Cannes 2022, remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/BFHT.jpg (https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/the-films-of-the-official-selection-2022)

'FESTIVAL DE CANNES' begins today, May 17, 2022

For the full Reuters story go HERE (https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/cannes-film-festival-kicks-into-full-swing-75th-anniversary-2022-05-16/)
For the full list of Cannes 2022 selections go HERE (https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/the-films-of-the-official-selection-2022)


CANNES, France, May 16 (Reuters) - The Cannes Film Festival is gearing up for a bumper 75th anniversary edition with a selection of big Hollywood names, buzzy newcomers and previous Palme d'Or winners – a splashy return even as the conflict in Ukraine looms over festivities.

"I honestly think this is one of the best Cannes line-ups in years," said Scott Roxborough, European bureau chief for The Hollywood Reporter.

The festival runs from May 17-28, resuming its traditional calendar following two years of pandemic disruptions. It was canceled in 2020, and last year moved to July, when it was held under strict COVID protocols.

This year, the parties are back and Hollywood heavyweights will include Tom Cruise's "Top Gun Maverick" – bringing the star to Cannes for the first time in three decades – as well as Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks.

"It's tradition to have our American friends – let's not forget that the Cannes Festival, in 1939 and in 1946, was practically co-built, co-invented by France and Hollywood," festival director Thierry Frémaux told a press conference.

Actor Forest Whitaker will be on hand to receive the festival's Honorary Palme D'Or for lifetime achievement.

David Cronenberg will mark his return to horror films with "Crimes of the Future," featuring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES 2022 FILMS IN COMPETITION

ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray United States
BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh Sweden
BROKER / 브로커 - Hirokazu Kore-eda South Korea
BROTHER AND SISTER / Frère et sœur - Arnaud Desplechin France
CLOSE -Lukas Dhont Belgium, Netherlands, France
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE David Cronenberg Canada, Greece, France
DECISON TO LEAVE / 헤어질 결심 - Park Chan-wook South Korea
THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS / LE OTTO MONTAGNE - Charlotte Vandermeersch, Felix van Groeningen Italy, Belgium
EO - Jerzy Skolimowski Italy, Poland
FOREVER YOUNG / LES AMANDIERS - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi France
HOLY SPSIDER - Ali Abbasi France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark
LEILA'S BROTHERS / برادران لیلا - Saeed Roustayi Iran
MOTHER AND SON / UN PETIT FRÈRE - Léonor Serraille France
NOSTALGIA -- Mario Martone Italy
PACIFICTION / TOURMENT SUR LES ÎLES -- Albert Serra France, Spain, Portugal, Germany
R.M.N. -- Cristian Mungiu Romania, France
SHOWING UP -- Kelly Reichardt United States
THE STARS AT NOON Claire Denis United States, France
TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE / Жена Чайковского -- Kirill Serebrennikov Russia, France
TORI AND LOKITA / TORI ET LOKITA -- Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne Belgium, France
TRIANGLE OF SADNESS -- Ruben Östlund Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, France, Greece

[Chris Knipp]

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COUPEZ ! (FINAL CUT) (FINNEGAN OLDFIELD, CENTER)

CANNES 2022 FILMS OUT OF COMPETITION

ELVIS - Baz Luhrmann Australia, United States
FINAL CUT (opening film) / COUPEZ ! - Michel Hazanavicius France
THE INNOCENT/L'INNOCENT - Louis Garrel France
MASCARADE - Nicolas Bedos France
NOVEMBRE - Cédric Jimenez France
THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING- George Miller Australia, United States
TOP GUN: MAVERICK - Joseph Kosinski United States

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES 2022 UN CERTAIN REGARD and PREMIERE LISTS

UN CERTAIN REGARD
*Les Pires, dirs: Lisa Akoka, Romane Gueret
Burning Days, dir: Emin Alper
*Metronom, dir: Alexandru Belc
All The People I’ll Never Be, dir: Davy Chou
Sick Of Myself, dir: Kristoffer Borgli
Domingo And The Mist, dir: Ariel Escalante Meza
*Plan 75, dir: Hayakawa Chie
*Beast, dirs: Riley Keough, Gina Gammell
Corsage, dir: Marie Kreutzer
*Butterfly Vision, dir: Maksim Nakonechnyi
The Silent Twins, dir: Agnieszka Smocynska
The Stranger, dir: Thomas M Wright
*Joyland, dir: Saim Sadiq
*Rodeo, dir: Lola Quivoron
Godland, dir: Hlynur Palmason

CANNES PREMIERE
Nos Frangins, dir: Rachid Bouchareb
Nightfall, dir: Marco Bellocchio
Dodo, dir: Panos H Koutras
Irma Vep (series), dir: Olivier Assayas

[Chris Knipp]

Some comments on the Competition films.

ARMAGEDDON TIME (James Gray).
It stars Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins, and Jeremy Strong. The film was shot in the state of New Jersey with cinematographer Darius Khondji, dp for other Gray films as well as UNCUT GEMS. Earlier Robert De Niro, Oscar Isaac, Donald Sutherland, and Cate Blanchett were to be involved but dropped out. The subject is reportedly related to Gray's own youth in Queens growing up in the 1980's. I hope it's great. I love James Gray. His work seems to have fallen off and become less personal since THE IMMIGRANT (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3583-New-York-Film-Festival-2013&p=31039#post31039) with Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix in 2013 (NYFF), which I called "an impressive-looking wrong turn." This should be personal.
_____________________________

There are at least a dozen other big names, who are: Hirakasu Kore-eda (who everybody loves), Cronenberg (a return to horror), Arnaud Desplechin (important current French director who is uneven), Park Chan-wook (the Korean shock-master of OLDBOY), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (the bilingual actress, sister of former Sarkozy spouse Carla Bruni; tens to be lightweight as a director; this one features Louis Garrel), Albert Serra (who I can't stand), Cristian Mungiu (prince of the humorless, fun-free Romanian school), Kelly Reichardt (strong American indie filmmaker who's always one to look forward to), Claire Denis (one of France's greatest living directors, whose new feature is from a novel by Denis Johnson, in English, set in Latin America), Kirill Serebrennikov (what I've seen by this Russian - Cannes isn't excluding them - has been interesting-to-great), the Dardennes brothers (the eminent Belgian social-issue filmmakers, multiple Golden Palm winners), and Ruben Östund (known for the THE SQUARE - winner of the Palme d'Or in 2017 - and other skillful provocations).

STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis).
In 1984's Nicaragua, a mysterious English businessman and a headstrong American journalist strike up a romance as they soon become embroiled in a dangerous labyrinth of lies and conspiracies and are forced to try and escape the country. Mostly unknown cast, but John C. Reilly and Benny Safdie have roles.

[Chris Knipp]

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ROSCHDY ZEM, LOUIS GARREL IN L'INNOCENT

OUT OF COMPETITION FILMS

FINAL CUT / COUPEZ ! (Michel Hazanavincius). Out of Competition opening night film.
A little film crew making a budget zombie movie is cut short when they're attacked by real zombies. A remake of the Japanese film included and reviewed here as part of the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival, Shin'ichirô Ueda: ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3980) (2017). This French version (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14317880/reference/) looks promising with a cast including Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, and Finnegan Oldfield, among others. It has possibilities, but the original was hilarious, and remakes are risky.

