Cannes Film Festival 2018

[Chris Knipp]

Festival de Cannes May 8-19, 2018: films in Competition announced.

Franco-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard with Le livre d'imag/The Image Book, Italian Matteo Garrone with Dogman, or the American Spike Lee with BlacKKKlansman will be in competition this year at Cannes, the organizers have announced.
The French Stéphane Brizé with En guerre, Christophe Honoré with Plaire, aimer et courir vite/Sorry Angel and Eva Husson with Les Filles du soleil, the American David Robert Mitchell with Under the Silver Lake, the Chinese Jia Zhang-ke with Ash is Purest White, the Japanese Hirokazu Koreeda with Shoplifters or the Iranian Jafar Panahi with Three Faces will also be in line for the Palme d'Or competition from 8 to 19 May. The whole list is below.

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Official selection
Competition
Everybody Knows/Todos lo saben (dir: Asghar Farhadi) – opening film
At War/En guerre (dir: Stéphane Brizé)
Dogman (dir: Matteo Garrone)
Le Livre d’Image/The Image Book (dir: Jean-Luc Godard)
Asako I & II (dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Sorry Angel/Plaire, aimer, et courir vite (dir: Christophe Honoré)
Girls of the Sun/Les Filles du soleil (dir: Eva Husson)
Ash Is Purest White (Chinese: 江湖儿女) (dir: Jia Zhang-Ke)
Shoplifters/ 万引き家族 Manbiki Kazoku, (dir: Hirokazu Koreeda)
Capernaum/Capharnaüm (dir: Nadine Labaki)
Burning (dir: Lee Chang-Dong)
BlacKkKlansman (dir: Spike Lee)
Under the Silver Lake (dir: David Robert Mitchell)
Three Faces (dir: Jafar Panahi)
Cold War (dir: Pawel Pawlikowski)
Lazzaro Felice/My Bitter Land (dir: Alice Rohrwacher)
Yomeddineيوم الدين (dir: AB Shawky)
Leto (L’Été/Summer) (dir: Kirill Serebrennikov)

Un Certain Regard
Runs 8-19 May 2018.
Opening Night Film: Donbass (dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
Angel Face (dir: Vanessa Filho)
Border/Gräns (dir: Ali Abbasi)
El Angel (dir: Luis Ortega)
Euphoria (dir: Valeria Golino)
Friend (dir: Wanuri Kahiu)
The Gentle Indifference of the World (dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov)
Girl (dir: Lukas Dhont)
The Harvesters (dir: Etienne Kallos)
In My Room (dir: Ulrich Köhler)
Little Tickles (dir: Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer)
My Favorite Fabric (dir: Gaya Jiji)
On Your Knees, Guys (Sextape) (dir: Antoine Desrosières)
Sofia (dir: Meyem Benm’Barek)

Out of competition
Solo: A Star Wars Story (dir: Ron Howard)
Le Grand Bain/Sink or Swim (dir: Gilles Lellouche)
Little Tickles/Les chatouilles (dir: Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (dir: Bi Gan)

Midnight screenings
Arctic (dir: Joe Penna)
The Spy Gone North/공작 (dir: Yoon Jong-Bing)

Special screenings
10 Years in Thailand (dir: Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnon Sriphol & Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
The State Against Mandela and the Others (dir: Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte)
O Grande Circo Mistico/The Great Mystical Circus (dir: Carlo Diegues)
Dead Souls (dir: Wang Bing)
To the Four Winds (dir: Michel Toesca)
La Traversée (dir: Romain Goupil)
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (dir: Wim Wenders)
Closing film
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (dir: Terry Gilliam)

Directors’ Fortnight
Runs 9-19 May 2018.
Pajaros de Verano (Birds of Passage) (dirs: Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego) – opening film
Amin (dir: Philippe Faucon)
Carmen y Lola (dir: Arantxa Echevarria)
Climax (dir: Gaspar Noe)
Comprama un Revolver (Buy Me a Gun) (dir: Julio Hernandez Cordon)
Les Confins du Monde (dir: Guillaume Nicloux)
El Motoarrebatador (The Snatch Thief) (dir: Augustin Toscano)
En Liberte! (dir: Pierre Salvadori)
Joueurs (Treat Me Like Fire) (dir: Marie Monge)
Leave No Trace (dir: Debra Granik)
Los Silencios (dir: Beatriz Seigner)
The Pluto Moment (dir: Ming Zhang)
Mandy (dir: Panos Cosmatos)
Mirai (dir: Mamoru Hosoda)
Le Monde Est a Toi (dir: Romain Gavras)
Petra (dir: Jaime Rosales)
Samouni Road (dir: Stefano Savona)
Teret (The Load) (dir: Ognjen Glavonic)
Weldi (Dear Son) (dir: Mohamed Ben Attia)
Troppa Grazia (dir: Gianni Zanasi) – closing film

Critics Week
Runs 10-18 May 2018.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
FEATURES
Wildlife, dir: Paul Dano (opening film)
Our Struggles, dir: Guillaume Senez
Shéhérazade, dir: Jean-Bernard Marlin
Guy, dir: Alex Lutz (closing film)
SHORT FILMS
La Chute (The Fall), dir: Boris Labbé
Third Kind, dir: Yorgos Zois
Ultra Pulpe (Apocalypse After), dir: Bertrand Mandico
FEATURE COMPETITION
Chris The Swiss, dir: Anja Kofmel
Diamantino, dirs: Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt
Egy Nap (One Day), dir: Zsófia Szilágyi
Fuga (Fugue), dir: Agnieszka Smoczynska
Kona Fer I Stríð (Woman At War), dir: Benedikt Erlingsson
Sauvage, dir: Camille Vidal-Naquet
Sir, dir: Rohena Gera
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Amor, Avenidas Novas, dir: Duarte Coimbra
Ektoras Malo: I Teleftea Mera Tis Chronias (Hector Malot – The Last Day Of The Year), dir:
Mo-Bum-Shi-Min (Exemplary Citizen), dir: Kim Cheol-Hwi
Pauline Asservie (Pauline, Enslaved), dir: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
La Persistente, dir: Camille Lugan
Rapaz (Raptor), dir: Felipe Galvez
Schächer, dir: Flurin Giger
Tiikeri (The Tiger), dir: Mikko Myllylahti
Un Jour De Mariage (A Wedding Day), dir: Elias Belkeddar
Ya Normalniy (Normal), dir: Michael Borodin

The 2018 Cannes film festival runs 8-19 Mayhttp://www.chrisknipp.com/images/C184.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Big talk about Cannes 2018: what's in, what's not.

Notable inclusions are works by Jean Luc-Godard, Pawel Pawlikowski, Wim Wenders and Spike Lee, as well as a genuine blockbuster in the form of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

But maybe more notable is what's missing or excluded. Contrary to expectations, there is nothing, so far anyway, by Lars von Trier, Mike Leigh or Terry Gilliam. [Note: the last two were added later.]

Maybe the biggest news is the exclusion of Netflix. Cannes decided this time against allowing in Competition any film by the giant without a theatrical release. And Netflix in reply refused to participate in the festival in any out-of-competition category.

Despite the talk about the underrepresentation of women in the industry - see the SFIFF doc Half the Picture (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4477-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2018&p=36735#post36735) - there is a dearth of films by women directors. Cannes Festival Director Thierry Fremaux is unapologetic about this and says the Festival will never act unilaterally to correct the imbalance.

Godard's film is a photo essay like his other recent pictures. Pawilikowski's Cold War is the story of a romance traced across multiple countries in the Fifties. Spike Lee's Blackkklansman is the story of a black man who infiiltrates a KKK chapter, and will likely be one of the most provocative films of Competition.

Other films in Competition come from Egypt, Japan, Lebanon, South Korea and China. Included are to by dissident directors in serious trouble with their repressive governments. Jaafar Panahi has been banned from leaving Iran, but will debut with Three Faces. The Iranian government has been requested by the Cannes authorities to allow him to attend. Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov has been under house arrest since 2010 on fraud charges. His Leto is a movie about the underground rock 'n roll scene in Soviet Russia. Russia has been requested to allow him to come to the Riviera for the fest as well.
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[Chris Knipp]

Critics Week Cannes 2018.

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The Jury President of Critics Week (La Semaine de la Critique) this year is Norwegian director Joachim Trier.
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Trier is the director of the brilliant debut Reprise (SFIFF 2007 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?1999-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2007-%2850th-anniversary%29&p=17815#post17815)), Cannes selections Oslo, August 31st (ND/NF 2012 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3246-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2012&p=27556#post27556)) and Louder than Bombs (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4136-LOUDER-THAN-BOMBS-(Joachim-Trier-2015)&p=34622#post34622), and 2017's Thelma (NYFF 2017 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4375-New-York-Film-Festival-2017&p=36338#post36338)) which debuted at Toronto. Trier will be joined by American actress and director Chloë Sevigny, Argentinian actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, a recent César winner for his role in Robin Campillo's 120 Beats Per Minute; Eva Sangiorgi, the new Italian director of the Viennale, the Vienna International Film Festival; and the French culture journalist Augustin Trapenard.

The selection will be announced tomorrow.

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[Chris Knipp]

Cannes Classics program announced

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REX/Shutterstock-DeadlineHollywood

Orson Welles will be featured at next month’s Cannes Film Festival, though not his previously unfinished The Other Side of the Wind yet - Netflix is holding onto it due to its tiff with the Cannes directors. But a new doc The Eyes of Orson Welles is coming from Mark Cousins - the series includes tributes and docs about film & filmmakers plus restorations. Included are works involving Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Chris Nolan and John Travolta. And The Golem.

The Eyes Of Orson Welles explores the director's visual process, using drawings, paintings and early works Cousins got access to through Welles' daughter, Beatrice. Beatrice could not prevail on Netflix to release The Other Side of the Wind.

There will be a tribute to Alice Guy, first female director/producer in a new doc by Pamela B. Green. Sundance offers Susan Lac's HBO doc Jane Fonda in Five Acts which Jane will be present for. Chris Nolan will present a new 70mm print of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey on its fiftieth anniversary made from the original camera negative, "a true photochemical film recreation," with a 15 min intermission as when the film was originally shown in spring 1968.

Ingmar Bergman is also to be featured with Searching for Ingmar Bergman, a parallel tracing of her own and his careers b Margarethe von Trotta;Jane Magnusson's Bergman — A Year In A Life tracing 1957, when Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal came out; plus a digital 4K restoration of the original neg of The Seventh Seal presented by the Swedish Film Institute. Other gems: Wilder's The Apartment, De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Besson's The Big Blue (its 39th anniversary) and the musical Grease, which will be screened on the beach. Full program is below.



Cannes Classics 2018
Beating Heart, dir: Henri Decoin (1939 France)
Bicycle Thieves, dir: Vittorio De Sica (1948 Italy)
Enamorada, dir: Emilio Fernández (1946 Mexico – Martin Scorsese to introduce)
Tokyo Story, dir: Yasujiro Ozu (1953 Japan)
Vertigo, dir: Alfred Hitchcock (1958 U.S.)
The Apartment, dir: Billy Wilder (1960 U.S.)
Diamonds Of The Night, dir: Jan Němec (1964 Czech Republic)
War And Peace. Film I. Andrei Bolkonsky, dir: Sergey Bondarchuk (1965 Russia)
The Nun, dir: Jacques Rivette (1965 France)
Four White Shirts, dir: Rolands Kalnins (1967 Latvia)
The Hour Of The Furnaces, dir: Fernando Solanas (1968 Argentina)
Specialists, dir: Sergio Corbucci (1969 France, Italy, Germany)
João And The Knife, dir: George Sluizer (1971 Netherlands)
Blow For Blow, dir: Marin Karmitz (1972 France)
One Sings The Other Doesn’t, dir: Agnès Varda (1977 France)
Grease, dir: Randal Kleiser (1978 U.S. with John Travolta in attendance)
Fad, Jal, dir: Safi Faye (1979 Senegal, France)
Five And The Skin, dir: Pierre Rissient (1981 France, Philippines)
The Island Of Love, dir: Paulo Rocha (1982 Portugal, Japan)
Bagdad Café, dir: Percy Adlon (1987 Germany)
The Big Blue, dir: Luc Besson (1988 France, U.S., Italy)
Driving Miss Daisy, dir: Bruce Beresford (1989 U.S.)
Cyrano De Bergerac, dir: Jean-Paul Rappeneau (1990 France)
Hyenas, dir: Djibril Diop Mambety (1992 Senegal, France, Switzerland)
Lamb, dir: Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (1963 Senegal)
Destiny, dir: Youssef Chahine (1997 Egypt, France)

- Deadline Hollywood (http://deadline.com/2018/04/cannes-classics-lineup-2018-films-full-list-1202374359/).
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[Chris Knipp]

Devika Girish on Tribeca 2018

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MARY KAY PLACE IN KENT JONES'S DIANE

Cannes begins in five days. Tribeca (Apr 18, 2018 – Apr 29, 2018) recently ended. So meanwhile here is a roundup by Devika Girish, whom I met at ND/NF in March, of her 2018 Tribeca favorites in the film review Vague Visages (https://vaguevisages.com/2018/05/03/overview-tribeca-film-festival-2018/) including a succinct rundown on a debut feature by Kent Jones, director of the New York Film Festival.

[Chris Knipp]

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SCREENDAILY describes 20 Cannes films to watch for.

Many of these sound good. For the SCREENDAILY article: CLICK (goo.gl/78tdwh). They come from across the categories: Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition/Special screenings, Directors' Fortnight, and Critics Week.

You have to register to read things on Screendaily, but it's free.
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[Chris Knipp]

The festival starts tomorrow.

Spile Lee's BlackKKlansman, Lars von Trier back with a serial killer movie

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Adam Driver and John David Washington in BlackKlansman


BlacKkKlansman (US) - dir. Spike Lee (In Competition)
The arch provocateur returns to Competition for the first time since Jungle Fever played the Croisette in 1991. Lee’s latest is inspired by the true story of Ron Stallworth, an undercover African-American police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. John David Washington and Adam Driver star, and BlacKkKlansman is produced by the team behind Get Out, among them Jordan Peele and Jason Blum. Focus Features will release in the US on August 10 shortly before the first anniversary of the race-related violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Universal handles international distribution. (Contact: Universal Pictures International) -SCREENDAILY (https://www.screendaily.com/news/cannes-2018-20-films-to-look-out-for/5128797.article).

Also starring Topher Grace, Laura Harrier, Ryan Eggold; and Harry Belafonte has a part.


Return of Lars with a film about a serial killer in the US.

The Guardian has set up writer Kate Muir, it would appear, to point out how the festival is not measuring up to the requirements of the #MeToo and timesup movements or what a (female) friend of mine has called "The new era of the Feminist Taliban." The director, Thierry Frémaux, has insisted there will be no affirmative action in selecting films with women directors to make up the paucity of them. Muir is angry that Lars von Trier has been welcomed as persona grata again to present his new movie, The House That Jack Built, especially since it was she whose question provoked what she calls von T's "tirade" ending in the words, "O.K., I'm a Nazi."

