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The flick focuses on a trio of tortured characters:
a sexual abuse victim, a cop whose wife left him and
a reformed criminal whose old instincts come back
when his daughter is killed.
Eastwood was full of praise for his cast -- Sean Penn
, Tim Robbins , Kevin Bacon and Laura Linney -- who
got so into the story that they got together in their
own time for readings.
Competing for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival,
Easwood described the film as a sombre, ambiguous
tale that some studios shied away from.
'If you follow successful films that are out there,
and jump on the fad, then you ... make a comic book.
'I still like to think there's an audience there for
serious adult stories. I'm too old to make comic books'.
Eastwood, 72, was showing his fifth movie at the French
Riviera festival. He was co-president of the Cannes
jury alongside Catherine Deneuve in 1994; they awarded
the top prize to Quentin Tarantino 's 'Pulp Fiction'.
Eastwood's new film has a cast led by Sean Penn ,
who plays Jimmy Markum, the father of a 19-year-old
murder victim. Tim Robbins is a man haunted by childhood
sexual abuse, and Kevin Bacon is a police officer
investigating the murder. The three play childhood
friends who are thrown together again as adults.
Marcia Gay Harden and Laurence Fishburne have smaller
roles, as does Laura Linney , who plays Markum's wife
and delivers a thrilling Lady Macbeth-like monologue
at the end.
'There was so much esprit de corps', Eastwood said.
'It made my job extremely easy, and I just had to
stay out of the way and not screw it up'.
Eastwood doesn't appear in the movie, but he composed
the orchestral music that accompanies it.
'Mystic River' is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane.
It revisits themes Eastwood has touched on before:
revenge, and violence and its aftermath.
The story starts in a working-class neighbourhood
of Boston, with three kids carving their names into
wet sidewalk concrete.
Then a car pulls up, and one of the boys is abducted
and sexually tortured for days before he escapes.
For the rest of their lives, the other boys wonder:
What if it had been us instead?
'What made this story attractive to tell is ... what
one little instant can do, and how it affects so many
people', Eastwood said. 'Not just one person, but
his life, his family life, the lives of his friends'.
The characters lose touch, but the murder and subsequent
investigation bring them together. Bacon's character
is investigating, while Robbins falls under suspicion.
The movie's ending is deliberately ambiguous. It's
unclear how the characters are going to deal with
the events that turned their lives upside down.
Eastwood showed 'Absolute Power' out of competition
in 1997. Three of his other films were in competition:
'White Hunter, Black Heart' in 1990; 'Bird' in 1988;
and 'Pale Rider' in 1985. He has never won the Palme
d'Or, the top prize.
Eastwood also admitted he was finding it hard to hang
up his boots, but hinted the time may not be too far
off.
'I've thought about retiring for 30 years now. Before,
I used to talk about going around and working behind
the camera, and here I am, so it may be sooner than
you think'.
Eastwood has starred in 43 films from 'Dirty Harry'
to his famous 'Spaghetti Westerns'. He has also directed
24 films, garnering two Oscars for 'The Unforgiven'.
Eastwood, who headed the Cannes jury in 1994, said
his new film was now in the hands of fate. 'It's down
to the eyes of the beholder. Once I've finished a
film it's no longer mine.
'I've always been curious about victims of crime and
child abuse, which seems to be one of the most hideous
crimes on the planet, and how it affects the victims
and those close to them'.
The film does not show the things that two men do
to a boy they lock in a cellar for four days, but
is filled with suspense from start to finish.
Penn plays a volatile ex-convict whose 19-year-old
daughter is murdered, sparking a reflection on the
long-ago abduction of one of his three childhood friends.
Bacon, one of the trio, is now a tough Boston cop
forced to accept the possibility that the killer may
be the third member of the group, played by Robbins.
'My character was abused as a child and is living
with that, internalizing the experience and not talking
about it or dealing with it, so it festers and festers
for years', Robbins said.
The Cannes Film Festival jury will announce awards
on Sunday. 'Mystic River' is competing against 19
other films.
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