L'INNOCENT / THE INNOCENT (Louis Garrel). Out of Competition.
Garrel's fourth feature as a director/writer/star is a twistier tale that features himself with Roschdy Zem, Anouk Grinberg, Manda Touré. Abel, his usual alter ego, is horrified when he learns his mother Sylvie (Grinberg) is going to marry a man in prison. But when he meets Michel (Zem), he changes his opinion. The premise sounds like a serious turn, but the stills suggest otherwise. Opening in French theaters in October.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES BEGINS. opening film COUPLZ ! (FINAL CUT) and Tom Cruise in TOP GUN: MAVERICK.




The surprise guest of honour at the Cannes 75th edition opening ceremony on Tuesday evening was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who addressed the audience by video link.

Bradshaw says Michael Hazanavicius' COUPEZ ! (FINAL CUT) IS "an undemanding, easygoing way to kick off the Cannes film festival" but gives it an easygoing 3/5 stars in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/17/coupez-review-michel-hazanaviciuss-silly-splattery-zombie-horror-meta-farce). It's "appreciably sillier and more eccentric than the original," he writes, referring to the 2017 Shin’ichirô Ueda cult film it's a splattery remake of. It lacks the "sophistication and gloss" of the film the director is famous for, the 2012 silent film pastiche THE ARTIST. COUPEZ ! TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLE-MxthOdE) . . . BETTER ONE (https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19596662&cfilm=291483.html)

TOP GUN: MAVERICK: Tom Cruise's nearly forty years later TOP GUN sequel has also shown Bradshaw gives that 3/5 stars in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/12/top-gun-maverick-review-tom-cruise-is-still-needy-less-speedy-in-a-rocknroll-sequel) too. Cruise has lost none of his looks, muscle, and élan, this has Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller and Joe Hamm in it, and it has gotten "universal acclaim" and an 81% approval rating on Metacritic. (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/top-gun-maverick) Cruise's character remains a test pilot by avoiding promotion above the rank of captain, and as a teacher on a special mission, confronts extreme challenges and ghosts from his past. Oddly, says Bradshaw, there's none of the homoerotic tension of the Tony Scott original and equally weirdly this is less progressive on gender issues. "Cruise’s movie-star chops are still miraculous though." Who is the director, Joseph Kosinski? TOP GUN: MAVERICK TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkGkg6zc_sk)

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[Chris Knipp]

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TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE (Kirill Serebennikov) Todd McCarthy in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/tchaikovskys-wife-review-cannes-kirill-serebrennikov-1235027062/)calls the currently in exile Russian artist's new film "churningly emotional and visually rich" and explains that it shows various levels of society where trouble is coming. One reason this film is out of favor at home is it brings out the composer's gay side. The focus is on Nina Miliukora, "whose single obsession in life is to become his wife," which Tchaikovsky only accedes to for as conventional facade. In the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/18/tchaikovskys-wife-review-kirill-sebrennikov-cannes-film-festival) Peter Bradshaw goes into great detail. but still gives the film 3/5 stars. CLIP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmAX12Sg7Uw) reminded me of Sokorov's RUSSIAN ARK.

[Chris Knipp]

FOUR MORE COMING FILMS AT CANNES 2022 (not previously mentioned)

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Leah Mondesir-Simmonds and Eva-Arianna Baxter as the young Gibbons sisters in Silent Twins.
Photograph: Courtesy of Jakub Kijowski/Focus Features

Summaries from Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/16/cannes-2022-10-top-movies-festival-austin-butler-elvis):

ONE FINE MORNING (Mia Hansen-Løve)
Transgressive passion is the foundation of this movie from Mia Hansen-Løve, with Léa Seydoux as Sandra, a single mum with a young daughter, trying to find care for her elderly father, and embarking on an intense affair with an old friend.

MEN (Alex Garland)
A frisson of League-of-Gentlemen unease in a creepy English country village where all the men (played by Rory Kinnear) have a weird resemblance to each other: Jessie Buckley stars in this scary movie from Alex Garland.

SILENT TWINS (Agnieszka Smoczynska)
Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska takes on the story of the British “silent twins”. Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance star as identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons – who spoke to no one but each other, wrote “outsider art” novels and were eventually sent to Broadmoor for arson and theft.

PARIS MEMORIES (Alice Winocour)
Virginie Efira stars in Alice Winocour’s drama as a woman caught up in a terrorist attack in a Paris bistro. Some months later, stricken with PTSD and amnesia, and plagued with fragmented memories, she makes a determined attempt to reconstruct her past.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES, MAY 18.

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SCARLET/L'ENVOI (Pietro Marcello)
From the director of MARTIN EDEN (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4679-New-York-Film-Festival-2019&p=37928#post37928), which I reviewed in the 2019 NYFF and which had lasting US arthouse success, comes the story of a "daydream believer" who "makes her own magic" in a "lovely French romance," is a "slight but satisfying choice" to open Directors' Fortnight, says Variety's (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/scarlet-review-l-envol-pietro-marcello-1235267868/) critic. The Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/scarlet-review-pietro-marcellos-french-drama-is-a-lukewarm-exercise-in-magical-realism-cannes-20220518/) critic says it's "a lukewarm exercise in magic realism." Deadline's (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-movie-review-scarlet-pietro-marcello-fortnight-1235026884/) reviewer says it's "a film of many parts" that "may not always fit together perfectly" bit each "is admirable and enjoyable in its own way." One thing is clear: the director, whose 15th film this is, has switched from Italian this time to French and a French setting. He has also enlisted some well known French actors, including Yvonne Moreau, Naomi Lvovsky, and Louis Garrel.

[Chris Knipp]

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THE CANNES JURIES

The main jury chooses the Grand Prix and Palme d'Or from the Competition films. This year's jury president is the French actor Vincent Lindon, which should promise a focus on moral responsibility and seriousness, if he is the guiding spirit. The photo above at the opening red carpet event shows Jury president Vincent Lindon, center, with, from left, Ladj Ly, Deepika Padukone, Asghar Farhadi, Rebecca Hall, Noomi Rapace, Joachim Trier, Jasmine Trinca, and Jeff Nichols


COMPETITION JURY
Vincent Lindon (Président du Jury)
Rebecca Hall (Membre du Jury)
Deepika Padukone (Membre du Jury)
Noomi Rapace (Membre du Jury)
Jasmine Trinca (Membre du Jury)
Asghar Farhadi (Membre du Jury)
Ladj Ly (Membre du Jury)
Jeff Nichols (Membre du Jury)
Joachim Trier (Membre du Jury)

UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY
Valeria Golino (Président du Jury)
Debra Granik (Membre du Jury)
Joanna Kulig (Membre du Jury)
Benjamin Biolay (Membre du Jury)
Édgar Ramírez (Membre du Jury)

SHORT FILMS - COMPETITION
Yusri Nasrullah (Président du Jury)
Monia Chokri (Membre du Jury)
Laura Wandel (Membre du Jury)
Félix Moati (Membre du Jury)
Jean-Claude Raspiengeas (Membre du Jury)

CAMERA D'OR JURY
Rossy de Palma (Président du Jury)
Jean-Claude Larrieu (Membre du Jury)
Eléonore Weber (Membre du Jury)
Olivier Pélisson (Membre du Jury)
Lucien Jean-Baptiste (Membre du Jury)
Samuel Le Bihan (Membre du Jury)
Natasza Chroscicki (Membre du Jury)

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 18-19

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FINN WOLFNARD, JULIANNE MOORE IN WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD

WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD (Jesse Eisenberg).
Cannes Critics' Week. Things seem slow because this is the second festival showing of this movie, yes; it debuted at Sundance in Jan. Critics' Week section. In the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/18/when-you-finish-saving-the-world-review-jesse-eisenbergs-sweet-coming-of-age-comedy-drama)Bradshaw gives it his standard 3/5 stars and describes it as "a sweet-natured and well acted movie about Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard), an insufferable and naive teenage boy in high school, who preens himself on all the followers he has for his livestreamed folk-rock songs...[and] His equally insufferable but idealistic mother, Evelyn (Julianne Moore)." Not a great but a watchable movie, Bradshaw concludes. David Erlich of IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/01/when-you-finish-saving-the-world-movie-review-jesse-eisenberg-1234692020/)is warmer, saying it "splits the difference between Noah Baumbach and Miranda July in a way that still allows his own voice to break through," and makes it a Critic's Pick. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/when-you-finish-saving-the-world) rating: 64%.

