It's mid-May, the heart of the summer, and the weather is beautiful on the French Riviera for the 79th Cannes Film Festival. And once again I can only admire it from afar. One of these days I will see it in person, but for now I can only fawn on what is likely to be a critical preview of the movies to gradually come through the rest of the year. The big headline out of Cannes this year so far seems to be on the lack of Hollywood present. No major American studio films are in competition or premiering there, when typically there are at least a few. In past years, Furiosa and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny as well as the last several Mission: Impossible movies have featured in the festival a few weeks ahead of their broad domestic release. But this year and by its own choice, mainstream Hollywood has no presence at all, despite the official poster referencing Hollywood classic Thelma and Louise.
But this isn't a bad thing. Cannes is an international festival with international appeal -and it's not like these Hollywood movies that have launched there have been in like company in terms of aesthetics and quality. There is a place for big studio fare there but not a reservation, and Cannes can stand on its own without the industry that already takes up the most oxygen globally. American movies are not locked out, although there are notably fewer of them than in past years -just two in competition for the festival's grand prize. And hey, let's talk about that.
Last year I had a great time looking into the movies competing for the coveted Palme d'Or, and it's exciting to glimpse which will be crowned at the end of the festival (and inevitably picked up for distribution by Neon, which has got this thing down to a science by now). And though I only wound up seeing half of last year's considered movies, it was still wonderful to get a glimpse at the diversity on display and get a sense of what upcoming movies I should prioritize. This year is no less interesting a selection. Park Chan-wook is the President of a Jury that includes Chloé Zhao, Stellan Skarsgård, Isaach de Bankolé, Ruth Negga, and Demi Moore. All folks that seem to have good taste (apart from maybe Moore, who alongside Peter Jackson has had some very dumb, disappointing things to say about A.I. this week). So let's see the offerings:
All of Sudden: Right off the bat one of the movies here I am looking forward to the most. It is the new movie by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, it is an intimate drama and it is over three hours long. Hamaguchi’s first movie outside Japan, it is about the relationship between a French nursing home director played by Virginie Efira, and a terminally ill Japanese woman played by Tao Okamoto. Excited to see what looks to be another moody character study from Hamaguchi. Really looking forward to it, I think it has great potential to be one of my favourite movies of the year, whether it wins the Palme or not.
Another Day: This is a French movie from director Jeanne Herry and starring Adèle Exarchopoulos. It seems to be a movie about celebrity and vice -with perhaps a pessimistic tone. It’s hard to say, not a lot of information is available on it. But it’s competing also for the Queer Palme, which is interesting. Love the poster for it in any case -like a Criterion cover already.
The Beloved: The premise of this Spanish movie by Rodrigo Sorogoyen sounds a bit familiar and possibly autobiographical as it follows the reunion of a filmmaker and his estranged actress daughter on a movie set in the Sahara. Looks like it could be quite tense, Javier Bardem is the star in his first Spanish movie in five years. Already his performance has started getting some raves from the critics in town.
The Birthday Party: This is some kind of French thriller it seems, directed by Léa Mysius and centred on a birthday party on an isolated island. Mysius directed The Five Devils a few years ago so she has some credibility. She also co-wrote Paris, 13th District for Jacques Audiard -which I liked. Though she also co-wrote Stars at Noon and Emilia Pérez so make of that what you will.
Bitter Christmas: How strange will it be to come out of a Christmas movie into gorgeous summer weather. This is a new Pedro Almodóvar movie though so in any case I’m looking forward to how pretty it looks. After a couple English experiments he is back to Spanish, Milena Smit from Parallel Mothers is in it, and it seems to be a satire about a commercial director in the 2000s. Almodóvar has interestingly never won the Palme -could this be his year?
The Black Ball: A big year it seems for Spanish movies at Cannes. Directed by two Javiers, Calvo and Ambrossi, it is a movie about three gay men in three different times. Penélope Cruz has a part in there and so too does Glenn Close -potentially this movie is aiming at some cross-cultural appeal. The directors, a partnership, apparently broke up while making the movie so it carries some drama. But still, a premise that is quite interesting to me.
Coward: The new movie by Lukas Dhont that is apparently about soldiers in the First World War staging a show for morale -so like the “Major Star” episode of Blackadder Goes Forth perhaps, though likely with more overt gay connotations given Dhont’s style. A good version of this could either be amusing or deeply heartfelt. After Close, I trust Dhont will go for the latter.
The Dreamed Adventure: This is an internationally funded movie from German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach that seems like it could be very political in subject matter. There’s not a lot to go on yet, but it is a modern movie set on a contentious three-way border in southeastern Europe. Something that very well might catch the Cannes Jury’s attention in a way that It Was Just an Accident did last year.
Fatherland: Pawel Pawlikowski’s first movie in eight years since the surprisingly successful Cold War is about novelist Thomas Mann on a road trip across a divided Germany in the early years of that schism. The movie is poised to address his complicated relationship to his home country, which he fled during the Nazi regime, and is now literally fragmented. Seems really compelling. And it just happens to feature Sandra Hüller as Mann’s daughter accompanying him - one of several performances of hers this year that may be an awards contender.