Muir's article (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/20/lars-von-trier-persona-non-grata-cannes-film-festival-times-up) is entitled "Lars von Trier’s Cannes return proves festival is still in thrall to male privilege." (I don't really know if this article is part of any consistent policy by the Guardian.) The House That Jack Built The House That Jack Built (run time 155 mins.) follows an intelligent serial killer played by Matt Dillon over a twelve-year period in the Seventies and Eighties in the state of Washington. Von T. is said to have described the film as [Wikipedia] "celebrating 'the idea that life is evil and soulless.'" Whaa?! I mean really, why quote that, if he really said it? He was excluded from Canned for six years. Somehow one knew the "persona non grata" status, perhaps an action it would have caused very bad publicity not to have carried out, would not last. Uma Thurman is also in the movie as well as Bruno Ganz,Siobhan Fallon Hogan,Sofie Gråbøl,Riley Keough, andJeremy Davies. (Out of Competition, Special Screening.) "Like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, Von Trier remains a favoured son of the most prestigious film festival in the world," concludes Muir.
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[Chris Knipp]

More comments on the 2018 Cannes selections.

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New for 2018: clockwise from top left: Yomeddine; Asako I & II; Girls of the Sun; Under Silver Lake.

There is an excellent Guardian piece by chief UK film critic for Variety Guy Lodge on what is and isn't honored or included in this year's Cannes. CLICK (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/05/cannes-film-festival-2018-new-kids-on-the-croisette). Some writers have been unhappy with the Competition selections and said they feel like they're "being punished." But in fact there are some new angles and surprises. Here are some descriptions by Lodge of included films:
Bonjour to the new wave

David Robert Mitchell Under the Silver Lake

The American director, 44,made his debut in 2010 with The Myth of the American Sleepover, a wistful coming-of-age film that played in Cannes’ low-profile critics’ week section, before sharpening his teeth on the rattling indie horror film, It Follows (2014). Now, with his gonzo 140-minute, Under the Silver Lake, he makes an ambitious play for Lynchian status.

Eva Husson Girls of the Sun

One of the wildest cards in this lineup, Husson, 41, split the critics with her stylish, sexually explicit teenage dream Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) in 2015 and now moves on to very different terrain with Girls of the Sun, a study of a Kurdish female battalion reclaiming their its town from extremists. One of the stars is the fabulous Golshifteh Farahani, who has acted in Farsi (Aboug Elly), French (Satrapi's Chicken with Plums, Louis Garrel's Two Friends), and English (Jarmusch's Paterson).

Abu Bakr Shawky Yomeddine

Snagging a Cannes competition slot for your directorial debut remains a rare feat, so critics will be curious to find out what the selection committee saw in Shawky, an Egyptian-Austrian film-maker by way of New York University film school, and his comedy, Yomeddine, about two lepers leaving their colony in search of their estranged families.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi Asako I & II

The Japanese writer-director, 39, has made a number of features since his 2007 debut, but found international acclaim in 2015 with his five-hour intimate epic, Happy Hour (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4120-New-Directors-New-Films-2016-Film-Comments-Selects&p=34501#post34501) (ND/NF 2016), a bittersweet study of female friendship that won awards at Locarno. His follow-up, the romantic drama Asako I & II, runs a mere two hours.

Yann Gonzalez Knife + Heart

A late addition to the line-up, Gonzalez – a Frenchman and a former member of the dreamy electronica band M83 – made a splashy debut in 2013 with his queer erotic drama, You and the Night, and appears to be bringing similarly neon-hued energy to the competition with his second film, Knife + Heart, a thriller starring Vanessa Paradis. (French title Un couteau dans le coeur.)http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/C184.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Forever jinxed?

Alas, Terry Gilliam's health may prevent his long-delayed Don Quixote from debuting at the end of this year's festival.



Terry Gilliam, the former Monty Python member and director of films such as Brazil and Time Bandits, has suffered a minor stroke. He is said to be recovering well in London after falling ill over the weekend, returning home from hospital on the evening of 8 May.

The same day, a court hearing was held in Paris to rule whether Gilliam’s new film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, can close the Cannes film festival on 19 May. The film, which has been in the making since 1989 and has a reputation as one of the most unlucky productions in screen history, has been the subject of a distribution rights disagreement.
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[Chris Knipp]

About women, Cannes, and the 2018 Jury.

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STEWART, DUVERNAY, BLANCHETT, SEYDOUX, NIN GATHER AT CANNES TO POSE FOR PHOTOS

Cate Blanchett, heading a Cannes Jury with a 5-4 female majority this year, defends the festival's lack of selections by women in an opening speech. She says the progress is happening, but takes time. That Competition films are in because of merit, not gender, as it should be. See the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/08/cannes-2018-cate-blanchett-defends-festivals-failure-to-select-more-women-directors) story for more details and a photo of the five ladies on the Cannes Jury. They are: Kristen Stewart, Blanchett, Ava DuVernay, Léa Seydoux, and Burundian singer and musician Khadja Nin, who has lived in Belgium since 1980.

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[Chris Knipp]

Cannes coverage?
Opening night film, Everybody Knows/Todos lo saben.

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Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Everybody Knonws/Todos lo saben

I'm not at Cannes. I've never been there, even on a visit. These Cannes threads, pursued with enthusiasm, are done by following online coverage of others and summarizing or excerpting it here for you. We'll see what media have coverage we can follow. AV Club will, but for the second year, none of those excellent roundups (and Tweet ratings) I relied on from Mike D'Angelo for years. The Guardian will: we'll see who's there.

A.A. Dowd covers for AVClub. The opening night film was by a quality director this time, Iranian Separation, The Past and The Salesman director Asghar Farhadi. His new film is called Everybody Knows and is set in Spain. It stars Penélope Cruz and real-life mate Javier Bardem, and Jaime Lorente. See a description of it in Vulture (http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/cannes-2018-everybody-knows-review.html), which calls the film "soapy-yet-substantial." Peter DeBruge in his Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/everybody-knows-review-penelope-cruz-1202802533/)review calls it "repetitive" (of earlier films, not just themes). But just from the stills, it looks like it has a lot of charm. Peter Bradshaw liked it a lot and gave it 4/5 stars in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/08/everybody-knows-review-penelope-cruz-and-javier-bardem-pull-no-punches-in-asghar-farhadis-heavyweight-kidnap-drama).

Dowd notes (https://film.avclub.com/javier-bardem-and-penelope-cruz-help-break-cannes-openi-1825875239) people focused a bit on who or what's not there: films by Alfonso Cuarón, Peter Greenaway, and Jeremy Saulnier, plus the postumously completed Orson Welles movie, The Other Side Of The Window, withdrawn by Netflix in pique due to being excluded from Competition. Claire Denis, Terrence Malick, and Luca Guadagnino, among other notables, didn't make the cut with their new films this year.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Carey Mulligan in Wildlife

Wildlife (Paul Dano).

(Opening film of Critics Week.)
First review (other than Opening Night): Paul Dano's directorial debut stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan as a couple in 1950's Montana in an adaptation of Richard Ford's novel wildlife to which the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gives 4/5 stars in his review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/09/wildlife-review-paul-dano-carey-mulligan-jake-gyllenhaal), saying this contains "one of the best roles and best performances" of Mulligan's career and is "an extremely watchable movie, beautifully and even luxuriously appointed in its austere evocation of smalltown America." Owen Gleiberman calls this an "impressive debut" in his Variety review. (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/wildlife-review-carey-mulligan-1202671259/) This is good news indeed and I am eager to see this film. It is the only American film to show in Critics' Week.

Wildlife sounds like a possible awards prospect.

Donbass (Sergei Lonnitsa).

(Opening Night Film of Un Certain Regard.)
"Another cri de coeur by Sergei Loznitsa, set in the eastern region of Ukraine, that reveals the degradation of civil society in the post-truth era," says Jay Weissberg in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/donbass-review-1202804243/). 'Donbass” recounts the corrosive nature of the conflict pitting Ukrainian nationalists against supporters of Russia’s proxy Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.' Like his previous A Gentle Creature, it screams "against a society that’s lost its humanity and can’t be bothered to care." I have reported on several of Loznitsa's films starting with My Joy (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2875-New-York-Film-Festival-2010&p=25119#post25119) (NYFF 2010). The fiction ones are serious, powerful, unpleasant, and not much seen outside of festivals. Peter Bradshaw's Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/10/donbass-review-cannes-2018-sergei-loznitsa) shows he liked it a lot. He says its "feverish procession of scenes is handled with steely control" and gave it a 4/5 start. Not so sure myself how I might like it.

Yomeddine (A.B. Shawky).

(Shown in Competition.)
"A lovingly-made, character-driven road movie that occasionally dips into sentimentality yet has moments that honestly play on the heartstrings....An Egyptian leper and his young orphan friend journey south in search of family in debuting director A.B. Shawky’s lovingly made road trip movie, Yomeddine ["Judgment Day"]. Anchored by lead Rady Gamal’s warm-hearted charisma, the film is a sweet, solid first feature marbled with genuinely touching moments that make up for times when the siren call of sentimentality becomes a little too loud." - Variety, Jay Weissberg review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/yomeddine-review-1202805143/). Guardian (Bradshaw)] gave this only a 2/5 stars and called it "slight and sugary." Though my love of Egypt and Egyptian Arabic would make me want to see this film, it seems unlikely to get me excited about the state of Egyptian cinema as Tarek Saleh's The Nile Hilton Incident and Mohamed Diab's Clash recently did.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Sorry Angel

Leto ( Kirill Serebrennikov).

(Shown in Competition.)
The title means "summer", or here in Cannes, l'été. "A wild, whirling, often confounding 1980s rock opus" that "moves freely," says Guy Lodge in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/leto-review-1202805279/), despite the director's being under house arrest. A sometimes messy over two-hour film based on the life of "tragically short-lived Soviet singer-songwriter Viktor Tsoi." Last year I reviewed the director's The Student (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4297-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2017&p=35418#post35418) (SFIFF). This sounds like a choking but exotically fascinating contrast to that film's cool formalism. It also sounds like a film I'd probably like to watch - at a festival.

Sorry, Angel (Christophe Honoré).

(Shown in Competition.)
A film (French title Plaire, aimer, et courir vite) about a gay love affair troubled by two different ideas of what love means. Guy Lodge's review for Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/sorry-angel-review-plaire-aimer-et-courir-vite-1202805122/) says this is Honoré's best film since his 2007 Love Songs (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2211-Rendez-vous-With-French-Cinema-2008&p=19388#post19388) (R-V 2008), finally making good on its promise and the love it inspired in its fans (who would include me) that's been "chipped away at" since. The French title is Plaire, aimer et courir vite (Please, love, and run fast). Set semi-autobiographically in 1993, this co-stars Pierre Deladonchamps (of Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake) as Jacques, an HIV-positive playwright and novelist, and comic talent Vincent Lacoste as Arthur, the college student who becomes his lover (together two sides of the filmmaker), with distinguished Comédie Française actor Denis Podalydès also important as Jacque's distinguished actor friend. Lodge makes the huge claim that, despite being hard to follow at times and overlong (133 mins.), Sorry, Angel "represents a major stride in the treatment of gay relationships on-screen." The film's out in France now, and its extravagantly high AlloCiné press rating of 4.4 (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=255212.html)strongly suggests the French would more than agree; Les Inrockutibles (https://www.lesinrocks.com/cinema/films-a-l-affiche/plaire-aimer-et-courir-vite/) among other French reviews say it's Honoré's best film yet. I hope Guy Lodge is right, and not Peter Bradshaw, who called it sometimes "light and unrewarding," and gave it 2/5 stars. As a long time fan of Honoré, I am eager to see this film.

Birds of Passage ( Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra)

A South American drug trade drama (original title Pajaros de verano), this sounds like a big deal too, being by the makers of the much admired and Best Foreign Oscar nominee Embrace of the Serpent and constituting a kind of Latin American Godfather epic. So says Jordan Mintzer in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/birds-passage-pajaros-de-verano-film-review-cannes-2018-1110101). It chronicles the history of the Colombian drug business before Escobar from point of view of the country's indigenous Wayuu people, so it's a beautifully drug adventure/crime saga with an strong ethnographic angle. This got a 4/5 stars rating from Jordan Hoffman in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/09/birds-of-passage-review-ciro-guerra-cannes-film-festival). This is obviously a must-see film.

Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu).

A brightly-colored tale of two adolescent girls falling in love in the streets of Nairobi, this Kenyan film, says Guy Lodge's Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/rafiki-review-1202805489/), is ho-hum in its conventionality for us, perhaps, in a time when Love, Simon is playing the malls, but significant because of its boldness in Kenya, where homosexuality is a punishable offense and the film has been banned. Also the first Kenyan film ever to be included in the Cannes Film Festival. A colorful addition to any LGBT festival this year.

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Still from Rafiki

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[oscar jubis]

I just (and finally) caught up with Stephane Brize's "The Measure of a Man". The only other film of his I've seen is the only one reviewed in these forums (by Chris Knipp of course): Madame Chambon. Chris liked it as much as I did. So I'm writing this in the Cannes 2018 thread because Brize's new film En Guerre is set to premiere "in competition". Brie has a long collaboration with Vincent Lindon, a winner as Best Actor for "The Measure of a Man" a couple of years ago. I need to see other films from this director (the list of films to watch before I die just gets longer)

[Chris Knipp]

Another collaboration between Stéphane Brizé and Vincent Lindon cannot fail to be of interest, Oscar. I have reviewed his Not Here to Be Loved and saw it twice, in Paris and in the US, as the one you saw, Mademoiselle Chambon (also with Lindon, also seen twice) and The Measure of a Man, but I have not seen his well-received 2016 A Woman's Life. For some reason it has not come my way.

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Joanna Kulig in Cold War

To the Ends of the World (Guillaume Nicloux).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
(French title Les confins du monde.) "Guillaume Nicloux’s Platoon-style drama about the French presence in south-east Asia is suitably violent, but also flirts with macho cliche," says Peter Bradshaw in his 4/5-star Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/10/to-the-ends-of-the-world-review-brutal-french-take-on-the-war-in-vietnam). Nicloux made the much-discussed The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (which I've never seen), also the dull star-fest Valley of Love reuniting Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu. He also made The Nun (I've reviewed both of these): you can't pin him down. Jordan Mintzer, who notes his "wildly eclectic" filmography in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ends-world-les-confins-du-monde-review-1108730) makes this ambitious latest direction toward Apocalypse Now territory but set in the 1940's sound pretty interesting. It stars Gaspard Ulliel, Gerard Depardieu and newcomer Lang-Khe Tran. Mintzer says Ulliel "has something of Alain Delon's cold and tenebrous beauty" and calls this film "flawed but captivating." I definitely want to see it.

Petra (Jaime Rosales).

(Also in Directors' Fortnight.)
"With his sixth feature, Spanish Cannes regular Jaime Rosales delivers his most accessible film to date, an intense damaged-family drama set on a country estate," writes Jonathan Holland in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/petra-review-1110137). Jay Weissberg in , (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/petra-review-1202805524/) says the same thing: his "most accessible," but he says the second half gets bogged down in too many panning shots. Still it is beautiful and graced by excellent performances. It's too complicated to summarize in a few words, and I might not be very able to follow its jumbled chronology. Shot in 35 mm. by dp Hélène Louvart, AFC.

Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski) .

(Shown in Competition.)
Followup to Ida, says Guy Lodge in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/cold-war-review-1202804041/), is "another immaculate monochrome study of midcentury Polish discontent," like his Best Foreign Oscar winner Ida, but adds that "this star-crossed, jazz-infused romance moves to its own rhythm." David Erlich in Indiewire (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/cold-war-review-pawel-pawlikowski-cannes-2018-1201962858/)calls this "one of the bleakest love stories ever told" and makes Ida seem cheery. Tim Robey of the Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/cold-war-review-love-finds-way-jazzed-up-war-torn-poland/) says it's more personal than Ida. For anyone who liked Ida this will be a must-see.