LE OTTO MONTAGNE/THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch)
Cannes: in Competition. Bradshaw's first Cannes 2022 rave, 5/5 stars for what he calls a "rich, beautiful and inexpressibly sad film" that concerns "the friendship between men who can’t talk about their feelings and about winning and losing at the great game of life." variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/the-eight-mountains-review-1235267414/) calls it "stirring, sprawling, epic and intimate." An adaptation of the best-selling 2016 novel by Paolo Cognetti, winner of Italy’s prestigious Strega Prize. The Belgian Groeningen is known for the emotionally messy film epic THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2553) but he also did a recent English-language debut with Timouthee Chalamet, BEAUTIFUL BOY. David Rooney of Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-eight-mountains-cannes-2022-1235149413/) sees LE OTTO MONTAGNE as a string of "cathertic moments" that "ultimately lacks weight."

GOD'S CREATURES (Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer)
Cannes Directors Fortnight. In an Irish coastal village, as in THE DEEP END a mother takes desperate measures to save her returning son, with Emily Watson. A bit too "doom-laden," says Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/19/gods-creatures-review-emily-watson-and-paul-mescal-shine-in-doom-laden-drama), but there's some good acting. 3/5 stars again. The Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/gods-creatures-review-1235270281/) review is cagey but admires the film for making us watch Emily Watson again. David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter (w) thought the heavy brogues should make A24 subtitle the film for releases outside Ireland. "Even if the drama is a touch too sluggish about tightening its grip, the emotional power of the final act is considerable."

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 19.

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STILL FROM ALMA VIVA

ALMA VIVA (Cristèle Alves Meira)
Cannes International Critics Week. A Portuguese creature story. Variety: (https://thefilmverdict.com/2022/05/18/alma-viva/) "Meira's feature debut is an uneven work that combines anthropological and documentary details with more supernatural elements." See the detailed Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/alma-viva-cannes-review/5170774.article) review.

MEN (Alex Garland)
Cannes Directors' Fortnight. A24 release. The writer-director of EX MACHINA AND ANNIHLIATION, as well as the writer of the depressing sci-fi film NEVER LET ME GO, has come up with a creeper that has thrilled some but others find doesn't quite make enough sense. Good acting from Jessie Buckley and from Rory Kinnear, the latter, whether meaningfully or not, in multiple roles and disguises. The picture comes out in US theaters tomorrow. The Times review has cleverly said it "puts the 'male' in malevolent."It has garnered a mediocre Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/men?ref=hp) rating of 65%. MEN TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=votYU214boI&t=6s)

[Chris Knipp]

JAMES GRAY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 'ARMAGEDDON TIME', ON WHICH CRITICS DIFFER

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JAYLIN WEBB AND MICHAEL BANKS REPETA IN ARMAGEDDON TIME

ARMAGEDDON TIME (James Gray).
Cannes in Competition. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/19/armageddon-time-review-anthony-hopkins-anne-hathaway-trump-reagan-james-gray) pans it with a 2/5 star rating: "A middle-class boy capitalizes on his privilege in Reagan-era New York in James Gray’s uncharacteristically syrupy movie" set in Eighties Queens that is "weighed down with a sentimental and self-regarding staginess." A coming of age tale where an artistic boy has to negotiate the temptations of a posh, racist, Trump-involved school and his black public school buddy falls by the wayside. "Armageddon" is a word used by Presidential candidate Reagan. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/armageddon-time/details) rating: 73% shows most critics don't share Bradshaw's low opinion, but there's no raft of raves either. Owen Gleiberman's very fine Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/armageddon-time-review-anne-hathaway-jeremy-strong-james-gray-1235271449/)review better delineates this film's considerable charms - and its ultimate faults. May be more appreciated by the French than the Academy, observes Scott Feinberg in his Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-awards-analysis-james-gray-armageddon-time-1235150879/) review, which notes the "strong performances." (Gray has never had an Oscar nomination.)

Fine the press conference for ARMAGEDDON TIME HERE (https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/festival/web-tv/channel/press-conferences). James Gray makes it sound like his film is a powerful attack on capitalism.

[Chris Knipp]

THE ADVENTURES OF A MULE (IN COMPETITION FOR THE PALME D'OR)

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EO (Jerzy Skolimowski) .
Cannes, in Competition. Jordan Mintzer of Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/eo-review-cannes-2022-1235150257/) warrants it merits "the Palme d'Eyore." This free-spirited mule has an adventure traveling from Poland to Italy so this is a road movie, I guess. The director had played Naomi Watts' racist uncle in EASTERN PROMISES, and his FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2339-New-York-Film-Festival-2008)I reviewed as part of the 2008 NYFF -a literally very dark drama of a strange man who becomes falsely accused of rape. The director was then seventy and now is eight-four. A Beckettian tale with an added sweetness, I observed. Unlike Bresson's AU HAZARD BALHAZAR, Mintzer observes, Skolimowski adopts "a directly experimental approach, filling his movie with breathtaking imagery and a daunting soundscape atop a minimalist narrative."

Cannes tends to get more exciting as it goes along. This is just day 3.

[Chris Knipp]

FROM 'THE VERDICT (https://thefilmverdict.com/?utm_source=The+Film+Verdict&utm_campaign=26672cc145-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_09_07_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b645ac61ca-26672cc145-216240122)', FILMS IN OTHER SECTIONS.

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STILL FROM LES HARKIS

FATHER & SOLDIER/TIRAILLEURS (Mathieu Vadepied)
Cannes Un Certain Regard opening film. Affecting portrait of paternal love hinges on intensely involving performances by Omar Sy (the "Lupin" star known on Netflix) and Alassane Diong, as an African father who goes to war to protect his conscript son. Tirailleurs Sénégalais were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. This film is set during or just before WWI.

GOD'S CREATURES (Saela Davis & Anna Rose)
Cannes Directors' Fortnight. Emily Watson plays a troubled Irish matriarch in this "handsome but heavy-handed family psychodrama" from directing duo Seala Davis and Anna Rose Holmer. There have been a lot of reviews of this and it sounds strong. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/19/gods-creatures-review-emily-watson-and-paul-mescal-shine-in-doom-laden-drama) goes only for 3/5 and calls it "a tense cine-ballad of guilt and shame."

LES HARKIS (Philippe Faucon).
Cannes Directors Fortnight. "A fiery and timely reflection about a dark episode in French history at the risk of being written out of the books with the normalization of far-right politics in the country," says Clarence Tsui (https://thefilmverdict.com/2022/05/19/harkis/). "Philippe Faucon’s humble mastery of cinematographic pithiness puts under the microscope the cruel page of history of local soldiers engaged on the French side during the Algerian war," says Fabien Mercier (Cineuropa (https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/425454)). Philippe Faucon was born in Morocco, and he specializes in depicting the fallout of French colonialism. I reviewed his FATIMA (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3266) in 2016 (R-V).