Fjord: I just wrote about 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the movie that won Christian Mungiu the Palme d’Or nearly twenty years ago. We’ll see if he can pull it off twice with this movie about a mixed Romanian-Norwegian family that reunites Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve from A Different Man. Mungiu appears to be still in the realm of the uncomfortable though as the premise concerns a community suspicion of this family’s treatment of their children. These names are enough that I am very interested in seeing this one, whether I enjoy myself with it or not.
Gentle Monster: And this is another movie designed to make an audience uncomfortable, though derived from a raw and honest place. Léa Seydoux stars as a woman whose husband is accused of child pornography possession. The movie from Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer appears based on her own experiences with a trusted actor who appeared in her last film Corsage before being found guilty of the same crime. I look forward to a great performance from Seydoux amidst what is sure to otherwise be an unsettling time.
Hope: Everything about this movie just seems very very cool. A nearly three-hour Korean sci-fi movie about villagers fighting off mysterious monsters in a Kurosawa-sounding premise and boasting an international cast including Taylor Russell, Michael Fassbender, and Alicia Vikander. I'm not familiar with the work of Na Hong-jin, but an epic this interesting is going on my list to be sure. The breathtaking imagery of the released still only solidifies my anticipation.
A Man of His Time: I think we all loved Swann Arlaud's handsome lawyer from Anatomy of a Fall. This French movie by Emmanuel Marre sees him play a man trying to rescue France from the Vichy regime through his work with the French Resistance. We could always use more explicitly anti-fascist movies and this looks like a promising one. Would be a potent Palme d'Or winner in this time as well.
The Man I Love: What's this, an American movie in competition for the Palme? This is the latest movie from Ira Sachs and it is about a New York actor in the 1980s dying of AIDS and his last great performance. It stars Rami Malek in his second (hopefully better) go at an AIDS victim, alongside Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Potentially an awards contender for later in the year -it's got a lot there the Academy loves; but Sachs is a good filmmaker, I at least don't expect it to be bad.
Minotaur: Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintensev remakes a Claude Chabrol movie about marital infidelity for the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. That alone is a little intriguing, and it is always good to see Russian art that is apparently willing to criticize the Putin regime (see Mr. Nobody Against Putin) as this movie seems poised to do. Curious where the minotaur will fit in.
Moulin: Here we have another movie about the French Resistance, this one from Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes -director of the Oscar-winning Son of Saul- and starring Gilles Lellouche as resistance martyr Jean Moulin. Sounds like a perfectly interesting and illuminating historical drama -keep an eye on it perhaps for next year's awards season. Amusingly it might release to Disney+ who have pre-purchased it for some territories.
Nagi Notes: Sometimes a movie being nominated for the Queer Palme gives away a side of a story meant to be a bit of a surprise. That was the case for me with Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster a few years ago. And it is true too of this movie from Koji Fukada in which an architect has an old friend pose for a sculpture. Perhaps I am wrong and the queer material comes out of the film in other ways -but in either case it's no mark against it.
Paper Tiger: Already I have heard some really good things about this movie from James Gray that reunites Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson from Marriage Story alongside Miles Teller for a family crime drama set in the 1980s. Perhaps it is a companion film of sorts to Armageddon Time though the scope appears to be more grand, at least thematically. I'll anxiously await it, likely a festival darling for the duration of the year.
Parallel Tales: Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi does his own version of The Decalogue (or at least parts of it). Honestly it is the names more than anything that has me curious about this one. Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Cassel, and Virginie Efira (her second film in competition), all of whom I'm sure will give great performances. Don't have much else to say though, but it could be a surprise.
Sheep in the Box: I'll always be a little bit biased towards Hirokazu Kore-eda so naturally this is the movie I'm rooting for and probably most excited by. It is a little bit different for Kore-eda though, a science-fiction movie about a robot boy adopted by a couple following the death of their son. Sounds like Spielberg's A.I., but certainly from Kore-eda is going to have more of an earnest, meditative vibe. Haruka Ayase from Our Little Sister stars in it, and it's sure to have an interesting, hopefully humanist take on artificial intelligence. Can't wait.
The Unknown: The co-writer of Anatomy of a Fall, Arthur Harari is behind this dreamy kind of body swap film starring Léa Seydoux that I am trying to avoid further details on. It's apparently dark and a little contentious, and subversive in presentation. Perhaps not so dissimilar to The Beast, though that might just be my projection off of Seydoux's involvement. Neon has already acquired it though, which is an interesting sign.
A Woman's Life: The last of quite a few French movies in competition this year. It is directed by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet and is about a middle-aged surgeon at a stressful point in life being interviewed by a novelist. Could be either one of those slow-burn tension pieces or something more lighthearted and inspirational. Stars Léa Drucker and Mélanie Thierry, both of whom I know of but am unfamiliar with their work.
I couldn't tell you which of these will win the Palme d'Or on Saturday, Cannes has a way of surprising you. But it is an interesting collection of movies, though perhaps not as diverse as one would like. Multiple French, German, Spanish and Japanese movies and little from other corners of the world. Out of competition there are several movies premiering at Cannes that I am looking forward to as well. Two new Marion Cotillard movies -Karma directed by her husband Guillaume Canet, and Roma Elastica which she stars in with Noémie Merlant. Congo Boy about an aspiring musician in central Africa. Victorian Psycho which seems to be exactly what it lets on. And of course Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the new romance slasher movie from Jane Schoenbrun that might wind up being the best movie of the summer when it releases in August. I hope we get the chance to see most of these. The year in movies is only just beginning.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jordanbosch.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Comments
Post a Comment