Cannes Post-Mortem

Last week, I wrote a Globe and Mail wrap-up of Cannes, published 05.28.24. It was written before I caught up with a handful titles that I missed on the ground at the festival. I’ve updated my original best of list with a fresh new one (below this article):

Everyone seems to believe that Greta Gerwig and her jury did the best they could with slim pickings. The 2024 winners at Cannes were, for the most part, fair, uncontroversial and safe. You could say the same about the films in this year’s festival — save for Francis Ford Coppola’s unhinged “Megalopolis.”

Last year I left Cannes having seen "Killers of the Flower Moon," "Anatomy of A Fall," “The Zone of Interest,” "La Chimera," "May December," "Close Your Eyes," "Fallen Leaves," "Asteroid City," "The Taste of Things," “About Dry Grasses,” “The Delinquents,” “How to Have Sex,” and many other worthy films.

This year, I saw some good films, but felt little in the way of magic. I was spellbound by Palme d’Or winner Sean Baker's "Anora," and Indian film "All We Imagine As Light” was a luminous work, which won its director Payal Kapadia the Grand Prix. I concurred with some of the other winners, including Yorgos Lanthimos’ "Kinds of Kindness" and Coralie Fargeat’s "The Substance," both worthy of prizes. Of the other competition films I saw, the only real enthusiasm I felt was for Audiard’s "Emilia Perez," Magnus Von Horn’s "The Girl With the Needle,” and Ali Abassi’s “The Apprentice.”

Much like many I spoke to, I await a second viewing of Coppola's “Megalopolis,” and Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour.” I felt affection and respect for Gomes’ film, which won him the Best Director prize, but no real passion. It’s not easy to watch a muted and challenging film late in the festival, you come to it hazy with movie overload. I wouldn’t be surprised if it plays much better at a morning press screening.

Of the sidebar winners, the Un Certain Regard jury awarded the right films. The top prize went to Guan Hu’s “Black Dog,” which was, easily, the best edited film I saw at the fest — a meditation of a China that’s lost touch of itself. This was the story of a beat-up loner returning to his desert hometown, after a stint in prison, and the greyhound he befriends.

The Jury Prize (second place) went to the best film I saw in UCR this year, Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane.” This was a very moving film, a social drama about a struggling Guinean immigrant, who makes modest cash as an Uber Eats delivery man, frenetically cycling around the city. The film tackles a crucial 72 hours in his life, where, in between deliveries, he has to prepare for an asylum application interview — it was part socio-realism drama and part thriller.

As with every edition, one could make the case that this year’s weaker competition titles (Schrader’s “Oh, Canada,” Lellouche’s “Beating Hearts,” and Honore’s “Marcello Mio”) could have been replaced by Lojkine and Hu’s films. Hell, there were two gems in the Cannes Premiere section that could have easily been part of this year’s competition: Alain Guiraudie’s diabolically playful “Misericorde” and Arnaud et Jean-Marie Larrieu’s heartwrenching “Jim’s Story.”

An under-the-radar gem also popped up in the Critics’ Week sidebar. I have much faith that you’ll be hearing more about Leonardo Van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet” which tackled a star high school tennis player whose coach is suddenly suspended and under investigation. A film filled with silence as its titular protagonist painstakingly hides her anxiety and anger, this was an absorbing and intense debut film for Dijl.

As for my top 10 of the fest, I’d rather rank them in alphabetical order and list 13: “All We Imagine As Light,” “Anora,” “The Apprentice,” “Black Dog,” “Emilia Perez,” “The Girl With the Needle,” “Jim’s Story,” “Julie Keeps Quiet,” “Kinds of Kindness,” “The Story of Souleymane,” “Misericorde,” “September Says,” and “The Substance.”