[Chris Knipp]

May 20. THE GOOD ONES ARE COMING. Mia Hansen-Løve - a Cannes winner.

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PASCAL GREGGORY, LEA SEYDOUX IN UN BEAU MATIN

ONE FINE MORNING/UN BEAU MATIN (Mia Hansen-Løve)
Cannes Directors Fortnight. Bradshaw gives this French film 4/5 stars and compliments its "briskly and urbanely photographed Paris." The ubiquitous Léa Seydoux appears in short hair and jeans in this humdrum, pleasingly mainstream romance about a young mother who raises her daughter alone while seeking help for her sick father (Pascal Greggory). While this is happening, Sandra (Seydoux) reconnects with Clément (Melvil Poupaud), a friend not seen in a while and, though he is married, a passionate relationship begins. Jon Frosch in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/lea-seydoux-mia-hansen-love-one-fine-morning-film-cannes-2022-1235148186/) calls the film "quietly miraculous" and says it "make[s] the old feel new again." The director, who for 15 years was partners with Olivier Assayas, has made ten films 90% of which have been critical successes, and her last, BERGMAN ISLAND, did unusually well in the US. ONE FINE MORNING has been nabbed by Sony Pictures Classics.

CORSAGE (Marie Kreutzer)
Cannes Un Certain Regard. Reviews are uniformly enthusiastic for this film where Vicky Krieps "gives an exhilaratingly fierce, uningratiating performance" as the 19th-century Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary, says Bradshaw, (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/20/corsage-review-a-cry-of-anger-from-the-pedestal-prison-of-an-empress)who gives it 4/5 stars. Adam Solomans of IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/corsage-review-vicky-krieps-1234725517/) calls this film "fierce, revisionist history." Variety calls it "sneaky and terrific" and Krieps "superb." Kreutzer's Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/person/marie-kreutzer), by the way, is 83%, though this film is not included on that site yet. In many ways this is "a study in anger," Bradshaw says, and "an austere and angular picture," but the critics love it, and it seems a triumph for the multilingual Luxembourgish actress Vicky Krieps, who has been emerging lately as a more and more important international star.

ENYS MAN (Mark Jenkin).
Cannes Directors Fortnight. A second 4/5 stars from Bradshaw for what he calls "another eerie prose-poem of a film, about a isolated woman lost inside her own mind" and "a supremely disquieting study of solitude" from the British director of the 2019 BAIT. Laila Latif in IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/enys-men-review-1234725306/) calls it an "experimental tale of loss" and "an artfully constructed folk horror film" about "never-ending grief."

BOY FROM HEAVEN (Tarik Saleh)
Cannes. In Competition. Another 4/5 stars review from Bradshaw: "Egypt’s religious and secular institutions both breed mistrust in Tarik Saleh’s superbly realized paranoid nightmare." It's about a rural fisherman's son with a prestigious fellowship to study at Al Azhar, the ancient Islamic university in Cairo, who gets somehow embroiled in a power struggle between religious and political force when the grand imam dies; Bradshaw is reminded of John Le Carré by this undercover spy movie from the maker of 2017'S THE NILE HILTON INCIDENT (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3730&p=3750#p3750). Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/boy-from-heaven-walad-min-al-janna-review-cannes-2022-1235151144/) notes that it's a conventional thriller but in a "thrillingly unconventional setting." Filmed in Turkey and Sweden.

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TAWFEEK BARHOUM IN BOY FROM HEAVEN

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 20 additions.

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MELVIL POUPAUD, MARION COTILLARD IN BROTHER AND SISTER

BROTHER AND SISTER/FRÈRE ET SOEUR (Arnaud Deplechin).
Cannes, in Competition. This film starring Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard, already widely reviewed, is about long estranged siblings who're reunited due to their parents' demise. IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/brother-and-sister-review-marion-cotillard-arnaud-desplechin-1234727070/) says it's a "greatest hits retread" and thus a "lesser effort" from the French auteur. Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/brother-and-sister-review-marion-cotillard-1235272846/) calls it an "overwrought melodrama" explaining the attention-getting violent events it begins with. It has elements in common with Desplechin's excellent A Christmas Tale (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1161) while lacking any of its richness and charm, Variety concludes. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/20/brother-and-sister-review-cannes-2022-arnaud-desplechin), who pungently summarizes the film's plot, gives it 2/5 stars and says it "has plenty of filmmaking elan but not one line of plausible dialogue." Desplechin's auteur reputation, Cotillard's international fame, and Poupaud's suave charm will still draw French film fans. See the AlloCiné (https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=291947.html) critic rating: 4.0, 80% (though the spectator rating is 2.5). TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMpAkIekii8)

PLAN 75 (Chie Hayakawa)
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. This "Speculative sci fi" film that adds a "social realist treatment" in this Japanese international coproduction about a future time when the government routinely widely euthanizes the elderly via a voluntary program. There has been a lot of interest in the provocative subject. The Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-hidden-gem-speculative-sci-fi-gets-the-social-realist-treatment-in-plan-75-1235146800/)review just describes, doesn't assess, this unusual film that responds to hardened attitudes in Japan the first-time director says she encountered after ten years of living in New York, plus the fact that Japan has by far the world's oldest population and that puts a clearly perceived growing burden on the social system. TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12tjqwfuzDg)

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 21, CANNES DAY 5

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STILL FROM WAR PONY

WAR PONY (Riley Keough, Gina Gammell).
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. The Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/festivals/war-pony-review-riley-keough-1235271438/)review gives us a handle on this film about two Native American males at different stages (teens, early twenties), which Bradshaw's (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/war-pony-review-rousing-tale-of-love-and-money-on-a-native-american-reservation) enthusiastic 4/5 stars summary doesn't quite, when it says this is the picture Larry Clark (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3713-KEN-PARK-(Larry-Clark-2002)) would have made if he'd spent time at the Pine Ridge Reservation: "hustling, skating and stealing drugs from otherwise distracted adults," "presented without judgment." The two first-time directors "developed this unvarnished portrait in collaboration with their actors" (as Larry Clark would have done).

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING (George Miller)
Cannes. Out of Competition. Miller's first since MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015), GUARDIAN'S Xian Brooks gives it 3.5 stars, saying this "belated followup" to his previous film is "a loquacious Arabian Nights-style fantasy" and "a consciously unfashionable" one based on the short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye" by A. S. Byatt concerning "a wary academic" and "a chatty genie" that "may leave you wanting for more." Mainly a two-hander between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. After the Cannes showing it got a six-minute ovation; but it's Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/three-thousand-years-of-longing) is 59%, brought low by David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter (https://variety.com/2022/film/news/george-miller-three-thousand-years-of-longing-cannes-standing-ovation-1235272979/), who thinks it may be okay as a "palate cleanser" between FURY ROAD and the soon-to-come next MAD MAX movie, but the aa"mysteries it conjures" are "windy and academic," and lack emotional power. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/three-thousand-years-of-longing-review-tilda-swinton-and-idris-elba-in-mad-max-fairy-overload) gave it 3/5 stars too. Release date: Aug. 31, 2022. TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWGvntl9itE)

Xian Brooks in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/cannes-2022-week-one-roundup-top-gun-tom-cruise-final-cut-armageddon-time-eight-mountains) of May 21 a breezy and eloquent summary of this week's Cannes hits and roster of the ones (including the ELVIS biopic-musical, Kelly Reichardt's latest SHOWING UP, and an Iranian serial killer thriller HOLY SPIDER) coming up on the Cannes menu next week.

