Taking Woodstock by Ang Lee

No matter how much all the people staying during these days in Cannes are cinema fanatics, only the most known names provoke real queues. Ang Lee is one of these names, together with Lars von Trier, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola, to quote a few. So far Taking Woodstock is - after Tetro, the one which has awoken the most expectations.

As a matter of fact, at the same time as there are really good films in the parallel sections which aren’t receiving the attention they deserve (Air Doll, Huacho…), it’s quite surprising that films like Taking Woodstock are in the Competition. Nothing about Ang Lee’s latest work is surprising; it’s just a rather banal movie made without too much thought, which talks about the genesis of this popular music festival. Structured as a classical comedy and including all the genre’s script-related conventions, in the end only one or two beautiful scenes succeed in transmitting the spirit of the era - almost just as Antonioni did in Zabriskie Point, but without the core.

Whilst it will probably collect a substantial sum at the box office, it’s an easily forgettable movie. At least we are still left with the element of mystery: waiting for the next idea from such a versatile filmmaker.

Andrea Franco