The one overwhelming message coming from the competition films at the 61st Cannes Film Festival is: shit's messed up. "Waltz With Bashir" digs into the never-fully-healed wounds of war. In Matteo Garrone's "Gomorra," organized crime isn't an aberration; it's just the shadow army of an irredeemably venal free-market system. The Dardenne Brothers' "The Silence of Lorna" expresses a horror at a not-too-underground economy in the trade of human lives. Lucia Martel's "Un Mujer Sin Cabeza" takes a still, near-surreal look at class (un)consciousness, and doesn't like what it sees. Even the period melodrama here, Clint Eastwood's fact-based "The Changeling," fairly bristles with anger at corrupt authoritarianism. And even the not-overtly socially conscious family saga here, Arnaud Desplechin's "A Christmas Tale" (Un Conte de Noel) emphasizes fissure and disruption over harmony and affinity. [Glenn Kenny]

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