[Chris Knipp]

A SMALL SCOTTISH DEBUT IS A CRITICAL HIT OF DAY 5.
(MAY 21).

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FRANKIE CARO, PAUL MESCAL IN AFTERSUN

AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells).
Cannes, Critics' Week. This Scottish-born, NYC-based director's 96-minute debut feature, which MOONLIIGHT director Barry Jenkins produced, is the bittersweet reminiscence of a woman's (probably too young, certainly emotionally challenged) divorced father when they went to the seaside in Turkey twenty years earlier. Its performances by Irish actor Paul Mescal (of the much admired series "Normal People") and nine-year-old Frankie Caro have garnered raves. Carlos Aguilar in The Wrap (https://www.thewrap.com/aftersun-film-review-charlotte-wells-paul-mescal/) calls it a "heart-achingly stirring and sensorially entrancing debut feature." Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/aftersun-review-beach-holiday-with-paul-mescal-and-daughter-is-a-sunny-delight)gives it 5/5 stars and calls it "captivating" and "brilliant," describing the subtlety of the unfolding picture of memories that now mean much more than at the time. ("What a pleasure," he concludes.) Anna Smith in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/aftersun-cannes-film-review-paul-mescal-critics-week-1235029592/) says it's "absorbing" and "a terrific two-hander with engaging supporting performances." Fionnualla Halligan of Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/aftersun-cannes-review/5170803.article) says this "Marks Wells out as one of the most promising new voices in British cinema in recent years." She says "you have to go back to Lynn Ramsey to find a voice with this much potential." Sheri Linden in a lengthy review in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/paul-mescal-in-aftersun-cannes-review-1235147685/)calls this debut "sharp and tender" and "indelible" and goes into detail about the richness and subtlety of the performances, especially Mescal's. This sounds like Competition material, but its modesty seems to mark it for small release, only with more critical praise and perhaps lasting recognition.

[Chris Knipp]

ÖSTLUND'S NEW SATIRE IS POPULAR, DESPITE DETRACTORS. (MAY 21).

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CHARBI DEAN AND HARRIS DICKINSON IN TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (Ruben Östlund).
Cannes, In Competition. Critics differ sharply on this high profile new film from the Swedish director but it appears an audience favorite. Östlund this time skewers the beautiful (fashion models) and Euro super-rich, as he skewered the art world in his 2017 Palme d'Or winner, THE SQUARE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4375-New-York-Film-Festival-2017&p=36218#post36218), but this time in English. The protagonists are Charbi Dean as an "Instagram princess/model" and Harris Dickinson as her failing male model power couple partner, who go on a freebie ride on a luxury super yacht to make up after a big row. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/the-triangle-of-sadness-review-heavy-handed-satire-on-the-super-rich-loses-its-shape) likes the way the odd world of the cruise ship is conveyed but thinks the targets are messily missed and the critiques clichéd and awards a lousy 2/5 stars. The Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/triangle-of-sadness-review-ruben-ostlund-1235272762/) reviewer finds the film "wickedly funny" and admires the "meticulous precision" in the way Östlund "constructs, blocks and executes scenes"; he goes into more detail about the action, which concludes marooned on a desert island where " a Rolex is worth nothing, but it helps to be hot." Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/triangle-of-sadness-cannes-review/5170949.article) admires some scenes and some satirical points but finds this film "lacks the pitiless ironic cool" of Östlund's two previous films and is "laborious" in its "take on the excesses of capitalism." Robbie Collin of The Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2022/05/21/triangle-sadness-review-noam-chomsky-oligarchs-projectile-vomit/)gives this a 5/5 stars and calls it "the best Cannes film so far." Ben Croll of The Wrap (https://www.thewrap.com/triangle-of-sadness-review-woody-harrelson-cannes/) condemns the film as "overlong and under-stuffed" (it runs two hours and a half, including diarrhea and projectile vomiting) but says it left the "notoriously tough" Cannes audience "doubled over with laughter" - and it got a 7-8 minute standing ovation, longest so far. Given that and the director's track record, it's likely to figure at Cannes awards time, despite the detractors.
EXCERPT/TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvymi_20NVo)

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 22, CANNES DAY 6


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HOLY SPIDER

HOLY SPIDER (Ali Abbasi)
Cannes, in Competition. This Iranian film is a serial killer capture story based on fact with a feminist angle, a portrait of Iran's patriarchal society shot outside Iran, in Amman, Jordan. An ordinary family man is killing sex workers to "cleanse" the holy city of Mashhad. He is caught after strangling 16 women through the efforts of a woman journalist despite an indifferent police and legal system. The film is a mixture of "grimy, scuffed realism" with "flashier serial-killer-movie flourishes," says the Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/holy-spider-review-1235274342/)review notes; it also departs from convention not only in having an inept killer (who only succeeds because of public indifference) but in including a long follow-up of trial and public reaction. Bradshaw in the Guardian, (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/22/holy-spider-review-iranian-thriller-takes-real-case-and-makes-it-implausible) who gives it a neutral 3/5 stars, finds its mix of fact and invention winds up making real events seem unreal. IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/holy-spider-review-1234727263/) gives it a B. Fionnuala Halligan in ScreenDaily (https://account.screendaily.com//ForgottenPassword?fid=f39b1208-570e-4901-ab58-81887b25b457) admiringly calls it an "arresting Iranian noir" that "throws a dark, dark web" and is "a tough watch" that "shows how far fundamentalist morality can be twisted." No US distribution yet, and it could be a hard sell, despite much topical interest and a bold new approach for the 41-year-old Denmark-based maker of SHELLEY (2016) and BORDER (2018). TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyP8MBbzk4g&t=2s)

TROUBLE IN MIND (Ethan Coen).
Cannes, Special Screenings. While Joel was making MACBETH Ethan was making this documentary about Jerry Lee Lewis, the rock 'n roll, then country, then gospel singer who rebrandedf himself as an evangelist and is still alive at 86. It's great, says Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian, (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/22/jerry-lee-lewis-trouble-in-mind-review-ethan-coens-amazing-tribute-to-the-killer) who gives it an admiring 4/5 stars.

FOREVER YOUNG/LES AMANDIERS (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Cannes, In Competition. It's the "endlessly tedious story of self-involved drama students," reports Guardian's (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/22/forever-young-endlessly-tedious-story-of-self-involved-drama-students) Bradshaw, who gives it a miserable 2/5 stars. More specifically the setting is Patrice Chéreau's Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre in the 1980s. Chéreau was a charismatic director and promoter responsible for memorable films, L'Homme Blessé, Intimacy, His Brother, Gabrielle, and numerous important European opera productions. Les Amandiers was reportedly a very notable training ground for young actors. But as Lovia Gyarkye of Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/forever-young-les-amandiers-film-cannes-2022-1235150117/) points out, the fact that Bruni Tedeschi was a student at the school in the early Eighties makes for "a sweet but oddly circumspect film" ... "ruled by a friction between warring demands" between the "allure of wistful memories" and "the rigor of complex appraisal." Chéreau is played by Bruni Tedeschi's former squeeze Louis Garrel, says Bradshaw, "with much smouldering imperious charisma."