P.s. By day 5, May 12th, this is so far looking at the best film anybody's seen at Cannes - the likeliest Palme d'Or contender so far.


Sextape (Antoine Desrosières).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
In his Variety review Owen Gleiberman makes this movie sound largely revolting, a thing where fellatio is constantly graphically described as a pleasurable act that's also "a ritual of domination, a negotiating chip, a victory. It’s that moment of bliss when life becomes porn." All the actors have Arab names. What does that mean? It's perhaps in Marseilles, just before Ramadan, and some kind of assertion of freedom. But the two guys start out as dicks and end up as dicks. All four, though, aver very good looking. A guilty pleasure, for sure.

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[oscar jubis]

Another collaboration between Stéphane Brizé and Vincent Lindon cannot fail to be of interest, Oscar. I have reviewed his Not Here to Be Loved and saw it twice, in Paris and in the US, as the one you saw, Mademoiselle Chambon (also with Lindon, also seen twice) and The Measure of a Man
Just bought a British edition dvd of Not here to be Loved. The French Brize coffret doesn't have English subs on any of the 4 discs.

[Chris Knipp]

There is a new Measure of a Man (without the definite article) out in Landmark Theaters, a bland coming-of-age movie directed by Ken Loach's son, Jim Loach, I just learned. At Opera Plaza, San Francisco.

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes 2018 continues.

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Mads Mikkelsen in Arctic

Arctic (Joe Penna).

(Shown as a Midnight Screening. The other of the two is Yoon Jong-Bing'sThe Spy Gone North.)
An outdoor thriller of a survivor, a research-explorer crash-landed in the far north wilderness, this stars Mads Mikkelsen and, says Owen Gleiberman in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/arctic-review-mads-mikkelsen-1202806708/), succeeds because it is methodical and cuts no corners. A slow build, the film delves deep, like its granddaddy, Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe. Guardian reviewer (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/11/arctic-review-mads-mikkelsen-cannes-2018) Gwilym Mumford (new name?) gives it an enthusiastic 4/5 stars. Well, maybe, but as Gleiberman himself notes, the survivor tale of this kind is so familiar it's almost become cozy. Mads Mikkelsen is an always watchable, sometimes very good actor.

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Scratchboard image from Samouni Road

Samouni Road (Stefano Savona).

Shown in Directors' Fortnight.
This is the study of an extended family of farmers in Gaza ravaged by Israeli brutalities told through various documents (drone recreations) and scratchboard animation ("overseen by Stefano Massi") that Jay Weissberg in his enthusiastic Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/samouni-road-review-1202807320/) calls "superb." He predicts this film will be "a touchstone in the cinematic representation of the Strip." Savona also did a doc on the Egyptian revolution (Tahrir, Liberation Square) that Weissberg says was presciently wary of its future. The family has been largely massacred by the Israeli army, but some members survive, showing a resilience Weissberg understandably admires. This will be a painful but necessary viewing, no doubt.

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[Chris Knipp]

Two iffy ones.

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Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Guilliam).

As you no doubt know, Terry Guilliam had a stroke, and cannot come to Cannes, so the showing of his long awaited film about Cervantes' masterpiece is not likely to take place. And now it's said that the US distribution of this film has been cancelled. If you watch a t r a i l e r (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVArq_Qs9lY), it may look like they had almost too much fun. You probably also know about the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha describing Gilliam's difficulties getting the picture made back in the late Nineties. Amazon now is withdrawing due to legal disputes over ownership. Back then it was to have been with Jean Rochfort and Johnny Depp. The completed film has Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, and Stellan Skarsgård. Now a change of producers has caused legal disputes, Variety recounts. (http://variety.com/2018/film/news/terry-gilliam-amazon-man-who-killed-don-quixote-1202804132/) Now, though, an AVClub piece (https://news.avclub.com/french-court-defies-fate-clears-the-man-who-killed-don-1825888301#_ga=2.237311749.481801065.1526081010-1463921962.1518238212) says the movie has been cleared by French court for Cannes premiere. And the latest (13 May) is that Gilliam's stroke was slight and he is out of hospital and determined to come to Cannes for the end-of-festival screening of his movie.

Gotti (Kevin Connolly).

This film biography starring John Travolta as the gangster will premiere out of competition at Cannes at a special gala screening at the Palais des Festivals on May 15. It comes to US theaters June 15. The Variety story (http://variety.com/2018/film/news/john-travolta-talks-gotti-cannes-premiere-1202801638/) suggests that Travolta bonded strongly with John Gotti Jr., who was often on set, and Travolta fitted perfectly into Gottii Jr.'s father's custom-made clothes, which the family freely provided to him, shirts, cufflinks, and all. Intriguing if only as a curiosity, but it was dropped by its original distributor and its release delayed. It was going to come out last Dec. 5. US theatrical release is scheduled for one month from the Cannes premiere, on June 15.

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[Chris Knipp]

Treat Me Like Fire/Joueurs (Marie Monge).

Shown in Directors' Fortnight.
In this noirish Audiard-inspired French thriller, a directorial debut, whose title means "Players," a young man cons a waitress into taking him onto the staff of a restaurant kitchen to gain access to the cash register in order to feed his gambling addiction, which he persuades the waitress to join him in as his mad lover. Tahar Rahim and Stacy Martin star. In his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/11/joueurs-treat-me-like-fire-review-marie-monge-tahar-rahim-stacy-martin) Peter Bradshaw awards an enthusiastic 4/5 star rating.Sounds a great role for Rahim as this con man, possibly a fun but also an irritating watch where you want to shake the girl out of this dumb relationship, as Jordan Mintzer makes clear in his Hollywood Reporter review. (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/treat-me-like-fire-joueurs-review-1109057) Coming out in France July 4, 2018.

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Stacy Martin and Tahir Rahim in Joueurs

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[Chris Knipp]

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Ten Years Thailand: the "Black Mirror" short by Wisit has CGI cat-heads

Angel (Luis Ortega).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
"Argentinean director Luis Ortega recreates the crimes of a notorious baby-faced killer, with backing from Pedro Almodovar." Stephen Dalton in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/angel-el-angel-film-review-cannes-2018-1110926). He says the story is as if Tadzio from Viscont's Death in Venice has become a "trigger-happy psychopath." But I'd suggest Dalton take another look at Visconti's Tadzio, and back at Lorenzo Ferro, the actor here; but Ferro may be a good match for the real-life imprisoned killer Carlos Robledo Puch. Sounds unsavory.

The Image Book/Le livre d'image (Jean-Luc Godard).

(Shown in Competition.)
The 87-year-old experimentalist's latest is described by Todd McCarthy in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/image-book-review-1111185). Like his previous two films it's composed of preexisting footage. These are for a few diehard Godardians, and I am not one of them. Nonetheless the open-minded Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/11/the-image-book-review-jean-luc-godard-cannes-2018) watched it and gave it 4/5 stars. "It’s an essay film with the body-language of a horror movie, avowedly taking Godard’s traditional concerns with the ethical status of cinema and history and looking to the Arab world and indirectly examining our orientalism – Godard cites the Conradian phrase for a culture held 'under Western eyes,'" Bradshaw writes. See my detailed discussion of Godard's Film Socialisme as part of Filmleaf's NYFF 2010 coverage (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2875-New-York-Film-Festival-2010&p=25139#post25139).

My Favorite Fabric/Mon tissu préréré (Gaya Jiji).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
Revolving around a young woman in Syria in recent years, this erotically frustrated coming of age film, which devolves into fantasy, in several reviews sounds unsuccessful. Its politically charged settings may be more interesting than the half-baked story. Of interest only for that; but, given my personal interest in the region and the language, it would still be worth watching.

Los Silencios (Beatriz Seigner)

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
A mother and two children who are bereaved refugees from Colombia (and its FARC vs. government civil war) a hoping to emigrate to Brazil are he focus of this sophomore effort. It is attractive for its vivid, exotic milieu, a marshy region where Brazil, Colombia and Peru meet. The film ex"explores a variety of porous boundaries, not just between political states, but also between the living and the dead, land and river, documentary and fiction, and horror and realism," writes Leslie Felperin (Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/los-silencios-review-1111005)). This sounds like one of those richly atmospheric Latin American films - the soundscape is especially good, Felperin says, and there is a magic realist focus on ghosts. Sounds worth watching, though it may be a bit amorphous.

Ten Years Thailand (Apichatpong Weerasethakul and others).

(Shown in Special Screenings.)
The directors are Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat, and Chulayarnnon Siriphol: here's where cut-and-paste is a blessed computer function. "The Ten Years" series comes from a Hong Kong predicting the coming decade, one that was fiercely critical of the place's future under Chinese rule and a huge hit and is going to be done for other countries, Thailand being the first. Giovanni Marchini Camia in his FilmStage review (https://thefilmstage.com/reviews/cannes-review-apichatpong-weerasethakul-ten-years-thailand-offers-a-largely-bleak-vision-of-the-countrys-future/) gives the details of the four shorts, which depict and predict repression under the current regime of the country. One short depicts cultural (photo show) repression but has a touching romantic side, while the second much more cynical one by Wisit is in outline based on a recent "Black Mirror" episode. The third is visually fascinating but makes little sense at least to outsiders, and "Joe's" is the simplest and strongest, pointing toward a repressed future, given the constant military regimes and current junta rule. Well, this deserves a place here, but isn't too likely to get theatrical distribution, is it?

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Jean-Luc Godard [- GUardian]

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[Chris Knipp]

Dead Souls (Wang Bing)

Shown in Special Screenings.
This was an eight-hour film with an hour intermission in the middle, the longest film ever shown at Cannes, introduced by Thierry Fremaux, according to A.A. Dowd in his AVClub review (https://film.avclub.com/spending-a-day-on-the-longest-movie-in-the-history-of-t-1825923682). I understand it to refer to some of the worst depredations of the Fifties Cultural Revolution, the anti-Rightist movement and its forced labor camps in which many died. Shot over 12 years with many interviews, it sounds analogous to Claude Lanzmann's Shoah. Sounds not as good, if one's allowed to compare, since it's 8 hours and Dowd says it would been better at 5 hours, while Shoah seems masterful at 9 hours. A punishing experience I'd avoid but some will find essential, if interested in this subject. Clarence Tsui's Post Magazine piece (http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/2145299/chinese-filmmaker-stuns-cannes-film-festival) sheds further light.

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An interviewee in Wang Bing's Dead Souls

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An interviewee in Wang Bing's Dead Souls

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[Chris Knipp]

Border/Gräns (Ali Abbasi)

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
Abbassi is Iranian but went to film school and works in Denmark. Alissa Simon's Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/border-review-grans-1202807503/) heads off with the statement that Border is "An exciting, intelligent mix of romance, Nordic noir, social realism and supernatural horror that defies and subverts genre conventions." "Destined to be a cult classic," Simon says. NEON has snapped up the North American rights and it's selling elsewhere fast. Co-written by Let the Right One In author John Ajvide Lindqvist, who's as big as Stephen King in Scandinavia. This movie focuses on a strange, Neanderthal-ugly Swedish woman customs agent good at (literally) sniffing out contraband, more than that with unique ties with the natural world, who who meets a kind of male double, and is faced with a moral choice. Allan Hunter's ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/border-gr%C3%A4ns-cannes-review/5129122.article) adds more hints about a film probably best approached cold; he is impressed by how it pulls together all its disparate elements. This theme doesn't sound at all appealing to me. But then, who would have bought the idea behind Let the Right One In, and yet, what a great movie it is.

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[Chris Knipp]

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[Le Monde, Paris]

Best Palmes d'Or?

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian, who likes to pontificate (and isn't bad at it, after all), has just published his own list of the ten best Palme d'Or films at Cannes, since this is said to be its 70th year. See his comments. Click (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/11/palme-dor-winners-ranked-cannes-film-festival).

Here they are in ascending order, as people like to list stuff now:

But you really need to read his comments. As in his reviews the glibness goes astray sometimes, but the man can write with impressive ease.
10 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
9 The Piano (1993)
8 Pulp Fiction (1994)
7 Viridiana (1961)
6 The White Ribbon (2009)
5 La Dolce Vita (1960)
4 The Son’s Room (2001)
3 Taxi Driver (1976)
2 Taste of Cherry (1997)
1 The Third Man (1949)


I like that he says The Son's Room "induces an ecstasy of sadness" and calls La Doolce Vita "the circus of all worldly vanity." Thought-provoking to consider Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in The Third Man "could be a martyred Judas Iscariot, someone who has absorbed everyone else’s sins." Whether you agreee with these choices or this order, it is good, in any case, to remember these wonderful films and hear Bradshaw's sharp observations. This shows that, contrary to some recent impressions, the Cannes choices aren't always off the wall. There is greatness in this place as well as glamor.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Angel Face: Ayline Aksoy-Etaix and Marion Cotillard

The Spy Gone North/공작 (Yoon Jong-bin).

(Shown as a Midnight Screening.
The other one was Arctic (Joe Penna).)
From South Korean comes a thriller that's a true story of a spy who infiltrates the North to ferret out nuclear secrets and becomes a double agent in spite of himself. Plenty of dirt on South Korean politics as well. Charles Bramesco gives this 3/5 stars in his Guardian review. (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/12/spy-gone-north-review-cannes-timely-korean-spy-thriller-nail-biter) This is plotted "less as a spy story and more as a political exposé," according to Deborah Young of Hollywood Reporter. A lot to follow, juicy stuff from the sound of it. Let's hope this doesn't endanger the coming rapprochement.

Angel Face/Gueule d'ange (Vanessa Filho)

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
This French debut about a party girl mom played by Marion Cotillard is soapy stuff, critics say. Both she and 8-year-old daughter are wild, and drink.2/5 stars from Xian Brooks in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/12/angel-face-review-marion-cotillard-is-wasted-in-tabloid-tale-of-boozy-mum-and-mini-me-daughter). In his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/angel-face-gueule-dange-review-1108949), Boyd van Hoeij is reminded of last year's Florida Project by Sean Baker shown in Directors' Fortnight, but this has a big star "looking like one of the most glamorous white-trash fantasy figures in the history of the movies." There are ways that The Florida Project is more credible. Though Cotillard is great here, it sounds like mostly eye candy. One could give it a by - except, that even in the US, Marion has a lot of fans, and she can add a glow to any film.

Woman at War/Kona fer i stríð (Benedikt Erlingsson)

(Shown in Critics Week Feature Competition.)
Icelandic Of Horses and Men (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3686-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2014&p=31873#post31873) (ND/NF 2014) director Erlingsson's impressive followup (critics say) stars stars Halldora Geirharosdottir, say Jordan Mintzer in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/woman-at-war-kona-fer-i-strid-review-1106899), "as an ecological 'terrorist' who sabotages her country’s power grid in order to preserve its breathtaking landscapes." The lead carries out coups against the power grid, then disappears back into her conventional identity as a Reykjavik choir leader, and the excitement amps up as the film unreels. Sounds watchable, and more marketable than Erlandsson's first feature (there was a doc in between we don't know about). In his Variety review, Jay Weissberg calls this movie "delightful," and says it is "bound to be one of the hot sellers at this year's Cannes." Given the limited, oddball quality of his first feature, this would have to be a whole lot different for all that to be true, I'd guess. But that this is more marketable, that I can readily believe.

