Cannes, Day 5: Old Folks' Boogie

Above title not being another reference to that Romanian movie (see below) or an obscure call out to the 70s band Little Feat, but my thoughts on seeing "Cloud 9" ("Wolke 9"), a German drama that could best be described as The Joy of Senior Sex. Directed by Andreas Dresen, it's about a hausfrau in her late 60s (Ursula Werner) who falls into an affair with the robust 76-year-old man (Horst Westphal) upstairs, to the consternation of her husband of 30 years (Horst Rehberg). You could also think of it as "Frau Lindner's Lover," since the filmmakers explore the sensuality of physical love and the natural world as ripely as D. H. Lawrence ever did. If you saw this story cast with 20-year-olds or 40-year-olds, it would taste like stale soap, but played out with characters in the evening of their lives -- when none of them expected an erotic thunderbolt to knock the table over -- the drama seems fresh and freshly lived.

But, sure, you have to be willing to watch old people have sex. A lot of it. Fairly explicitly, too. Which, in a culture that says only strapping youth and firm skin can and should be contemplated, makes "Cloud 9" something of a rebel yell. The film takes one too many melodramatic turns, unfortunately, but Kuhnert is really something special as an old lady struck with savage adolescent longings. And it's nice to run across a movie that tells younger audiences where to stick it.