DIARY OF A FLEETING AFFAIR/CHRONIQUE D'UNE LIAISON PASSAGÈRE (Emanuel Mouret)
Cannes. Premieres. A single mother (Sandrine Kiberlain) and a married man (Vincent Macaigne) enter what they think will be only a passing spring affair, purely physical, no love, but they discover they have a lot in common. Mouret's 11th feature; I've reviewed 4 or 5, starting with his first, the 2007 SHALL WE KISS? (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2211-Rendez-vous-With-French-Cinema-2008&p=19434#post19434)(UN BAISER, SI'IL VOUS PLAÎt ?). That was light and charming; sometimes he's been overwrought recently, but this appears to be a return to simplicity. Perfect for English speakers of rather retro taste who want "a typically French movie." That's essentially what Lee Marshall says in his Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/diary-of-a-fleeting-affair-cannes-review/5170983.article?adredir=1)review. But Macaigne's no debonair French lover; he's nervous and insecure. Not Kiberlain though. "Too often cast as a neurotic," says Marshall, she this time "seizes with both hands not just the comedy remit but the chance to play an uncomplicatedly sex-positive modern woman who is fully in control of her life, while Macaigne is a perfect foil." But with Mouret, as a French critique in Cine Series (https://www.cineserie.com/critiques/cine/chronique-dune-liaison-passagere-lamour-manque-de-deux-amants-5129462/) points out, it's always light and on the edge of comedy, and it's all about the talk. The French see Woody Allen here.


The important films reported here today are Ruben Östlund's TRIANGLE OF SADNESS and Ali Abbasi's HOLY SPIDER.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 22, cont'd

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A STRANGER ( Thomas M. Wright)
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. An investigation into a murder in the Australian outback stars Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris. Leslie Felperin's review for Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-stranger-cannes-2022-1235152013/) describes a rearranged timeline making "more challenging than the average crime drama but also more interesting" a film that's a true-crime story that's "a stylish but sometimes ponderous meditation on male bonding, trust and identity." Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/the-stranger-review-joel-edgerton-1235270781/) calls it "an eerie, understated thriller." Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-stranger-cannes-review/5170215.article) also makes it sound appetizing, describing it as a very special mood piece, "more of a felt experience than a traditional policier" and a film that's "all about the hunt, not the crime."

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 22, cont'd

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PARK JI-MIN IN RETURN TO SEOUL

RETURN TO SEOUL (Davy Chou)
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. Chou's new film concerns a 25-year-old woman who was adopted by a French couple who on impulse returns to Seoul to explore her roots but does so with an innate "appetite for discorder," says Wendy Ide's positiveScreen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/return-to-seoul-cannes-review/5170639.article)review. The film with its shifting time-line - she meets her biological parents and revisits the country over an eight-year period, as South China Post (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3178523/cannes-2022-return-seoul-movie-review-adopted-south-korea)explains - winds up being as much a portrait of the shifting personality of Freddie (Park Ji-min)) and her appealing, yet abrasive personality in different roles (party girl, "pilled-up club kid with a tattoo artist boyfriend. . .steely businesswoman," hiker in the country's wilds) as of cultural encounters. This is the French-Cambodian filmmaker's second feature to screen at Cannes; the previous one was the 2016 DIAMOND ISLAND (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3616)(ND/NF) which I described as "A very visual film, full of night lights, fluorescent neon-pastel colors, and pretty faces: considerable formal beauty, a hypnotic mood." This looks from the still to have a similar attractive dark exoticism in some of its backgrounds. It has been bought by Sony.

[Chris Knipp]

BRADSHAW'S TOP-RATED SO FAR (at day six) - AND THE SCREEN DAILY JURY GRID

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STILL FROM TROUBLE IN MIND

Six the Guardian chief critic Peter Bradshaw has liked quite a lot, two he has found outstanding.

4/5 Four out of five stars:
ONE FINE MORNING/UN BEAU MATIN (Mia Hansen-Løve). Directors Fortnight.
CORSAGE (Marie Kreutzer). Un Certain Regard.
ENYS MAN (Mark Jenkin). Directors Fortnight.
BOY FROM HEAVEN (Tarik Saleh). In Competition.
WAR PONY (Riley Keough, Gina Gammell). Un Certain Regard.
TROUBLE IN MIND (Ethan Coen). Documentary]

5/5 Five out of five stars:
THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS.LE OTTO MONTAGNE (van Groeningen, Vandermeersch). Competition.
AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells). Critics' Week.

THE SCREEN DAILY JURY GRID

(See it online HERE (https://www.screendaily.com/news/holy-spider-divides-opinion-on-screens-cannes-jury-grid-forever-young-struggles/5171025.article).)

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JURY GRID CURRENT SUMMARY:

2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.1 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
2.1 BROTHER AND SISTER - Arnaud Desplechin
2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 22, cont'd.

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VIRGINIE EFFIRA, TAHAR RAHIM IN DON JUAN

DON JUAN (Serge Bozon).
Cannes. Premiere. An offbeat musical riff on Molière stars Tahar Rahim and Virginie Effira. As a fan of French cinema I include this, however little interest it has for the Anglophone audience, because those are two of the most popular of the "young" French movie actors. "Young" in quotes since she is 45 and he is 40. "Young radical" Serge Bozon is 49 and my knowledge of him goes back to LA FRANCE (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1034) (2007) seen at the SFIFF. Bozon and his usual cowriter Axelle Ropert present the story of an actor on his way to play in Molière's Dom Juan who runs into five different versions of the woman (Effira) who jilted him at the altar, which gives Effira a chance to show her versatility, and Rahim, Whose character gets jilted on his wedding day and goes searching, to get beat up multiple times in this feminist film with music. Allan Hunter in ScreenDaily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/don-juan-cannes-review/5170841.article) explains that Rahim is "frequently slapped, punched or rejected," and plays his part with "the bemused anguish of a rake who may recognize his failings but seems unable to transcend them." Hence "In Bozon’s version, it is Don Juan who ends up feeling seduced and abandoned." Hunter finds the use of music recalls Christophe Honoré's LOVE SONGS (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2211-Rendez-vous-With-French-Cinema-2008&p=19388#post19388), another reason this may not be for the US or UK audience, since my New York colleagues didn't seem to share my passion for that film at all. DON JUAN comes out in theaters in France May 23. DON JUAN is out in France now and the AlloCine (https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=279869.html) ratings are terrible: critics 64 (3.2), spectators 36 (1.8). TRAILER (https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19596503&cfilm=279869.html)(Omits singing)

SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING/FUMER FAIT TOUSSER (Quentin Dupieux).
Cannes. Midnight Screening. A slight effort from the French maker of absurdist, surreal comedies, says Stephen Dalton on Verdict (https://thefilmverdict.com/2022/05/22/smoking-causes-coughing/?utm_source=The+Film+Verdict&utm_campaign=6490e5d7e7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_09_07_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b645ac61ca-6490e5d7e7-216240122). This "unashamedly goofy tenth feature," his second festival premiere in three months, is a "loosely linked jumble of comic skits, splatter-horror gags and knowing riffs on nostalgic childhood TV tropes," too slight and disconnected for the kind of "warm international welcome" he earned recently for his 2019 DEERSKIN (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4746-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-2020&p=38137#post38137) and 2020 MANDIBLES (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4940-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-2021&p=39447#post39447). This one has Vincent Lacoste in it, as well as Adèle Exarchopoulos and Anaïs Demoustier. Something about fighting intergalactic villains using "the lethal chemical ingredients of cigarettes as explosive death-ray weapons." Effortless fun to watch, instantly forgotten after its lean 80 minutes. Valerie Complex of Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-review-new-quentin-dupieux-film-1235030182/) says Dupieux always has a theme and this is hating smoking.