Girl (Lukas Dhont).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard).
This debut film by a Flemish (Belgian) director focuses on a transgender girl who comes to Ghent to become a ballet dancer. This is a star-making performance" by lead Victor Polster, if the "emotional journey" remains too "interiorized," says Boyd van Hoeij in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/girl-1109011), to make clear a surprise ending that'll likely be "one of the most talked about in Cannes this year," he says. With its focus on the physical in ballet for a character still "transitioning' to a girl, this may be one of the more vivid depictions of transgender experience. Director Lucas Dhont is very young, born in 1991. Transgender is a big topic now that was once not even mentioned. This would be interesting to see.

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Girl

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[Chris Knipp]

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Ash Is Purest White

Ash Is Purest White/江湖儿女/Jianghu er nv (Jia Zhang-Ke)

(Shown in Competition.)
Zhao Tao and Liao Fan star in Jia Zhang-ke's chronicle of the relationship between a low-level Chinese crook and the woman who goes to prison for him (David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ash-is-purest-white-cannes-2018-1111288)). It received a "mild standing ovation." Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/11/ash-is-purest-white-review-chinese-gangsters-girlfriend-saga-burns-bright) gave it 4/5 stars: "Jia Zhang-ke’s latest is an often glorious drama about how one woman’s journey from self-sacrificial moll to avenging criminal echoes her country’s embrace of capitalism." It received a "mild standing ovation." Davis Erlich in his Indiewirelreview (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/ash-is-purest-white-review-jia-zhangke-cannes-2018-1201963491/) found it "a long and melancholy rehash" of other better work by Jia. I will have to watch it and find out for myself.

Alone at My Wedding/Seule a mon mariage (Marta Bergman).

(Shown as part of the ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion Cannes' newes, post-1993 sidebar)
This debut French film describes how Pamela (Serban), a Roma woman, travels from Romania to Belgium to marry an older man she has met on the Internet - a mail order bride of sorts, though the wedding never takes place. She does go to Liege and lives with the guy, who is creepy, but she is so desperate for a better life she leaves a daughter behind for it. Jordan Mintzer's Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/alone-at-my-wedding-seule-a-mon-mariage-review-1111234) suggests this film is interesting, but a bit of a slog, more interesting early on than toward the end and 2 hours long.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Isabelle Adjani in The World Is Yours

The World Is Yours/Le monde est à toi (Romain Gavras)

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
This is a post-Tarantino "glossy, cynical caper comedy" without much originality but enough pizzazz, Jonathan Romney says in his ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-world-is-yours-le-monde-est-a-toi-cannes-review/5129244.article), to guarantee interest, if not export potential, to this story that begins in a North African gangster quarter of Paris. Cast includes Vincent Cassel, Isabelle Adjani, A Prophet cast member Karim Leklou and popular Belgian star François Damiens. A glossy look provided by dp André Chémétoff (The Beach). "Wildly infectious," writes David Erlich, who names it a "Critic's Pick in his Indiewire review (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/the-world-is-yours-review-romain-gavras-cannes-2018-1201963776/), calling it a "heist comedy" that's the "anti-Scarface." Some of the jokes may be too French to translate well, but it's all a lot of brisk fun. The great Adjani as a domineering gangster mom with ace safe-cracking skills is a cool idea, even if she doesn't quite come into her own (Romney). Jacky Goldberg of Les Inrockuptibles (https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/05/13/cinema/cannes-2018-romain-gavras-reussit-son-pari-avec-le-monde-est-toi-111082338/) says Gavras' first film was "calamitous," but this one succeeds. Erlich calls it "the best movie that Guy Richie never made." I've never been a Richie fan, though, so I'm not sure.

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[Chris Knipp]

The Cannes main (Competition) Jury.

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Please see the Wikipedia article on 2018 Cannes juries. Click (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Cannes_Film_Festival#Un_Certain_Regard). There are really distinguished people heading other juries, Benicio del Toro Un Certain Regard, Ursula Meier Caméra d'Or, Bertrand Bonello Cinéfondation and short films, Joachim Trier International Critics' Week. This gives you an idea why this is the most important film festival in the world.

Let's get to know the Cannes Competition Jury. There are a couple of others but this is the one everybody talks about. Fuss has been made over there being a female "majority," 5 ladies, 4 men. Not noticed here, but Taiwan had to complain because Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (3rd from right, top row) was identified by the Festival as "Chinese," they corrected that, then China told them to say he was from "Taiwan, China," and that didn't go over too well either.

On the left: Cate Blanchett, a great actress of impressive talent and energy and also, a great head of jury who speaks well before an audience of journalists. She is from Australia. She speaks English. She is 48. She is the President of the Competition Jury.

The rest in photo left to right:
Top row: Khadja Nin, Chang Chen, Ave DuVarney, Denis Villeneuve
Bottom row: Andrey Zvyagintsev, Léa Seydoux, Robert Guédiguian, Kristen Stewart

Khadja Nin is a Barundian singer and musician, from Burundi, then Zaire, then Belgium. She is 58. she speaks French. (I had never heard of her.)
Chang Chen as mentioned is a Taiwanese actor (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). See above. I think in the conference he spoke Mandarin. He is 41.
Ava DuVarney is an American director, producer, former publicist whose reputation has grown rapidly in the past four years. When she directed Middle of Nowhere (2012) nobody had heard of her. She has been in the news as a spokesperson for women since the Me Too movement. She is 45.
Denis Villeneuve is a French-Canadian director whose international reputation has grown hugely just in the last six years so he has switched from French to more mainstream English-language pictures. He is 50.
Andrey Zvyagintsev, now 54, is a distinguished Russian director of immense seriousness and accomplishment. His films, all in Russian and set in Russia, include The Return, Banishment, Elena, Leviathan and Loveless, last year's Cannes Jury Prize winner and Best Foreign Film Oscar. He speaks Russian.
Léa Seydoux, 32, is descended from the two most powerful movie producing families of France. But she has won many awards and proven to be a brilliant and risk-taking actress as well as a beautiful one. In the last decade she has assembled a remarkable filmography though, to Americans, she may be relatively unknown. Her native language is French.
Robert Guédiguian is a 64-year-old French film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. His films, often featuring a company of recurring actors, are not well known in the U.S. He is the oldest on the Jury.
Kristen Stewart, who is 28, youngest on the Jury, is an American actress born in L.A. of a Hollywood family. Originally famous for starring in the "Twilight Saga," she has since burnished a Cannes reputation with Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, both helmed by French auteur Olivier Assays. Like her "Twilight Saga" costar Robert Pattinson, she has proven to be a cool and sophisticated actor eager to work with serious, non-commercial directors.

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[Chris Knipp]

Midway roundup. Preview of next week.

Peter Bradshaw reviews the Cannes 2018 first-week films he likes today in a Guardian roundup piece (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/12/cannes-film-festival-2018-roundup-best-of-week-one). His choices are Ciro Guerra’s Birds of Passage, the Directors' Fortnight opener, the Embrace of the Serpent team's ethnograpahic history of the Colombian drug trade; Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass, the Un Certain Regard opener, a grueling review of the Ukraine conflict, which he somehow found joyous, though he admits he probably couldn't rewatch it; A.B. Shawky’s Yomeddine, about a leper in Egypt, sweet but some thought saccharine; Kirill Serebrennikov's Leto, a whirling, rollicking Eighties rock epic, which he names as his favorite Competition film so far.

Bradshaw chooses not to mention the Competition critical favorite Cold War, Pawel Pawlikowski's chilly, brilliant love story again in black and white by the maker of the universally admired 2013 Ida. Much of his roundup piece he spends talking about the Festival's (imperfect, incomplete) revamping of itself toward more edge and more sensitivity. The Guardian also has a list of important coming films next week. Here it is. This ime, big names prevail:
BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee; screening Tuesday)
Spike Lee reckons he should have bagged the Palme d’Or for Do the Right Thing. Still smarting nearly 30 years on, he has another bite at the cherry with his fact-based account of an African American cop who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. If he doesn’t win this time, the jury are advised to take cover.

Dogman (Matteo Garrone; Wednesday)
The Italian film-maker Matteo Garrone scored a breakout hit with 2008’s Gomorrah, and advance word suggests Dogman might be equally fine. Billed as an "urban western," it’s about a hapless dog groomer who takes on a psychotic former boxer who is terrorizing the neighborhood. We’re seeing this as High Noon by way of Best in Show.

The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)
Rocking up the Croisette like the prodigal son comes enfant terrible Lars von Trier. It’s seven years since the director was ejected from Cannes for jokingly saying he sympathised with Hitler, but don’t look to him to have reformed his disreputable ways. Von Trier’s latest is a serial killer story described by its creator as “a film that celebrates the idea that life is evil and soulless”.

Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher; Monday)
Still only 35, Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher is set for her second visit to Cannes with this class-divide fable charting the friendship between a small-town peasant and the local aristocrat. Rohrwacher won the Grand Prix (traditionally seen as Cannes’ silver medal) for The Wonders [Le meraviglie] [/I] back in 2014. She’ll be hoping to go one better this time.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Gilliam; closing film, Saturday)
Might Cannes yet provide a happy ending for Terry Gilliam? The director first attempted to shoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote back in 2000. Now it appears he’s finally done it. Only last weekend Gilliam suffered a minor stroke. But he’s now out of hospital and determined to attend. He wouldn’t want to miss this premiere for the world.
Happy Mother's Day!

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[Chris Knipp]

Late additions to Cannes 2018.

This went up on Indiewire some time ago, actually, but all came since the opening announcement. But I was not aware of Fahrenheit 451 coming. It stars Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon and is an HBO film.


Competition
Knife + Heard (Yann Gonzalez)
Akya (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
The Wild Pear (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Out of Competition
The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier)- we already knew

Un Certain Regard
Meurs, monstre, meurs/Murder Me, Monster (Alejandro Fadel)
The Dead and the Others (João Salaviza, Renée Nader Messora)
Donbass (Sergey Loznitsa) - we already knew

Midnight
Whitney (Kevin Macdonald)
Fahrenheit 451 (Ramin Bahrani) (HBO)
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[Chris Knipp]

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The Load: Leon Lucev as Vlada

Fahrenheit 451 (Raman Bahrani).

(Shown in Midnight Screenings.)
A not-quite-successful HBO-sponsored adaptation of the Bradberry novel already famously adapted by Truffaut in 1966 with a memorable cast (Julie Christie, Osker Werner, Cyril Cusack). Kevin O'Keefe in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/tv/reviews/fahrenheit-451-review-michael-b-jordan-451-1202801285/) confirms an impression of the new film's trailer: that Bahrani has slashed and burned the source itself, doubtless in an effort to make it "up to date" and pointedly relevant to current cultural depredations. There may even be something over-pushed toward the trendy in the casting of Michael B. Jordan with Michael Shannon. Bahrani has added new key words, "eels" for book-advocates, their program "OMNIS," "The Nine" for the TV propaganda station, the government "the ministry." And the whole has been flashily dumbed down for YA "Hunger Games" or "Maze Runners" fans. Gwilym Mumford in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/13/fahrenheit-451-review-michael-b-jordan-adaptation-fails-to-catch-fire) argues the Trump era has led adapters to hunt wildly for sci-fi dystopia books that will seem relevant, but this one isn't, really, at a time when so much information is as close as your smart phone. I like Mumford's end note: "No film adaption could match the potency and thrill of reading a book about a world where books are banned." Tood McCarthy in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/fahrenheit-451-review-1111318) is underwhelmed too and says even with Jordan this "wouldn't have cut it as a theatrical release." The first part he says has been turned (inappropriately) into "a kick-ass actioner." He finds Jordan far less good than in Black Panther and thinks (as do I) that Shannon needs reprogramming to some more non-formulaic typecast roles if he's not to become tedious and repetitive. One can only be glad Woody Harrelson isn't in this. As with most film adaptations of classics, this will provide good material for debate.

Diamandino (Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt).

(Shown in Critics Week.)
"A sweetly bizarre fantasy mocking the cult of fame," says Sophie Monks Kaufman in Sight and Sound (http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/diamantino-gabriel-abrantes-daniel-schmidt-carloto-cotta-ronaldo-sweet-fantasy) (BFI online), who says it's intentionally "overstuffed" with visual and narrative details. "Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt rustle up one of the year's most singular debuts with this winningly bizarre, genre-melding political satire," writes Guy Lodge in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/diamantino-review-1202808097/) of Diamantino. In this EU-endorsing comic satire, set in Portugal, a bunch of giant floppy puppies run onto the field every time a soccer star scores a goal, like the Winnie-the-Poohs that shower the rink when Yuzuru Hanyu finishes one of his dreamily near-perfect figure skating performances. But it's all in the head of the eponymous star (Carloto Cotto), who turns out to be. . . gayish, to say the least. Somehow it's all a sendup of right wingers when the protagonist is duped into participating in an anti-EU campaign by his evil twin sisters - but it's better not to know much before seeing this film, says Lodge. And so says also Boyd van Hoeij in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/diamantino-review-1109013) in an even more glowing review. This "potential cult object" is sure to be a festival hit, and would be fun to watch, if we get the chance.

Bergman — A Year in a Life (James Magnusson).

(Shown in Cannes Classics.)
A documentary depicting the great filmmaker's lust for life, ambition and competitiveness, focusing on his life in 1957, the year he made The Seventh Seal and Wild Srawberries and changed the lives of all cinephiles old enough to go to the movies then. Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman in Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/bergman-a-year-in-a-life-review-ingmar-bergman-1202808268/), who says " it captures Bergman as the tender and prickly, effusive and demon-driven, tyrannical and half-crazy celebrity-genius he was: a man so consumed by work, and by his obsessive relationships with women, that he seemed to be carrying on three lives at once." Another panel in the diorama showing that great artists need not be and often aren't nice guys.

The Load/Teret (Ognjen Glavonić).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
Kosovo 1999, violent events depicted in the distance while focused on the driver of a small trick over tough terrain carrying a secret yet officially sanctioned cargo, in this subtle reference to an actual grim incident. A "harshly intelligent and uncompromisingly spare story," writes Jessica Kiang in her Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-load-review-1202808144/), which makes this fiction feature debut sound very intriguing. "A strong inclusion in Directors' Fortnight," writes Sarah Ward in her ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-load-cannes-review/5128964.article).

Climax (Gaspar Noé).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
This latest phantasmagoria focuses on a dance troupe in 1996 a remote snowbound lodge whose dance battles take an extreme turn after someone spikes the sangria with LSD. Better (and more succinct at 96 minutes) than Enter the Void or Love says Owen Gleiberman in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/climax-revew-gaspar-noe-1202808699/), and it continues Noé's talented efforts to show his audience the depths of hell. Eric Kohn in his Indiewire review (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/climax-review-gaspar-noe-cannes-2018-1201963894/)finds this Noé's "most focused achievement" and says this "might be his best movie." Robbie Collin in the Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/climax-review-self-mutilation-orgiastic-sexgaspar-noe-back-cannes/)says Climax "plays something like Pasolini’s stomach-churning Salò by way of the old Busby Berkeley extravaganza Gold Diggers of 1933." Difficult to picture, of course. So if you want to know what it means, you'll have to see the film. I'm guessing it will release in New York and Los Angeles, the former possibly at IFC Center.

Climax has now won the Directors' Fortnight Jury Prize (May 17).

Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Wim Wenders).

