining stuff.

David Jenkins