[Chris Knipp]

#4 ON THE JURY GRID NOW: CHRISTIAN MUNGIU'S R.M.N.

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STILL FROM R.M.N.

R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu)
Cannes, In Competition.(Shown May 21). Jessica Kiang on Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/r-m-n-review-cristian-mungiu-1235274123/) praises the ruthless clarity of this "scabrous social division drama," a delineation of the social fracturing of the nation of Romania. Jordan Mintzer says in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/r-m-n-review-cannes-2022-1235151809/) says "R.M.N" is Romanian for "MRI," and that fits because this is "a full-scale brain scan" of a country "beset by multiple conflicts" including the "racial, social, political, national, ecological," and even, here anyway, the "emotional variety." This is a "slow-burn, small-town drama" set in rural Transylvania. This is, Mintzer says, typically "masterly understated filmmaking" notable for "a few stand-out sequences," especially a full-reel one in the town hall that "throws all the issues on the table" before "erupting into chaos." Mungiu won the Palme d'Or with his 2007 abortion film, and his GRADUATION (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4198-New-York-Film-Festival-2016&p=35045#post35045) (NYFF 2016) won him Best Director here. At #4 in the current Screen Daily Jury Grid, R.M.N. is a must-see to watch for. But maybe too slow in spots, says Mintzer. And Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/21/rmn-review-sickness-beneath-the-skin-as-racism-breaks-out-in-romanian-village) is less charmed, rating it a neutral 3/5 stars. He points out it's about prejudice against local Sri Lankans, and Mungiu's style "as unemphatic and low-key as ever."

R.M.N. TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDmg0mStWuI)

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 23, CANNES DAY 7 COMPETITION PREMIERES: DECISION TO LEAVE, CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, AND TORI AND LOKITA.

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PARK HAE-IL AND TANG WEI IN DECISION TO LEAVE

DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-wook)
Cannes. In Competition. It's Peter Bradshaw's second Cannes 2022 5/5 stars film, which "keeps the viewer off balance at every turn," he says in his rave Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/23/decision-to-leave-review-tang-wei-stuns-in-park-chan-wook-black-widow-noir) review. Park rocked Cannes with his lurid revenge drama OLDBOY in 2004 (I can even remember reading Anthony Lane's New Yorker review before seeing it). His last feature was HANDMAIDEN (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3495)(2016), which I waited in line to see in Paris. There was a SNOWPIERCER TV series 2020-2022. DECISION TO LEAVE begins with a police investigation of a death in the mountains. But this one is a "police procedural romance." Bradshaw notes the "deliciously manipulative plot twists," but also "tension and intrigue," "grandstanding emotional confrontations," and (not least) "ingenious use of mobile phone technology" which often messes up modern day thrillers. The Chinese star Tang Wei (of Ang Lee's LUST, CAUTION) is "magnificent" as a murder suspect unconcerned over her husband's death, whom the married, insomniac police detective (Park Hae-il) gradually falls in love with. David Rooney's Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/decision-to-leave-park-chan-wook-cannes-2022-1235152464/) review mentions Douglas Sirk, Hitchcock, and Almodóvar as sources or parallels. Rooney compliment's Park's later-stage career simultaneous mastery of complex plot, rich characters, and set designs as ingenious as they are aesthetically pleasing. David Erlich in IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/decision-to-leave-review-park-chan-wook-1234727459/)calls this "the most romantic movie of the year." The Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/decision-to-leave-review-park-chan-wook-1235275058/) review notes the "wildly satisfying ending" to this "scintillating work of genre art." This clearly looks like one of this year's most admired and enjoyed Competition films (it will go to the top of the Jury Grid).

DECISION TO LEAVE TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIenqPpZDLE) (With English subs..)

[Chris Knipp]

THE MUCH AWAITED CRONENBERG PREMIERE (MAY 23)

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VIGGO MORTENSEN, LEA SEYDOUX IN CRIMES OF THE FUTURE

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
Cannes. In Competition. Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, and Léa Seydoux star in a return to body horror set in the near future where some humans have accepted acceleration evolution, and others try to police it. Written 20 years ago, and unchanged, the 79-year-old director's first film in 8 years. Release in theaters June 3.Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/23/crimes-of-the-future-review-cronenbergs-post-pain-post-sex-body-horror-sensation) awards the film 4/5 stars and says that "as he did with 90s hit CRASH, the director creates a bizarre new society of sicko sybarites where pain is the ultimate pleasure and 'surgery is the new sex'." People perform or observe surgery for kicks. Viggo's lead character specializes in being operated on to have things taken out or put in, and Léa is his partner and live celebrity performance surgeon. Kristen is a peripheral inspector figure. The script is a bit "undercooked" and everything doesn't really come together at the end, says David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter. (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/crimes-of-the-future-david-cronenberg-viggo-mortensen-lea-seydoux-cannes-2022-1235146944/) It "coiuld do with a scalpel" says Jordan Farley of Total Film. (https://www.gamesradar.com/crimes-of-the-future-review-cannes-2022/) But Cronenberg has his own unique metaphorical take on the horror movie, says the Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/crimes-of-the-future-review-viggo-mortensen-lea-seydoux-david-cronenberg-1235273935/)review. "None of it makes a lick of sense," says AV Club's (https://www.avclub.com/crimes-of-the-future-review-david-cronenberg-viggo-mort-1848963602) Jordan Hoffman, "but there's a surreal flow...that carries you from scene to scene." Not particularly geared for a pandemic world; but why should it have to be? "it’s an extraordinary planet that Cronenberg lands us down on," concludes Bradshaw, "and insists we remove our helmets before we’re quite sure we can breathe the air." The Metascore (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/crimes-of-the-future)at present is a so-so 72%. We'll see where the Jury Grid places it; probably midway.

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_bbLcJAHEo)

[Chris Knipp]

GASPARD ULLIEL'S LAST SCREEN APPEARANCE (MAY 21)

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GASPARD ULLIEL, VICKY KRIEPS IN MORE THAN EVER

MORE THAN EVER/PLUS QUE JAMAIS (Émily Atef)
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. This "steady and stirring film" by the French-Iranian director (MOLLY'S WAY, 3 DAYS IN QUIBERON), as Lovia Gyarkye calls it in an admiring Hollywood Reporter) (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/more-than-ever-plus-que-jamais-film-cannes-2022-1235151752/) review, features Vicky Krieps with Gaspard Ulliel in his last screen appearance. Ulliel died in a tragic ski accident in January at the age of 37. Here he plays the husband of a woman wasting away from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which gives her only a few years to live. Hélène and Matthieu (Vicky and Gaspard) have a strong bond nurtured over many years. Because things have gone badly of late and the situation is so different, Hélène makes an "existential" decision to take a solo trip to Norway to meet a blogger, to find peace and reconnect with the couple's powerful love. Sadness and silences are powerful here, says Gyarkye, and a sense of Matthieu coming to terms with impending loss. This made me think of Rodolphe Marconi's 2004 The Last Day, released the same year as Gaspard's César-winning turn in A Long Engagement. That film too is about silences and tragedy. It's sad and ironic that Gaspard Ulliel's last role was as someone coming to terns with the impending loss of someone dearly loved. Nikki Braughan in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/more-than-ever-cannes-review/5170655.article)admires the film's "messy realism," its detail in considering not in soft focus but up close, frankly and unsentimentally, what it's like at the end. But it's Stephen Dalton in his review for Verdict (https://thefilmverdict.com/2022/05/23/more-than-ever/) who seems to grasp the solemnity of this moment and speaks most eloquently of Ulliel's accomplishments. He notes the tenderness of this performance is unusual, More Than Ever features one of Ulliel’s most tender performances — "an anomaly in the career of a beautiful and gifted actor," who, "with his Alain Delon-esque features, grave voice and searing presence" would make you "do a double-take as soon as he walked on screen," and was more known for playing "sinister villains like Hannibal Lector" or "tortured creators like Yves Saint-Laurent." The film is "not a downer" but ultimately life-affirming. Ulliel is "touching and memorable as a man" who ultimately can't quite enter his dying partner's "headspace." But this is Krieps movie; and Ulliel is gone from it for a long period, returning in person only at the end. Atef gives a brief interview (https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19596744&cfilm=291970.html) about what a pleasure it was to work with Ulliel. The film comes out in France Nov. 9, 2022.