(Shown in Special Screenings.)
The news may be partly the excellent access (but without, not surprisingly, deep revelations about the inner man), and partly just the fact of Wim Wenders doing this, though one recalles his making a 3D documentary about a famous dancer that he loved, Pina (2011, NYFF); there have been many films from him since then). This will come to Landmark Theaters before very long. (You can read my May 18 review of Pope Francis here: CLICK (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4494-POPE-FRANCIS-A-MAN-OF-HIS-WORD-(Wim-Wenders-2018)&p=36872#post36872).)

A Man of Integrity (Mohammad Rasoulof).

This sterling drama continues the Iranian director's home-made cinematic crusade against the moral depredations of his country, which therefore are clandestinely made and locally banned. This one focuses on a man who, as the title suggests, fights the immorality and injustice around him or, as Alissa Simon puts it in her Variety review (http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/a-man-of-integrity-review-1202438230/), "examines what defines a human being in a society that has lost its moral center." The protagonist goes to a country town after opposing bad food fed to factory workers in Tehran gets him expelled from a teacher's college, and he runs a goldfish farm, but this town turns out to be dominated by evil, corrupt forces. We see Reza, the hero, go through the trials of Job because he refuses to conform, explains Deborah Young in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/a-man-integrity-1005450). Some of the references may elude a non-Iranian audience, she says. So it is not certain how you or I would experience this film.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Newcomer Adriano Tardiolo as "Lazzaro"

Happy As Lazzaro/Lazzaro felice (Alice Rohrwacher).

(Shown in Competition.)
The Italian director's ambitious third film was reviewed by Guy Lodge in Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/happy-as-lazzaro-review-1202808832/) and Boyd van Hoeij in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/happy-as-lazzaro-lazzaro-felice-1111486). The bipartite film shot in 16mm blends past and present as it depicts a near-saintly youth, a goofy sage a little like Forrest Gump, living in a rural town not far from Rome maybe a few decades ago who works as a sharecropper for a lady aristocrat's illegal tobacco farm (and this part is a ripped-from-the-headlines true Eighties story, as a starting point). The film is absorbing, deeply Italian, but flawed, with a magic realist style marred by confusion and occasional preciousness, Van Hoeij says, that "can’t seem to make up its mind between being literal, allegorical, simply anecdotal or a kind of loose association of all of these possibilities." Guy Lodge is more favorable, calling it a "slow but bewitching burn that rewards viewers’ patience with humor and uncanny grace." I liked Rohrwacher's much-admired second film The Marvels less than her debut Corpo Celeste. From the descriptions, I'm not certain this would bring back the love. Nonetheless despite my mixed report here, this wound up ranked in the top five on the Screen Jury Grid.

Alice Rohrwacher's Happy As Lazzaro is a Cannes awards contender.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Still from Koreda's Shoplifters

Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda).

(Shown in Competition.)
Koreeda's new movie, explains Peter Bradshaw (4/5 stars in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/14/shoplifters-review-family-of-thieves-steals-moral-high-ground-and-hearts)) concerns a family of petty thieves and lowlifes, father and son shoplifting, mother stealing from a laundry, daughter involved in soft core porn, "grandma" a scam artist addicted to pachinko. The father having trained his son to steal, then adopts a lost girl to use her, becoming like Fagin in Oliver Twist . The film Bradshaw says, depicts "a group of frightened, damaged people who have made common cause with each other" who realize their lives have gone wrong. It's a triumph of a classic Japanese style Koreeda himself has helped perfect, he says, and is "a rich, satisfying film." "Heart-shattering," says David Erlich in indiewire (reaffirms himself as one of the world's best auteurs): Koreeda "reaffirms himself as one of the world's best auteurs." "Heart-wrenching," chimes in Maggie Lee in her detailed Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/asia/shoplifters-review-manbiki-kazoku-1202809298/): she shows the film is about the crumbling Japanese family and declining work conditions, and links the film with the director's great (and also heart-wrenching) Nobody Knows. Obviously, a must-see.

Shoplifters is the clear standout and Palme d'Or candidate, just above Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, Jia Zhang-ke's Ash Is Purest White, Rohrbacher's Lazzaro - topping Screen's Jury Grid (https://www.screendaily.com/news/hirokazu-kore-edas-shoplifters-tops-screens-jury-grid-four-new-titles-land/5129410.article) now (May 15).

Sir (Rohena Gera).

(Shown in Critics Week.)
This film from India, modestly successful according to Jordan Mintzer in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/sir-review-1106900), is a gentle picture, keenly aware of India's current social complexities (and age-old rigidities), of a class-bridging romance between a young man of a wealthy Mumbai real estate family, disappointed from a cancelled wedding, who falls for an impoverished young widow from the provinces who comes to be his chambermaid. Lensed by veteran French cameraman Dominique Colin (L’auberge espagnole). Creditable fiction feature directing debut by Gera, though the production feels like a TV movie at times, says Mintzer. A contender for the Camera d'Or award. Gera previously made the documentary about arranged marriage, What’s Love Got To Do With It?. Good on some details but not on others, says Wendy Ide in her ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sir-cannes-review/5128576.article). Bradshaw gives in 3/5 stars in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/14/sir-review-sexual-tension-brews-in-mumbai), which shows better than most how the two people could fall in love, but he, like other reviewers, sees the poor woman's world depicted more convincingly than that of the posh man. This sounds eminently watchable, but not completely satisfying.

Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson).

(Shown in Competition. )
This odd transition indeed, a conventional, sometimes corny war movie involving women about a French journalist embedded with a female peshmerga unit as they free a town under ISIS control - odd, that is, coming from the previous director of the near-pornographic and conceptually radical teen sex movie Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4104-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-2016&p=34424#post34424) (R-V 2016). Ratings vary hugely. Girls of the Sun has been wildly overrated and overhyped just because it is by a woman, according to Agnès Poirier in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/14/metoo-activists-eva-husson-girls-of-the-sun-cannes-female-directors), who says Me Too advocates are confusing themselves with critics. Peter Bradshaw (who has been known to get carried away) gives it 4/5 stars. Jay Weissberg in his Variety review calls it a "pedantically commonplace drama," saying it's naive about the fact that in war journalism or any journalism there are many different kinds of "truth." But due to its female-empowerment theme it's "a shoo-in for international distribution." It also has the striking Golshifteh Farahani in a starring role as a female warrior with Emmanuelle Bercot (Polisse, My KIng) as an eye-patch-wearing French journalist. Sounds like another Competition mistake.It's at the bottom of the May 15 Screen Jury Grid (https://www.screendaily.com/news/hirokazu-kore-edas-shoplifters-tops-screens-jury-grid-four-new-titles-land/5129410.article).

Sauvage (Camille Vidal-Naque)

(Shown in Critics Week.)
This is a French film about a tough and tender young gay male hustler (99 mins.) wandering the streets and byways of Strasbourg looking for love beyond the sex he sells. Guy Lodge says in his Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/sauvage-review-1202808458/) review that "the sometimes violent queerness of its perspective" makes Sauvage "genuinely bracing." Unlike his colleagues, the unnamed protagonist (an impressive and brave Félix Maritaud, who had a minor role in BPM) takes pride in his work and enjoys it, even kissing, which is disapproved of his presumably gay-for-pay colleague Ahd, whom he's hopelessly in love with. Slated for French release Aug. 22. Though it has some clichés of the genre (the strobe-lit club scenes), this sounds good, and very French in the way it views its subject. (The director lays out his philosophy and working method very clearly in a six-minute (subtitled) video interview on YouTube here: Click (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3igUFFCGtQQ).)

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)

(Shown in Directors'Fortnight.)
This is an accomplished genre revenge picture providing Nocolas Cage with an extreme role In "the primal wilderness of 1983 where Red Miller, a broken and haunted man[,] hunts an unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life" (IMDb). Jordan Hoffman gives iit 4/5 stars in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/14/mandy-review-nicolas-cage-gory-vengeance-thriller). Its Metascore is 81%. Eric Kohn of Indiewire calls it "[A] hypnotic midnight movie, which veers from astonishing, expressionistic exchanges to gory mayhem without an iota of compromise." Multiple reviews show this is very good at what it does and one just needs to see it to find if what it does is what one likes - or has a stomach for.

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[Chris Knipp]

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On Saturday 82 women protested at Cannes for better gender equality in film


A Cannes pact for female equity.

Or "parity," they call it. The Festival organizers, headed by Thierry Fremaux, have signed a pact to guarantee women equal status on juries, as reported by Deusche Welle (http://www.dw.com/en/cannes-festival-organizers-sign-pact-for-gender-parity/a-43778984) and many other journals.



The leaders of the Cannes Film Festival signed a charter Monday promising to push for an equal number of men and women on its decision-making boards, as well as calling for greater transparency in the film selection process.

Their signatures hit the page just two days after 82 female film industry figures staged a red-carpet protest at the world-famous French film festival, demanding an end to gender imbalance in the film industry.

Cannes Director Thierry Fremaux signed the pledge along with Edouard Waintrop and Charles Tesson, two of Cannes' artistic directors. Looking on from the front row were members of this year's nine-person jury, among them Kristen Stewart and jury president Cate Blanchett, both of whom took part in Saturday's protest.

We hope that it will reinforce the realization that the world is not the same anymore," Fremaux said. "The world has changed."

"We must question our history and our habits," the Cannes festival director added, calling on other international film festivals to follow suit.

Fremaux's promise to make selection committees transparent in order "to rule out any suspicion of a lack of diversity or parity" marks a significant step for the prominent film industry figure, who is also the head of the French-focused Lumiere Film Festival and the Institut Lumiere. He had previously insisted that Cannes should choose its films based purely on quality.

Cannes has been criticized over the years for the gender imbalance in films selected for screening at the festival.

Only 82 female directors have ever competed for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, since 1946 compared with almost 1,700 male directors. Only one woman has ever taken home the top prize: Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993.

In 2018 only three out of the 21 directors in the competition for the Palme d'Or are women.

The signing of the pledge coincided with 2018 jury head Blanchett's birthday. The attendees broke into a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for the Hollywood actress after the signing.
-Deutsche Welle

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Thierry Fremaux makes the announcement, signs the pact.

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[Chris Knipp]

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A scene from Shéhérazade

BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee).

(Shown in Competition.)
Spike Lee's new feature has premiered at Cannes (Mon. night May 14), and it received a six-minute standing ovation. In his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/14/blackkklansman-review-spike-lee-adam-driver-cannes-2018)Peter Bradshaw, giving it 3/5 stars, calls the movie "a broad satirical comedy of the 70's American race war." Tim Grierson in his ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/blackkklansman-cannes-review/5129334.article)calls it "a movie of raw anger and sadness" that is "uneven, and impossible to ignore," saying Lee "prefers a hammer to a scalpel" but tempers his rough approach with "a mature thoughtfulness." It's based on the true story of Ron Stallsworth, an African American Colorado policeman who in 1979 spearheaded the penetration of a local KKK chapter by posing as a white bigot over the phone (he was good at doing white voices) and sending in a Caucasian officer for face-to-face work at the local chapter. (Stallsworth recounted this in a book; Jordan Peele proposed the adaptation to Spike Lee.) John David Washington, son of Denzel, plays Ron, and Adam Driver plays Flip Zimmerman, the Jewish fellow officer who is his stand-in/collaborator. (Driver will also appear as the costar of Gilliam's closing night "Quixote" movie.) Regular Lee composer Terence Blanchard "drapes the film in melancholy tones and majestic swirls" (Grierson). To underline his film's timeliness Spike ends it with a clip of Trump refusing to condemn the white supremacists at Charlottesville, and other Trump digs run through the film. Trump is linked with former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace), who is also threaded through the film as someone Ron talks to. Obviously a must-see, and quite probably a prime Cannes Palme d'Or candidate, though feelings about it seem mixed. The movie opens in US theaters Aug. 10.

Another Palme d'Or contender, or in line for a Cannes award, anyway.

Shéhérazade (Jean-Bernard Marlin).

(Shown in Critics Week.)
Deborah Young in her Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/cannes-film-festival) draws an appealing picture of this gritty French-style romance set in the slums of Marseille where the boys deal drugs and the girls sell their bodies with or without a pimp. The film features non-actors; Marlin is from Marseille and knows the territory. A boy, Zach, 17, just out of juvie, is rejected by his mother and cruises the wild side of Marseille, where he meets Shéhérazade, a teen prostitute, who he falls in love with, oddly, choosing to become a pimp for her and several other girls. Conflicts and confusions nonetheless lead to a "satisfying courtroom dénoument." Jean-Bernard Marlin's short film, The Runaway, had already made him known by winning the Golden Bear for best short film at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival, and this energetic feature has been getting many good reviews, according to Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/clip-cannes-sheherazade-20180514/), due to great authenticity and engaging performances. Sounds very cool, and I would watch this - but maybe not for the French, which from the clip I saw, is so slangy and oddly accented I might not understand it worth a darn.

The House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier).

(Shown out of competition.)
It is, on the surface, a 12-year chronicle of an architect-engineer serial killer in the Pacific Northwest in the '70's and '80's. It stars Matt Dillon, with Bruno Ganz and Uma Thurman, among others. Von Trier has never played his provocateur card harder, according to David Rooney's Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/house-that-jack-built-cannes-2018-1111908) because it is also largely a masturbatory taunt referring to his jocular pro-Hitler remarks that got him ousted from Cannes six years ago, with many references to his filmography. And it is a taunting response to charges that his films are misogynistic, with a "methodical display of sadistic violence against women" through the soft-spoken protagonist. Seems "a direct FU to the current climate of reckoning over gender bias and sexual misconduct." But Jack pleads that he targets women as victims only because they are "easier to work with." The film's dialogue-interrogation structure with Ganz as questioner "Verge" refers to Dante's Divine Comedy, but, Rooney says, "Even with all the fancy detours into Glenn Gould (like Hannibal Lecter), William Blake, gothic cathedral architecture and dessert wine production, this is pretty much serial killer 101," "visually drab" and "one of his least forceful films." Bradshaw in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/15/the-house-that-jack-built-review-lars-von-trier-cannes-2018-matt-dillon) (whose cool-headed and vivid review I recommend if you want to read one) gives it 2/5 stars and calls it "a smirking ordeal of gruesomeness" but one " partly redeemed by its spectacular finale." Bradshaw notes the American setting is very obviously fake. See also Owen Gleiberman's Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-house-that-jack-built-review-lars-von-trier-matt-dillon-uma-thurman-1202809430/) on how the Cannes audience received Von Trier in person (ecstatically) and the film (100 walked out). Eric Kohn in his Indiewire review (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/the-house-that-jack-built-review-lars-von-trier-1201964207/) calls it "horrifying, sadistic, possibly brilliant" and rates it A-. Of course, we must see for ourselves, nonetheless: Von Trier is always news and always a topic to debate.

This will probably be the most controversial Cannes 2018 film.

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Matt Dillon as a serial killer in The House That Jack Built

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[Chris Knipp]

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Vincent Lindon (Center) in AT War

At War/En Guerre (Stéphane Brizé)

(Shown in Competition.)
Vincent Lindon and Stéphane Brizé bring back the alliance that led to The Measure of a Man/La loi du marché, which won Lindon the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2015. This one is an intense picture of a labor strike that left Peter Bradshaw unmoved, rating it only 2/5 stars in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/15/at-war-en-guerre-review-shouty-french-strike-drama-cannes). He acknowledges some "smart, shrewd touches" but finds it "bafflingly cacophonous" that's mostly "one-note" "shouting acrimony" and "martyred self-pity." But the French critical response tells quite another story, going by the AlloCiné press rating (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-255425/critiques/presse/) of 3.8 from 8 reviews, including favorable ones by the hard-to-please Cahiers du Cinéma and Les Inrockuptibles. They admire the film's "immersive" "vibrant" production and its "continuation," yet significant "variation" on the earlier collaboration. Frankly, I found The Measure of a Man a more dutiful than inspiring experience, despite Lindon's fine performance, but it will be equally a duty to watch and think about this one.

