Austrian finger-wagging, fear-malcontent Michael Haneke’s new film “The White Ribbon,” debuting in-competition at Cannes in the next few days, has already been bought by Sony Pictures Classics. A big deal since last year the company didn’t purchase any films during the festival’s duration.
The film chronicles a pre-WWI Northern German town and school where weird shit happens — like ritual punishments. It seems to be a mystery who is responsible for all of these bizarre acts, but surely Haneke will slowly reveal it in all his typical audience-punishing glory. His last film, the Americanized shot-for-shot remake of his own film “Funny Games” (god, how maniacally obdurate is that?) went down badly with critics, who could basically tell it was another owner-shoving the-dog’s-face-in-its-own-shit scolding, only this time for American audiences who probably missed it on the first go-round. Still, we love Haneke for his tenacious and perverse commitment to misanthropic, sociopath cinema.
Sony Pictures Classics was also responsible for the distribution of “Cache” here in the U.S. which was up for the Palme d’Or in 2005. [Variety] On a personal note, this sucks for us, leaving in a day, who had been hoping to see ‘Ribbon’ at an early market screening. Why would they show it early now? It’s been sold! Nuts.
Update: Anne Thompson, who is killin’ it from Cannes says, Croisette festival closer “Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky” — the 1920s-set Paris romance between fashion icon and the composer, directed by Chris Greenhalgh — has been acquired by SPC too, who are now officially on a role.
You probably won’t see this one for a while though, because Sony Pictures classics has already bought the Audrey Tautou-starring “Coco Avant Chanel,” which is due this Fall and two back-to-back Coco Chanel films probably aren’t going to play with audiences (who may not even have a huge thirst for one, let alone two). The romance will probably get thrown far back in 2010 to distance itself from the first version.