Cannes' top films focus on fathers, sons

CANNES, France — By coincidence, two movies competing at the Cannes Film Festival have the same basic premise: A lonely, middle-aged guy goes on a quest for the son he never knew he had.

Wim Wenders' "Don't Come Knocking," which premiered Thursday, and Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers," which debuted earlier this past week, both explore such feelings as regret and emptiness, and how people change over time.

Also by coincidence, both movies co-star Jessica Lange. The parallels do not stop there:

• Germany's Wenders ("Paris, Texas") helped U.S. director Jarmusch ("Coffee and Cigarettes") get one of his first breaks as a filmmaker. In the early 1980s, Wenders gave Jarmusch some leftover film, which he used to shoot part of his indie hit "Stranger than Paradise."

• That film won Cannes' award for new directors in 1984, the same year Wenders' "Paris, Texas" won the top prize here, the Palme d'Or.

• Jarmusch says his "Broken Flowers" even includes a nod to a Wenders film. At one point, Bill Murray's character has a bandage put over his eye, a reference to a similar scene in Wenders' "The American Friend."

The two filmmakers met in the late 1970s, when Wenders was working on "Lightning Over Water," a movie about "Rebel Without a Cause" director Nicholas Ray in the last months of his life. Jarmusch, an aspiring filmmaker, worked for Ray.

"Wim was very generous and very, very nice to me, partly because he saw that I was Nick's assistant," Jarmusch told The Associated Press. Now, "when we're anywhere together, we see each others' films."

As the festival draws toward its close, Jarmusch's and Wenders' movies are among the strongest in the lineup of 21 films in the main competition. Awards will be announced Saturday.

Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" stars Murray ("Lost in Translation") as a former Don Juan who gets a mysterious letter explaining that he has a 19-year-old son he never knew about.

Murray's character crosses the country by plane and car to track down four old flames, including characters played by Sharon Stone and two-time Academy Award winner Lange.

In an amusing scene that involves a very intelligent cat, Lange plays an "animal communicator" — a New Age specialist who knows how to talk to pets.