Asako I & II (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi).

(Shown in Competition.)
It's an "earnest romance," says Bradshaw in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/15/asako-i-ii-review-japanese-romcom-flips-gaze-ryusuke-hamaguchi), that "switches things up by having a woman obsessed with a man’s beauty and then falling for his double." 3/5 stars nonetheless. This is a less provocative or unusual followup to the director's 5-hour Happy Hour (ND/NF 2016 Filmleaf (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4120-New-Directors-New-Films-2016-Film-Comments-Selects&p=34501#post34501)), which palled a bit for me in the last couple of hours, but was quite wonderful for a long time, and in its patient, immersive detail, bold and original. Variety (Maggie Lee) (http://variety.com/2018/film/asia/asako-i-ii-review-netetemo-sametemo-1202809972/) and others agree on the difference, but it seems the point is the woman's inability to choose between two very alike looking men, but a more interesting novel source turns to "a banal indecision" here, says Lee. This ranks around 8th on the Jury Grid. The theme appeals to me.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Andrew Garfield in Under the Silver Lake

Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell).

(Shown in Competition.)
Andrew Garfield stars in this oddball L.A noir about a "curious mind who investigates missing persons from his neighborhood. Riley Keogh and Topher Grace [Topher in two Competition films, then, like Adam Driver] also star" (Grid summary). Owen Gleiberman in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/under-the-silver-lake-review-1202811006/) suggests this movie channels the more far-out aspects of David Lynch. He calls it "at once gripping and baffling, fueled by erotic passion and dread but also by the code-fixated opacity of conspiracy theory." He says it's "impeccably shot and staged" and has "an insanely lush" "Bernard Herrmann-meets-Angelo-Badalamenti-on-opioids" soundtrack and is a "meta-mystery" that feels like the work of an obsessive fan of Infinite Jest. Eric Kohn (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/under-the-silver-lake-review-andrew-garfield-cannes-2018-1201961578/) is also admiring of this smart, hip, trendy film full of pastiches and references to L.A. noir traditions, which was received very well by critics in general (though Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/16/under-the-silver-lake-review-david-robert-mitchell-andrew-garfield-cannes) didn't get it, calling it "ghastly" and giving it 1/5 stars). I am definitely down to see this one (love neo-noir, Infinite Jest, and Garfield), even though I wasn't a big fan of Mitchell's hugely successful debut It Follows. Coming to US theaters June 22. Not high on the Jury Grid (only a 2) but it was a favorite among younger critics.

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Jaafar Panihi's Three Faces

Three Faces (Jaafar Panahi).

(Shown in Competition.)
A Filmstage review (https://thefilmstage.com/reviews/cannes-review-jafar-panahis-3-faces-is-a-loose-empathetic-ultimately-minor-work/) (by Giovanni Marchini Camia) calls this "a loose, empathetic, ultimately minor work," and that is the general critics' opinion. They note that it draws on Iranian cinematic tradition, but disappointingly eschews Panahi's own more adventurous stylistic strategies. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/13/three-faces-review-jafar-panahis-latest-is-calm-modest-and-inscrutable) called it "calm, modest – and inscrutable" and gave it 3/5 stars. Panahi's fourth film made since he was banned from making them, this again premiered with an empty seat in his honor because he has no passport to leave Iran. In the film Panahhi appears driving an SUV, and it's a road trip movie with references to suicide, women with acting aspirations, and male chauvinism. It has meta-narrative aspects, but "staggers along," says Eric Kohn in his Indiewire review (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/three-faces-review-jafar-panahi-cannes-2018-1201963927/), in a film that echoes Kiarostami but lacks his warmth and charm. One gets the impression this is a distinctive but definitely minor effort. Not excited about this one but, of course, one must follow Panahi.

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Alden Ehrenreich in A Star Wars Story: Solo

Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard).

(Shown out of competition.)
Alden Ehrenreich is the new Han Solo, whom I remember from as far back as Coppola's largely ignored 2009 Tetro (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2587-TETRO-(Francis-Ford-Coppola-2009)&p=22255#post22255). (I liked it, and him.) Todd McCarthy, in Variety (then) (http://variety.com/2009/film/markets-festivals/tetro-1200474887/)said Tetro would be "marginal" in the states, but "likely will be most remembered for introducing a highly promising young actor, Alden Ehrenreich." Check. Then he got to play in another "marginal" movie by a legend, Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply. Peter Bradshaw in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/15/solo-a-star-wars-story-review-han-solo-origins-film-is-boistrous-bromance) calls Solo a "cracklingly enjoyable adventure" and gives it 4/5 stars. Never mind that he trashed the cool-sounding Under the Silver Lake just a few hours ago and never mind what "cracklingly enjoyable" means; must be a Britishism. It doesn't matter too much whether we parse this movie profoundly or not, if that's even possible. It will make money. It's one of Cannes 2018's few big popular blockbusters, if there are even any others. As for Ehrenreich, will he ever be in anything but a high profile clunker? Dave Erlich of IndieWire (http://www.indiewire.com/2016/05/alden-ehrenreich-playing-han-solo-is-proof-that-movie-stardom-is-dead-291032/) argues that his hiring as Han Solo proves there are no stars anymore, only franchises. But Ehrenreich was hilarious and cool in the Coens' Hail, Caesar! (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4112-HAIL-CAESAR!-(Joel-Coen-Ethan-Coen-2016)) and he's got the looks and the chops to play Han Solo. It just feels to me that discussing blockbusters is more about economics and brands than cinema or art, and it's just contributing to the pointless hype to indulge in it before one has seen the actual film.

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[Chris Knipp]

Screen Daily's Screen Grid for May 15 shows current rankings of Competition films.

The Screen Daily "grid" of mostly European film critics' ratings of the Competition films is a god indicator of the awards potential of what's been seen so far. Here is a roundup. you can see the Grid here: CLICK (https://www.screendaily.com/news/hirokazu-kore-edas-shoplifters-tops-screens-jury-grid-four-new-titles-land/5129410.article).



Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'Shoplifters' tops Screen's jury grid; four new titles land

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters has taken the lead in the latest edition of Screen’s Cannes 2018 jury grid, which sees four more Competition films take their place.

JURY GRID DAY 8

The ensemble piece, about an alternative family forced to live on its wits, took top spot with an average of 3.2. It received no lower than a 2 from any critic, with top marks from Tim Robey and Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph, Justin Chang of the LA Times and Screen’s own critic.

Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazzaro took a mix of marks for an average of 2.9, currently enough for joint third position on the grid. Set in a ramshackle village in rural Italy and following a commune of sharecroppers, the film took 4s from Tim Robey and Robbie Collin, Meduza’s Anton Dolin and Screen’s own critic, but was weighed down by a 1 from Julien Gester and Didier Péron of Libération.

Also appearing on the grid is Asako I & II, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s story of two lovers who are physically identical to each other. The mode for this title was 2, but 3s from Justin Chang, Julien Gester and Didier Péron and Die Zeit’s Katja Nicodemus, plus a 4 from the Bangkok Post’s Kong Rithdee lifted it to a 2.4 average.

Finally, Spike Lee’s Cannes return with Ku Klux Klan infiltration pic BlacKkKlansman mainly pleased the critics, with six 3s contributing to a 2.5 average.

The next two grid titles are Stephane Brizé’s At War starring Vincent Lindon, and Andrew Garfield in David Robert Mitchell’s Under The Silver Lake.

Here is the summary of the Screen JURY GRID for yesterday, in descending scores. These are the rankings of Competition films so far shown for a representative group of mostly European critics:

3.2 Shoplifters (Hirakazu Koreeda)
3.0 The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.9 Cold War (Pawel Pawelowski)
2.9 Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke)
2.9 Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher)
2.6 Three Faces (Jafar Panahi)
2.5 BlacKKKlansman (Spike Lee)
2.4 Leto (Kiril Serebrenekov)
2.4 Asaki I & II (Ryunosuke Hamaguchi)
2.3 Sorry, Angel (Christophe Honoré)
1.8 Yomeddine (A.b. Shoukry)
1.0 Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson)


LATER SCORES:


3.8 Burning - a record
2.3 Dogman
2.1 At War
2.0 Under the Silver Lake

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[Chris Knipp]

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The Snach Thief

The Snatch Thief (Agustín Toscano).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
This little Latin American indie from Argentina, despite an unfortunate English translation of the title, is a "nicely plotted" film, says Jay Weissberg in his Variety review, about a purse snatching specialist whose guilt over one heist leads to a friendship with a handicapped person. The rough two-man motorbike robbery has banged up a woman and caused her to lose her memory, and then one thief picks her up at a hospital, saying he's her tenant. Director Toscano makes the film more nuanced and interesting by not making his protagonists "nice" or cuddly. Cool Spanish title: El Motoarrebatador . Jonathan Romney in his ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-snatch-thief-cannes-review/5129436.article)notes humor, but also some "unevenness of tone." I'd see this if you twisted my arm, but it doesn't seem essential.

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[Chris Knipp]

A stunning and already celebrated second film from a 28-year-old Chinese wunderkind, and others less noted.

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From Ling Day's Journey into Night

Long Day's Journey into Night (Bi Gan).

(Shown Out of Competition.)
Anything by the maker of the hallucinatory Kaili Blues (ND/NF 2016)[/URL] should arouse great expectations in cinephiles. Not surprisingly this second film also is a journey, is rooted in the director's Kaili province, winds up being dreamlike, and has a technically astonishing finale, in a single take, in 3D. Lee Marshall provides a detailed and appreciative account in his ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/long-days-journey-into-night-cannes-review/5129415.article). This one I am eager to see. Bi Gan's debut was the highlight of the 2016 ND/NF (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4120-New-Directors-New-Films-2016-Film-Comments-Selects&p=34482#post34482), and an astonishment. Eric Kohn of Indiewire (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/long-days-journey-into-night-review-bi-gan-3d-long-take-1201965157/)says it's "the revelation of this year's Cannes Film Festival." Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/bi-gan-long-days-journey-into-night-review-20180516/) says it' "indisputably great," "a masterfully mysterious effort and maybe the best at Cannes." Jordan Mitzer's Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/long-day-s-journey-night-di-qiu-zui-hou-de-yan-wan-review-1111993) is a bit more restrained, but as he goes deeply into the plot and chronology, it's clear he also greatly admires this movie. In fact I'm not just excited to see it, but happy that Bi Gan has fully lived up to the promise of his beginning, and perhaps, in technical terms at least, gone beyond it.That doesn't always happen, and is cause for rejoicing.

Bi Gan's new film will be clearly one of the true gems to emerge from Cannes 2018.

Euforia (Valeria Golino)

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
It is the story of two brothers, a flashy city one and plain country one who's stayed in the dull petit-bourgeois milieu they grew up in, and the two are brought together when disease is destined to bring on the death of one of them. The disease and death themes were already dealt with in Golino's debut film Miele. This is an Italian film that stars former heartthrob Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea. But Deborah Young in her Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/euphoria-1112479) considers this a big step backward from Golino's bolder debut (which dared to deal with assisted suicide), and marred by a host of clichés and little depth of observation.

Mirai (Momoru Hosoda).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
This charming Japan animation is a toddler's-eye view of the arrival of a new sibling, a simple theme, but handled with great delicacy, says ScreenInternational's Wendy Ide (goo.gl/vy3SvT). Not quite my cup of tea, though fans of Japanese animation will be very interested.

Whitney (Kevin MacDonald).

(Shown in Midnight Screenings.)
A "sombre" documentary biography of the pop superstar shows how a damaged past led to Whitney Houston's "troubled life." It reveals that she was sexually abused as a child by her cousin, Dee Dee Warwick. Excitement, thrill, and heartbreak in this from the Oscar-winning filmmaker. Pop music fans will be interested but there was another Whitney Houston documentary last year on Showtime, and this is kind of TV stuff. US theatrical release July 6.

Sofia (Meryem Benm’Barek)

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
Debut set in Casablanca follows a young, unmarried Moroccan mother as she gives birth. It's a worthy effort, acted with undeniable commitment by its lead, but is a "little too linear" and fails to provide depth of social and economic context, writes Lee Marshall in his ScreenDaily review (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sofia-cannes-review/5129441.article).

Carmen & Lola (Arantxa Echevarría).

(Shown in Directors' Fortnight.)
The director's fiction debut is "the story of a romantic relationship between two gypsy teenage girls who are tread upon by society for both their heritage and sexual orientation," reports Variety in a piece about the filmmaker. Also sounds like a worthy effort, but not likely to be widely seen.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Marcello Fonte in Dogman

Dogman (Matteo Garrone).

(Shown in Competition.)
The director of Italy's celebrated Gomorrah (which won the Cannes Grand Jury Prize 2008 as did his Reality in 2012) and set in Gomorrah's Naples gangster milieu, though less overtly violent, delivers "a neutered revenge saga about fascism and poodles," that's not very convincing, according to David Erlich in his Indiewiere review (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/dogman-review-matteo-garrone-cannes-2018-1201965659/). In a lively, vivid Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/17/dogman-review-matteo-garrone) Peter Bradshaw says Dogman "nitpicks gangster insecurities with hilarious flair" and rates it higher than any other film he's seen at Cannes, 5/5 stars. The setup and look recall Garrone's early The Embalmer.The focus is on a homely and "kind but cowardly" dog groomer-cum-coke dealer, Marcello (Marcello Fonte), who's constantly menaced by a brutish ex-boxer, Simone (Simoncino, Edoardo Pesce), who tempts him and forces him into committing crimes. Sales have been brisk for the film and most reviews are positive. Deborah Young in her Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/dogman-1112738) hails the "superb performances" of the leads, surreal action, and sets that are "humorous and depressingly real." Bradshaw says Dogman goes further than Gomorrah "in explaining the toxic emotional inadequacy of gangsterism — its brutality, its sycophancy, its pusillanimity, its craven addictions." Clearly, a must-see, and a potential awards contender.

Burning (Lee Chang-dong.)

(Shown in Competition.)
Bradshaw is also enthusiastic in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/17/burning-review-cannes-2018-lee-chang-dong) (4/5 stars) about Korean director Lee's "masterfully crafted Murakami adaptation" (more a loose riff) which he describes as a "riveting mystery" composed of "sex, envy and pyromania." The story focuses on a young man with few prospects befriended by a lovely girl, who's then pushed out by a more handsome, rich and sophisticated man she meets on a trip abroad, who turns out to be a sociopath and pyromaniac; and then the girl disappears. Eric Kohn of Indiewire calls this "a mesmerizing tale of working-class frustrations." Indeed this is a story, apart from its striking foreground narrative, of today's increasing class consciousnesses and starker contrasts between haves and have-nots. Peter Debruge in his meditative Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/burning-review-beoning-1202812196/) gives more contrasts with the "haiku-like" Murikami short story, also points out the interesting contrast with Under the Silver Lake (shown at Canes just before), much different depictions of young men searching for lost girls; also that Lee's two masterpieces Secret Sunshine and Poetry show he won't offer simple answers or easy closure - nor is Jongsu, the lower class protagonist, easily relatable, as presented. This over two-hour film may frustrate as well as intrigue, Debruge suggests, but "Lee creates a sense of mood and place with masterly flair" (Bradshaw). Another good one.

