It was an exhausting 12 days, but no matter what people say, even in a weaker year than usual, the Cannes Film Festival delivered a dozen or so very good films.
Maybe it was a case of just unloading all the halted pandemic titles last year, or maybe there’s a lot of work to be done before we get back to normalcy in the industry, I don’t know. Of the 21 films vying for the Palme d’Or, I only really liked a little less than half the selection.
Of note, the only title I missed was Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” which, weirdly enough, screened on the very last day. Why would they do that? Also, I was lukewarm on Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave,” but am looking forward to giving it another shot.
“Crimes of the Future” (David Cronenberg)
Reviewed here. A treat from David Cronenberg. Sex, violence, gore and, most especially, body-horror are featured in “Crimes of the Future,” which isn’t as shocking as one might think, but rather contemplates the role of anatomy and what makes us human. Cronenberg is right at home here, and he invests his moviemaking with the passion of a visionary madman
“Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Ostlund)
The Palme d’Or winner reviewed here. Clocking in at 142 minutes, the film is overlong and episodic, but there’s a real richness to the satire, so much so that this will bug the hell out of the politically correct, and the elites, who claim to be for the people. They will feel uncomfortable watching this film, and deservedly so. It’s also the comedy of the year. I haven’t laughed this hard in years.
“Funny Pages” (Owen Kline)
A bitingly funny coming-of-age story concerning a teenage cartoonist who rejects the comforts of his suburban life. Kline’s satirical jabs hit where they hurt. It plays like a millennial “American Splendor,” only better. The casting in this one is incredible. They chose actors who not only inhabit their weirdo characters, but make you believe you will stumble upon them outside. It’s a lo-fi masterpiece that tackles misbegotten artistic Impulses. No wonder the Safdies produced this one, one can easily see them directing such a film in their late 20s.
“Aftersun” (Charlotte Wells)
The Critics’ Week title that had everybody talking. Wells depicts the personal story of the melancholic and bittersweet resort holiday she took with her father twenty years ago. Memories real and imagined fill the screen as she tries to forgive the father she knew with the man she didn't. It’s a slowburn that you cannot stop thinking about days after having seen it. A24 picked it up for distribution and there will certainly be a lot of talk about it when it gets its much-deserved release.
“Armageddon Time” (James Gray)
Reviewed here. James Gray’s most personally felt statement is quite the lovely little movie. It’s a heartfelt gesture from one of the great American classicists of the 21st century. Recounting his childhood in New York, this is a Truffaut-esque story about friendship, tolerance and family. Tackling a multiracial friendship and an ailing grandfather with the kind of specificity that, at times, feels overwhelmingly authentic.
“De Humanis Corpis Fabrica” (Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
Focuses on five hospitals in northern Paris, this is not one for the faint of heart. It was not a coincidence that this one screened on the same day as the Cronenberg, as it is a graphic document exploring the flesh. Our gaze towards the anatomy depicted here makes your jaw drop. Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor‘s non-fiction statement is about modern medical science and the power of the cinematic eye, seeing the human body in a way almost none of us ever get to see it. From birth to death, if you stick with this movie, and there were plenty who didn’t, it could turn out to be life-changing.
“Boy From Heaven” (Tarik Saleh)
Reviewed here. The Screenplay winner. A spy thriller, albeit one set in Muslim-populated Egypt. A country where church and state keep clashing, both playing a heavy role in people’s day-to-day lives. Saleh has a knack for creating taut, tense and terrific scenes out of this spy movie and it’s best to go into “The Boy From Heaven” not knowing too much beforehand. This is a slickly delivered affair that recalls some of the better American spy movies of the ‘90s. Despite the conventional tropes being used here, Saleh sure knows how to turn the screws of tension up a notch.
“Tori et Lokita” (Jean Pierre et Luc Dardenne)
Reviewed here. This is exactly what you expect from the Dardennes, but they are excellent storytellers and their camera always seems to be in the right place. It’s the survival story of two immigrants who end up working for a drug dealer and you feel the desperation almost every minute. It is utterly gripping. The two exceptional lead performances come from Alban Ukaj and Tijmen Govaerts, both untrained non-actors. The Dardennes love to pick faces we don’t know for optimal realism and it works again here.
“Metronom” (Alexandru Belc)
The best movie I saw in the Un Certain Regard section should have probably been in competition. Set in Romania in the autumn of the year 1972. 17-year-old Ana and her boyfriend decide to attend a small get together where rock and roll and political dissent are welcome. Given that this story is set in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania, government authorities crash the party, horrific consequences ensue. Belc has a knack for positioning his camera in ways that ignite the viewer’s attention. “Metronom” is very much the next great movie of the Romanian new wave.
“Godland” (Hlynur Pálmason)
Another Un Certain Regard keeper that should have also been in competition. Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Pálmason’s third feature, following his gripping “A White, White Day”, took inspiration from the photographs of a Danish priest in Iceland’s southeastern coast during the late 1800s. Following Lucas, the most unsympathetic priest you’ve ever seen on-screen, and his call to build a church in the brutal conditions of an Icelandic region, the film is a slowburn that slowly reveals its shattering cards. The visuals are striking, but so is the ambition of the storytelling. It plays like a Herzogian vision of madness.
Thatcher shows up on-screen for, at most, 10 seconds. She looks remarkably like Thatcher and comes off as almost too polished, non-human like. Further clues are pointing at AI.