Both Dogman and Burning are clearly among Cannes 2018's best. Burning has now received a record average of 3.8 from ScreenDaily’s ten "JURY GRID" critics, thereby surpassing the 3.7 achieved by Toni Erdmann in 2016.
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[Johann]

Fantastic stuff Chris!
Love your Cannes coverage.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks, Johann!

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Gabriela Muskała in Fugue

Gotti (Kevin Connolly).

(Shown in Special Screening.)
This biopic starring John Travolta isn't a crime-does-not-pay story as usual, says Jordan Mintzer of Hollywood Reporter, but "hagiographic - one could even say pro-mob." Maybe this is why Indiewiere calls it "incoherent." Mintzer says it's "pretty terrible: poorly written, devoid of tension, ridiculous in spots and just plain dull in others." At the screening, junior Gotti was present, along with Thierry Fremaux, the Festival director. Mintzer writes, "instead of banning selfies on the red carpet, perhaps Fremaux should consider banning guests who have been indicted on racketeering, extortion, kidnapping and murder conspiracy charges. One to avoid? A guilty pleasure? An irresistibly curiosity-arousing flop like Travolta's Scientology silliness Battleship Earth? You decide.

Fugue (Agnieszka Smoczyńska).

(Shown in Critics Week.)
Smoczyńska is the filmmaker who debuted with the well-received 2016 The Lure (Filmleaf review (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4281-THE-LURE-(Agnieszka-Smoczynska-2016)&p=35257#post35257)), her much admired kinky, surreal mermaid musical, already a Criterion selection. This one may disappoint some, because it's a "more sober affair,"writes Guy Lodge in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/fugue-review-1202812117/). The title uses "fugue" ("Fuga") in the sense of wandering, focussed as it is on a woman who emerges in a train station with amnesia, in a fugue state. When she is identified two years later with a husband and child, she does not accept them or her "old" name; her rough experience has made her a different person. The new film's "controlled expansiveness of tone, psychology and camera mark its helmer" aided by writer-star by writer-star Gabriela Muskała — "as a stylist of considerable, unpredictable finesse," says Lodge. Erlich of Indiewire (http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/fugue-review-agnieszka-smoczynska-cannes-2018-1201962138/) is one of the disappointed ones, feeling this new film "doesn't live up to its potential," though he admits is "scrubs away" the "schmaltz" of the well-worn amnesia theme and the process is "compelling" "the watch." Leslie Felpein in her Hollywood Reporter review gives more detail and, while not as glowing as Lodge, admits this film has a degree of "Kink" that makes it "more interesting than the usual thriller about memory loss" So, hard to guess how this will be, but The Lure lingers in my memory.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Zain Alrafeea in Capernaum

Capernaum (Nadine Labaki).

(Shown in Competition.)
Labaki received a 15-minute standing ovation at Cannes today for her new, third, film, Capernaum. I wrote about this Lebanese director's debut film Caramel (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2146-PARIS-OCTOBER-2007-briefly-noted) in 2007 from Paris. She is more known for the 2011 Where Do We Go Now? (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3165-Paris-movie-report-%28oct-2011%29&p=26928#post26928) (reviewed also by me from Paris, and again for 2012 ND/NF (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3246-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2012&p=27500#post27500)). Capernaum/Capharnaüm ( كفر ناحوم) is a place name signifying chaos. The new film, honored by Cannes Competition status, is about children living on the street in the slums of Beirut. It is a political fable about a child called Zain who takes his parents to court and sues them, from prison, for bringing him into the world when they could not treat him properly. Jay Weissberg says in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/capernaum-review-capharnaum-1202814614/) that this film far surpasses Labaki's first two, that it is excellent in its depiction of milieu and visually more sophisticated "and certainly more gritty." Zain is a "pint-sized James Dean," Weissberg explains, who's "a sensitive toughie simmering with righteous resentment." He runs away from his crowded home to escape the bad behavior of his parents, then is saddled with a small Ethiopian child he babysits when that boy's mother disappears. This is sure to get awards, Weissberg says, and is "a splendid addition to the ranks of great guttersnipe dramas." Peter Bradshaw is considerably less glowing in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/capernaum-review-cannes-film-festival), giving it 3/5 stars, but says that "for all its occasional sentimentality, this film is about the link between poverty and anger." A.A. Ddowd of AV Club (https://film.avclub.com/the-best-movies-of-cannes-2018-plus-a-serious-palme-do-1826130650#amp-mtjQGic1MZcaT3hV5mYyxvlKQ4lvvG8fk8OG1rS8wxLDHA_c98 SI1Xy2-gynEWZP) agrees it's "definitely a big leap forward in ambition and craft for Labaki," but thinks this it's "the kind of social-issue sadness pile that confuses nonstop hardship for drama, begging for our tears at every moment," and gives it C+.It has been snapped up by Sony Pictures Classics for December release. The over two-hour length is a liability - it could have used some trimming; and so is the odd title. But, justified buzz here. Maybe an Italian neorealist vibe - though Zain is far more articulate, feisty, and foul-mouthed than the kid in Bicycle Thieves. Many say the premise is silly, and the beauty is in the authentic details. Jury's out on this one.

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Labaki et al at Cannes: Khaled Mouzanar, Zain Alrafeea, Yordanos Shifera

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[Chris Knipp]

A series of minor Un Certain Regard offerings. Some may get no reviews, we'll see.

My Favorite Fabric (Gaya Jiji).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard).
A autobiographical debut female coming-of-ager from Syria about a young women who rejects an arranged marriage designed to allow her to escape to America, and takes refuge in a tantasy lover, then joins a nearby brothel. My Favorite Fabric/Ma tissu préféré "has commendably grand ambitions," says Stephen Dalton in his Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/my-favourite-fabric-mon-tissu-prefere-film-review-cannes-2018-1111072), but is "an unpolished, underpowered, navel-gazing affair which strains too hard to map private emotional angst onto the genocidal horrors of Syria's civil war." There's a huge disconnect, in this far-fetched story littered with missed opportunities, as Jay Weissberg also convirms in his Variety review. (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/my-favorite-fabric-review-1202813549/) Only my interest in the region and the language would lead me to watch this.


Knife+Heart (Yann Gonzalez).

(Shown in Competition.)
"Yann Gonzalez uses his unusual obsession with the world of 1970s gay porn to deliver a queer spin on a Brian De Palma-style thriller, says Peter Debruge in his Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/knife-heart-review-un-couteau-dans-le-coeur-1202813656/).Vanessa Paradis seems odd, but amusing, casting as an aspiring gay soft-core porn auteur, who decides to use an actual ongoing series of serial killings of her gay male stars as the theme of her next porno film. "Picture Cruising as directed by Brian De Palma, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this frisky parody-homage," Debruge adds. Bradshaw caught it, but was not so intrigued. He calls it a "bizarre shaggy dog story" in hisGuardia review, "a strange, violent fantasy," that's neither funny nor serious enough. Good material for LGBT festivals, no doubt, but not everyone even there.

The Gentle Indifference of the World (Adilkhan Yerzhanov).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
The original title is Laskovoe Bezrazlichie Mira. This film depicts two penniless villagers who try to make it in the city. The 6-film oeuvre of the prolific, or fast-working, Kazakh indie filmmaker constitutes a "cinema of poverty", says Alissa Simon's Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/the-gentle-indifference-of-the-world-review-1202813522/), and the films are shot in a style resembling the early Aki Kaurismaaki. But their content has grown more narrow since 2012. Despite "gussying up the narrative with allusions to French New Wave amour fou and gangster noir, Gentle Indifference still feels like a slight knock off of his earlier work," Simon says. We might safely skip this one.

In My Room (Ulrich Kohler).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
"[German director] Ulrich Köhler follows up Sleeping Sickness [Silver Bear at Berlinale 2011] with a survivalist story centered around one man's struggle to stay alive," says ScreenDaily, which clearly provides the most thorough and fast Anglophone coverage of the festival, but my free access has run out. "Armin is getting too old for his nightlife habits and the woman he likes. He's not really happy, but can't picture living a different life. One morning he wakes up: the world looks the same as always, but mankind has disappeared. - A film about the frightening gift of maximum freedom," goes the description by the distributor, Pandora Film. This is Kohler's fourth feature, which have come after a bunch of earlier short ones. This sounds intriguing, and I'd like to see more new German films, because some of the ones I've seen have been so good.

Manto (Nandita Das).

(Shown in Un Certain Regard.)
"Through the story of celebrated writer Saadat Hasan Manto, Das explores the birthing pains of two new nations, post partition. It’s a handsomely mounted prestige piece, but the problem of an overly expository script is compounded by a slightly choppy quality, which may or may not be intended to evoke the lean economy of Manto’s short stories. Nawazuddin Siddiqui puts in an impressive central performance as writer Saadat Hasan Manto, wrote Wendy Ide on ScreenDaily,helpfully quoted on BollywoodLIfe.com (http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/manto-movie-review-nawazuddin-siddiquis-impressive-act-and-nandita-das-screenplay-wins-over-the-critics-at-cannes-2018/). Of considerable interest to Indians or students of Indian history.

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[Chris Knipp]

Time for the prize-predicting. News (good) of Terry Gilliam.

The energetic Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian has a roundup article (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/cannes-2018-verdict-sombre-brilliance-wins-day-despite-von-trier-unwelcome-return) touching on the social-political-gender issues and listing the Cannes movies he disliked and the ones he loved and closing with the following predictions (though no one succeeds in guessing the Cannes awards that I know of - but the actual awards may be some rearrangement of these titles):


Peter Bradshaw’s predictions
Palme d’Or Happy As Lazzaro (dir Alice Rohrwacher)
Grand Prix Cold War (dir Pawel Pawłikowski)
Jury Prize Burning (dir Lee Chang-dong)
Best director Matteo Garrone (Dogman)
Best script Ebru Ceylan, Akin Aksu and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (The Wild Pear Tree)
Best actor Yoo Ah-in (Burning)Best actress Joanna Kulig (Cold War)

'Imaginary' Cannes awards – AKA Braddies d’Or
Best cinematography Hong Kyung-pyo (Burning)
Best music Roman Bilyk and German Osipov (Leto)
Best supporting male actor Liao Fan (Ash Is Purest White)
Best supporting female actor Kirin Kiki (Shoplifters)
Best production design Curt Beech (BlacKkKLlansman)

One I would mention for sure is Bi Gan's Long Day's Journey Into Night, which I'm pretty sure is one of the, thrillingly brilliant films of the festival, quite possibly the most thrillingly brilliant one. His debut Kaili Blues, seen by me in New Directors/New Films, was a uniquely memorable thrill.

It would also be fun to list all the turkeys that have been reported on in the festival, and make a mini-festival feasting on them. To ponder on the mistaken reasons for including in such a prestigious and elegant event so much sheer expendable junk.

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Terry Gilliam (from the Guardian)

News of Terry Gilliam.
Terry Gilliam's long-pursued Don Quixote comedy will, as announced, be shown as the closing film at Cannes, tomorrow, Saturday May 19, opening in Paris the same evening, UK (or US) dates to be announced. Gilliam has now explained, in a Guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/terry-gilliam-stroke-don-quixote)that while the symptoms were similar, what he had, "less painful than a stubbed toe," was a perforated medullary artery, something more minor than a stroke. And he is fine now, and will be on hand for the debut of the movie it's taken him decades and required overcoming so many obstacles to complete.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Terry Gilliam).

(Shown as closing night film.)
The film has been shown a day early to the press; Peter Debruge reviews it for Variety (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-man-who-killed-don-quixote-review-1202815359/). In Miguel de Cervantes' great Spanish classic, Don Quixote was a man who read too many chivalric romances and thought he was a heroic knight. Gilliam's movie is, instead, about a contemporary man who starts to think he is Don Quixote. Debruge says the story fits Gilliam himself, sort of, because he's a "quixotic" sort of fellow himself; but, sadly, the story and the dream are better than the actual movie, which is "what the director’s fans most feared: a lumbering, confused, and cacophonous mess." Pryce's sonorous voices sounds braying due to over-high sound mix and Driver is saddled with too many F-words. I am sure that we will go to see it anyway, if we love "Monty Python" and Terry, or Adam Driver, or Cervantes, or all of the above. The story shows a maker of advertising shorts, Toby (Driver), wasting his life and moral fiber, who's drawn back to an old movie he made as a student based on Don Quixote and wants to find the people he cast in the main roles years ago. When he finds the humble shoemaker (Pryce) he'd cast as Quixote, turns out the man has lived all these years deluded that he is the Mournful Knight, and now mistakes Toby for Sancho Panza. But Gilliam jumbles the line between reality and fantasy here that he kept helpfully clear in his more successful 12 Monkeys and The Fisher King, according to Debruge. As one perhaps would expect, the Brit Bradshaw is kinder in his 3/5-stars Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/the-man-who-killed-don-quixote-review-cannes-2018-terry-gilliam), hailing "a film of sweet gaiety and cheerful good nature." You decide.

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[Chris Knipp]

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The Wild Pear Tree

The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

(Shown in Competition.)
(Turkish title: Ahlat Ağacı.) Ceylan's theme this time is a would-be writer's return to his native village in rural Turkey, where his father's debuts overwhelm his aspirations. Can you return home again? This is a "gentle, humane, beautifully made and magnificently acted" Chekhovian answer to this question that's "garrulous, humorous and lugubrious in his unmistakable and very engaging style," says a very enthusiastic Peter Bradshaw, who gives this movie his second 5/5-star rating at this year's Cannes in his Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/18/the-wild-pear-tree-review-nuri-bilge-ceylans-delicious-humane-tableaux). One feels already that the theme and style are very close to Ceylan's previous film, Winter Sleep. Watching it was a special pleasure, but I miss the drier, more succinct style of his early films. Here Sinan, the graduate, comes back with a diploma and no job, wondering if he should take exams to become a teacher like his father. He also is irritated by home, but forced to be kind knowing it will be the subject of his first, autobiographical, novel. Ceylan's later films are like novels, consisting of a series of long conversations. Sinan wants to raise money for a book, but his father is a gambling addict drowning in debut; his mother has just managed to save them. The summary of Jay Weissberg's Variety review (http://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/the-wild-pear-tree-review-ahlat-agaci-1202815666/) is "Another visually rich chamber piece from Nuri Bilge Ceylan that builds elaborate rhetorical set pieces of astonishing density." Other reviews are equally admiring. Deborah Young in her Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/wild-pear-tree-1113300) a bit less so. She says the three hours "do not exactly fly by," but "the final sequences are worth the wait." The Metacritic rating (http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-wild-pear-tree) is the highest ever for a Ceylan film, 93. This is clearly a must-see, and another serious Cannes award candidate. (It did not get one. The US release date has not yet been announced.)

The Wild Pear Tree is another big Cannes awards candidate, along with Burning, Shoplifters, Happy As Lazzaro, Ash Is Purest White andCold war, with Dogman, Leto and BlacKKKlansman. making a "top nine" of Competition favorites.

Ayka (Sergey Dvortsevoy).

(Shown in Competition.)
The title (Айка) means "My Little One." Not so big, not so anticipated, as Ceylan's, by the director of the ethnographic, vivid, memorable but not great (in my opinion) Tulpan (NYFF 2008 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2339-New-York-Film-Festival-2008&s=&postid=20757#post20757)). That was Un Certain Regard; this is Competition. Using the same female star as the earlier movie, Samal Yeslyamova, who provides "an intense, committed performance," this seems like the Dardennes' Rosetta, says Leslie Felperin in her Hollywood Reporter review (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ayka-review-1113052). Ayka starts by escaping out the window of a maternity ward to go back to work, knowing she's unable to support a baby. Perhaps Zain of Nadine Labaki's Capernaum would approve this realistic gesture. Then she runs around looking for different jobs. "Dvortsevoy deserves praise for making a film willing to show a woman ready to do anything she can to live," Felperin concludes.

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[Chris Knipp]

A.A.Dowd's guesses
(From his Cannes coverage for AV Club (https://film.avclub.com/the-best-movies-of-cannes-2018-plus-a-serious-palme-do-1826130650).)


Palme D’Or
Will win: Capernaum

Last Saturday, jury president Cate Blanchett led a Women’s March up the red-carpeted steps of the Palais, partially to call attention to the fact that only 82 women have ever been eligible to win the Palme at Cannes, with Jane Campion the lone female winner (and she even had to split the award with Chen Kaige). Is it reductive to assume that Blanchett’s jury, which includes more women than men, will use the power it’s been granted to give top honors to a female filmmaker for once? Politics and principle have decided this competition before—just ask Michael Moore. Capernaum, while already critically divisive, went over like gangbusters at its big premiere last night, and social-realist seriousness is often a recipe for success at Cannes. The jury could also go with Alice Rohrwacher’s very well-received Happy As Lazzaro, but I have a hunch Labaki has the edge.

Should win: Burning

South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s mysterious drama about class, privilege, and unrequited affection casts a spell that’s hard to shake. No movie at Cannes this year put its runtime to better use, and nothing built—quietly, carefully, masterfully—to a more satisfying endpoint. If it’s the movie itself that matters most, Burning deserves this.

Grand Prix
Will win: Burning

Every year, Screen International holds an ongoing poll of the Cannes competition titles, soliciting star ratings from a panel of international critics. Burning hasn’t just topped the 2018 edition of the poll; it’s edged out the record-breaking average Toni Erdmann managed to become, with a 3.8, the most highly regarded film in the grid’s history. It’s hard to imagine the jury ignoring the acclaim showered on this movie; the Grand Prix, or second place, feels like the likeliest acknowledgment.

Should win: Cold War

My second favorite movie of the festival, Gaspar Noé’s nightmare dance party Climax, wasn’t in competition. (It premiered instead in sidebar fest Directors’ Fortnight, and handily won the top prize there.) So I’ll stump instead for Pawel Pawlikowski’s doomed romance Cold War, which condenses maybe a dozen years of life and history into a miniature epic, gorgeous and timely and “old-fashioned” in the best way.

Jury Prize
Will win: 3 Faces

Every new movie by Jafar Panahi, the politically suppressed Iranian director, is a courageous act of rebellion. A win for 3 Faces, perhaps the most dramatically satisfying of the movies Panahi’s made since being banned from filmmaking, is a win for artistic expression in the face of state censorship. Third place could conceivably be its reward.

Should win: Ash Is Purest White

Jia Zhangke draws surprising lines of connection across his body of work in this playful, thoughtful drama about the tumultuous relationship between a gangster and his moll in post-millennial China. You don’t have to be a Jia diehard to get on its wavelength, though fans will get a special rush from what he does in the film’s self-referential second act.

Best Director
Will win: Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Back in competition for the first time in 27 years, Spike has made a rollicking and timely crowd-pleaser about pushing back against the enduring horror of white supremacy, then and now and always. I suspect it will win something; given how every frame of the film has Lee’s signature on it, Best Director may be the one.

Should win: David Robert Mitchell, Under The Silver Lake

He hasn’t got a chance in hell, but if I’m spreading the wealth and not just choosing Lee, Pawlikowski, or Jia again, then Mitchell’s mastery of atmosphere and framing is my next favorite directorial achievement here. Remember, even a flawed film can be spectacularly realized.

Best Actress
Will win: Joanna Kulig, Cold War

Although it screened all the way back on day three of the festival, the jury may still find a way to honor one of the lineup’s best and most well-liked films. And even those who find Cold War too remote can’t deny the star-making volatility of Joanna Kulig’s performance as a singer torn across Europe, in and out of a bad romance.

Should win: Zhao Tao, Ash Is Purest White

If they don’t go with Kulig, they may honor Chinese actor Zhao Tao instead. She’s been so good for so long in Jia’s movies, but has never won anything at Cannes. That Ash Is Purest White functions as a kind of career summation, allowing her to connect her past and present roles through a layered, years-spanning performance, is a great reason to choose Zhao.

Best Actor
Will win: Marcello Fonte, Dogman

Fonte, a relative unknown, carries Dogman with his dignity, kindness, and acquiescence—all slowly crumbling as his character, a dog groomer caught in an abusive friendship with a local hoodlum, reaches the limits of his forgiveness.

Should win: Marcello Fonte, Dogman

His really is the best, meatiest male performance in competition—a turn that’s earned comparisons to Pacino, and they’re not ungrounded.

Best Screenplay
Will win: Happy As Lazzaro

Reception to this whimsical Italian family drama was very warm, and the screenplay is a big part of that: Writer-director Alice Rohrwacher nestles a rather seismic, delightful twist into its second half—a gambit that elevates the film from an ambling country charmer to something much weirder and more ambitious.

Should win: Asako I & II

For a while, you wonder where it could be going. Then Ryûsuke Hamaguchi reveals the trajectory of his deceptively insightful romance about a love triangle linking a woman’s first love and her new one.

P.s.: He got one right: Marcello Fonte, Best Actor - a prize many agreed with.


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[Chris Knipp]

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[Le Monde, Paris]
The winners. (Those guys were completely wrong, of course.)

Palme d’or..... Shoplifters (Hirakazu Koreeda)
Grand Prix..... BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)
Prix du jury.... Capernaum (Nadine Labaki) More announcements coming.

My (premature) comments: I have not seen any of the Competition films, not even watched the trailers, but I'd say from following reports, the predictions that this was a lackluster year were quite wrong: there were a lot of fine films. Just look again at the Screen Jury Grid of the 15th. At least the top seven sounded superb, or important (Godard), and beyond that Honoré is a personal favorite of mine for his gay-friendly, youthful pictures steeped in French New Wave traditions and with engaging actors; I have a personal relation to Egypt, so even if A.B. Shoukry's admission to Cannes Competition was a bit premature, I'd find his movie of interest. Heck, even the generally reviled Girls of the Sun has the gorgeous and vivacious Golshifteh Farahani in a key role. After these came films by Stéphane Brisé (once again with the great, by now one could say iconic, Vincent Lindon), and Lee Chang-dong's Burning, which got the Jury Grid critics' highest raing in Jury Grid history! Not too shabby. .

3.2 Shoplifters (Hirakazu Koreeda)
3.0 The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.9 Cold War (Pawel Pawelowski)
2.9 Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke)
2.9 Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher)
2.6 Three Faces (Jafar Panahi)
2.5 BlacKKKlansman (Spike Lee)
2.4 Leto (Kiril Serebrenekov)
2.4 Asaki I & II (Ryunosuke Hamaguchi)
2.3 Sorry, Angel (Christophe Honoré)
1.8 Yomeddine (A.b. Shoukry)
1.0 Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson)
And that's just the Competition films. We haven't gotten to Un Certain Regard and Critics Week and Directors' Fortnight. The "Festival de Cannes" is still a pretty neat place to spend 12 days in spring if you're a cinephile, none better.

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[Chris Knipp]

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Steven Yeun in Burning

All the Cannes prizes.
(Adapted from Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Cannes_Film_Festival#Awards) on the festival in English; the French wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Cannes_Film_Festival#Awards) Cannes 2018 page gives additional information and I brought over some of the original language titles from there.) See also Peter Debruge's roundup Variety article (http://variety.com/2018/film/news/cannes-film-festival-2018-award-winners-palme-d-or-1202816743/). And see also Peter Bradshaw's Guardian comments (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/19/cannes-2018-cheering-if-baffling-set-of-prizes-cap-a-curious-year) on the prizes. He was disappointed but not surprised that Labaki's tear-jerker Capenaum won third prize, and simply disappointed that Burning, by Korean director Lee Chang-dong, which the critics liked so much - remember, it got a record 3.8 on the Jury Grid, wasn't rewarded with a top prize. (It did get the FIPRESCI Competition award, though.)

I'm feeling good about the fact that Spike Lee is going away very happy with the Grand Prix. BlacKKKlansman clearly is his liveliest, most committed work in years, and he liked its starting out with high international recognition. It's notable that the transgender film Girl, a strong debut, got four prizes, the Un Certain Regard acting prize, the FIPRESCI award, the Caméra d'Or, and the Queer Palm, and Burning did get compensation in the Competition FIPRESCI award.

Just remember: being in the Cannes Film Festival is an award in itself, the biggest award the world of cinema has to offer. And what happens at Cannes during these twelve days is seen around the world, whether it's Kristen Stewart taking her Louboutin spike heels to walk up the red stairway or Spike cursing at his press conference or a brilliant or bold new movie director hitting the silver screen.

P.s.: I have missed the commentaries and "Tweet reviews" of Mike D'Angelo very much, this Cannes. I have followed D'Angelo at Cannes (and Toronto) since his Open Letter to Lars von Trier (https://film.avclub.com/cannes-09-day-five-1798216685), Cannes for AV Club, May 2009, made me a convert.

Cannes Festival 2018: Official awards

In Competition (President of Jury: Cate Blanchett)
Palme d'Or: Shoplifters/Une affaire de famille (万引き家族, Manbiki kazoku) by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee

Best Director: Paweł Pawlikowski for Cold War/(Zimna wojna)
Best Screenplay:
Alice Rohrwacher for Happy as Lazzaro
and
Jafar Panahi for 3 Faces/Trois visages ( سه رخ, Se rokh)
Best Actress: Samal Yeslyamova for Ayka
Best Actor: Marcello Fonte for Dogman
Jury Prize: Capernaum/(كفرناحوم, Cafarnaúm) by Nadine Labaki
Special Palme d'Or: The Image Book/Le livre de l'image by Jean-Luc Godard

Un Certain Regard (Jury President: Benicio del Toro)
Un Certain Regard Award: Border by Ali Abbasi
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others/Les Morts et les Autres (Chuva é cantoria na aldeia dos mortos) by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director: Sergei Loznitsa for Donbass
Un Certain Regard Jury Award for Best Performance: Victor Polster for Girl
Un Certain Regard Award for Best Screenplay: Meryem Benm'Barek-Aloïsi for Sofia

Cinéfondation (Jury President: Bertrand Bonello)
First Prize: The Summer of the Electric Lion (El Verano del Léon Eléctrico) by Diego Céspedes
Second Prize:
Calendar (Kalendar) by Igor Poplauhin
The Storms in Our Blood (Dong wu xiong meng) by Shen Di
Third Prize: Inanimate by Lucia Bulgheroni
Independent awards

Independent Awards

FIPRESCI Prizes
In Competition: Burning (버닝 / Beoning) by Lee Chang-dong
Un Certain Regard: Girl by Lukas Dhont
International Critics' Week: One Day(Egy Nap) by Zsófia Szilágyi

Ecumenical Prize
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: Capernaum by Nadine Labaki
Special Mention: BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee

International Critics' Week (Jury President: Joachim Trier)
Nespresso Grand Prize: Diamantino by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt
Leica Cine Discovery Prize for Short Film: Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year by Jacqueline Lentzou
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Félix Maritaud for Sauvage
Gan Foundation Award for Distribution: Sir by Rohena Gera
SACD Award: Woman at War by Benedikt Erlingsson and Ólafur Egill Egilsson
Canal+ Award for Short Film: A Wedding Day by Elias Belkeddar

Directors' Fortnight (Artistic Director: Edouard Waintrop - 2012-present)
Art Cinema Award: Climax by Gaspar Noé
SACD Award: The Trouble with You/En liberté ! by Pierre Salvadori
Europa Cinemas Label Award: Lucia's Grace/Troppa Grazia by Gianni Zanasi
Illy Short Film Award: Skip Day by Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan
Carrosse d'Or: Martin Scorsese[37]
L'Œil d'or[38]

Camera d'Or (President: Ursula Meier)
Girl by Lukas Dhont

L'Œil d'or (Jury President: Emmanuel Finkiel)
Samouni Road by Stefano Savona
Special Mention:
Libre by Michel Toesca
The Eyes of Orson Welles by Mark Cousins

Queer Palm
Queer Palm Award: Girl by Lukas Dhont
Short Film Queer Palm: The Orphan by Carolina Markowicz

Palm Dog
Palm Dog Award: Canine cast of Dogman
Grand Jury Prize: Diamantino
Palm Dog Manitarian Award: Vanessa Davies and her pug Patrick
Special Jury Prize: Security dogs Lilou, Glock and Even

Prix François Chalais
François Chalais Prize: Yomeddine by Abu Bakr Shawky
Cannes Soundtrack Award

Cannes Soundtrack Award: Roma Zver and German Osipov for Summer
Trophée Chopard

Chopard Trophy: Elizabeth Debicki and Joe Alwyn

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[Chris Knipp]

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Metacritic followup.

Metacritic editor Keith Kimball has a 2018 Cannes roundup - "2018 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL RECAP & REVIEWS" (http://www.metacritic.com/feature/cannes-film-festival-awards-reviews-2018?ref=hp) today of the main films in all the main categories ("Not such a bad year after all"), and actually finds that statistically this was a better year for movies, more with top 90% Metascores, than 2017. The summary is followed by the "best and worst" of the Festival (though a lot of the "worst" aren't that bad, just in the 60's), with the Metacritc pages for the main films all in one thread. I still refuse to believe Under the Silver Lake, isn't cool despite a low percentage here, and some of the 60's could be much more interesting than that implies, but Metacritic still does reflect the reviews more precisely than my more hasty and impressionistic reports might have done. Don't give up on me though! I still reported on the films day by day and even hour by hour, and that's worth something.

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[Chris Knipp]

A last look at the last or nearly last Studio Jury Grid. This is considered an indicator of the international critical assessment of the Cannes Competition films.

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Sorry it's not sharp.
Burning was the record high with 3.8.
Shoplifters (Korreda) won 3.2 (and the Palme d'Or).
Godard's The Image Book got 3.0.
2.9 scores went to each of:
Cold War
Ash Is Purest White
Happy As Lazzaro
The Wild Pear Tree
2.5 to Three Faces (Jafar Panahi) and BlacKKKlansman (Spike Lee, who won the Grand Prix, the no. 2 Competition award at Cannes).
2.4 to Asako I & II (Happy Hour director Hamaguchi
Burning did win the FIPRESCI Competition prize, but not one of the top Competition Jury awards.

So there are the top nine. Notice Nadine Labaki's Jury Prize winning Capernaum , a sentimental favorite for its timely refugee theme, got some very low scores including the x ("bad") scroe and an average of only 1.9, between David Robert Mitchell's cool-sounding (to me) Silver Lake (2) but above the least-favorite, Eva Husson's Girls of the Son. The opener Farhadi's Everybody Knows and the perhaps mis-categorized Yomeddine ((1.8).

Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was of course not in competition, hence not on this grid, but I fear its Metacritic score, so far, is a meager 56 based on nine reviews.

Remember, the Metascores and details about the high-scoring Cannes 2018 films can be found summarized here: CLICK (http://www.metacritic.com/feature/cannes-film-festival-awards-reviews-2018?ref=hp).