MORE THAN EVER TEASER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ3Q31RyZHA)

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 8 (MAY 24): THE DARDENNE BROTHERS IN FINE FORM

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TORI AND LOKITA (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Cannes. In Competition. Story of a young boy and an adolescent girl who have emigrated from Africa to Belgium, and must face up to the challenges of their exile. Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/tori-and-lokita-review-the-dardenne-brothers-1235275372/) says the Dardennes are "back on form" and the film is a tale of "wily immigrant kids scrambling for survival" that is "a parable of the age of economic injustice." Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/tori-and-lokita-cannes-review/5171093.article) says this is "at the very least" "their finest since 2011's THE KID WITH THE BIKE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26873#post26873) and arguably one of their very best." In a story that is evidently typically well-researched for authenticity, the two youths are forced into desperate measures, including pretending to be siblings and drug dealing, to survive as they struggle to establish residency in the Dardennes' usual locales in Solvaing and around Liège. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/24/tori-and-lokita-review-clarity-of-purpose-in-the-dardennes-parable-of-the-dispossessed), who awards only a neutral 3/5 stars, thinks this a continued falling off of the brothers' work, noting some crude narrative devices, and "there are sometimes issues with basic plot naivety and plausibility," marring the artistry and detracting from the good research. (It will wind up midway on the Jury Grid, at 2.5 along with TRIANGLE OF SADNESS AND R.M.N.)

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 24: TWO DOCUMENTARIES

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STRILL FROM MOONAGE DREAM

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (Brett Morgan)
Cannes. Out of Competition. This lengthy, kalaidescopic new documentary by Brett Morgan, who previously did ones on Curt Cobain and the Rolling Stones, is a "glorious, shapeshifting eulogy to David Bowie," writes the Guardian's (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/24/moonage-daydream-review-david-bowie-brett-morgen-cannes) Bradshaw, who gives it his third 5/5 stars top rating at 2022 Cannes. It's about his public personas, creativity, and art, and does not touch on his private life. Bradshaw says on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jolpdT8aCf4) it sent him into "an extended two-and-a-half-hour swoon"and is "absolutely brilliant." David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/moonage-daydream-brett-morgen-david-bowie-doc-1235150193/) admires this film's "incredible wraparound sound treatment," but finds a huge gap between that and Bowie's interviews, which are mere "blather." Fionnuala Halligan in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/moonage-daydream-cannes-review/5170416.article) finds the doc "dizzying" and "a sensory voyage." IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/moonage-daydream-review-david-bowie-documentary-1234727860/) says it's an unapologetic sound and light show, influenced by avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, with special big-screen presentations essential.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION (Sergei Loznitsa)
Cannes, Premiere Section. Taking its title from a 1999 book by German writer W.G. Sebald. The Ukrainian feature filmmaker (MY JOY, IN THE FOG) uses an "unprecedented trove of archival footage" to "re-examine the strategic bombing campaign of Allied forces in Germany during the Second World War," a campaign aimed to destroy both war resources and morale. Loznitsa, whose BABA YAR, CONTEXT doc won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes last year, considers whether the use of the civilian population in war is morally defensible, Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/news/ukraine-sergei-loznitsa-natural-history-of-destruction-trailer-1235274117/) explains. Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/24/the-natural-history-of-destruction-review-a-harrowing-account-of-aerial-warfare-sergei-loznitsa)(3/5 stars) says this topic could not be more "brutally relevant" in the wake of Russia's current war on Ukraine. This history is "not natural," and that's the point, says Bradshaw.

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STILL FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION

JURY GRID CURRENT SUMMARY:

3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.5 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.1 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
2.1 BROTHER AND SISTER - Arnaud Desplechin
2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
An updated Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/news/decision-to-leave-lands-top-of-screen-cannes-jury-grid-crimes-of-the-future-in-fourth/5171086.article) article about their Jury Gird shows Park Chan-wook's DECISION TO LEAVE has jumped to the top, pushing down James Gray's ARMAGEDDON TIME one; Cronenberg's CRIMES OF THE FUTURE has lodged down with the 2.5's, below the top 3.

[Chris Knipp]

SOME EARLIER SCREENINGS (OUT OF COMPETITION; PREMIERE; DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT). FRENCH FILMS ABOUT VIOLENCE, TERRORISM, AND CRIME.

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BENOIT MAGIMEL, VIRGINIE EFFIRA IN REVOIR PARIS

MAY 20
NIGHT OF THE 12TH/LA NUIT DU 12 (Dominik Moll)
Cannes, Out of Competition. French crime & investigation film, sort of a more intimate ZODIAC, says Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter. (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-night-of-the-12th-la-nuit-du-12-review-cannes-2022-1235145037/). Moll has done some arthouse hits, notably the 2000 dark comedy WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY. Lisa Nesselson in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-12th-cannes-review/5170585.article) calls this "a deft and satisfying police procedural." The investigation show "there are men with an exaggerated sense of their own attractiveness," as well as that there are women who "apparently enjoy being called names and treated roughly in the sack."

MAY 21
PARIS MEMORIES/ REVOIR PARIS (Anne Winocour)
Cannes, Directors' Fortnight. Film about the aftermath of Paris terrorism. A woman retraces her steps that night to try to come to terms with her traumatic memories of fictional event inspired by the Bataclan concert hall attack of November 2015, which Winocour's own brother survive. Stars Virginie Effira, already seen at this Cannes in Don Juan with Tahar Rahim. The film includes some nice Parisian panoramas, says Jordan Mintzer in another Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/paris-memories-revoir-paris-review-cannes-2022-1235152166/) review, but is mostly about Mia (Effira), who leaves Paris for a while, then comes back to cope, with her surgeon boyfriend, played by Claire Denis regular Gregoire Colin. Mia is fighting to recover memories because she blacked out.Through a support group Mia develops a relationship with a fellow victim, Thomas (a gnarly, fun Benoît Magimel). Story doesn't "pop" till the end, but thenl, does, Mintzer says.

MAY 22
NOVEMBER/NOVEMBRE (Cédric Jiminez)
Cannes, Out of Competition. A fact-based film about the Nov. 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, this, says Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/november-novembre-review-cannes-2022-1235149321/), is "The kind of thriller that’s so caught up in its breathless, relentless race against the clock, it never fully stops to consider what it’s trying to say." Other reviews confirm November has some force as a police procedural, but its strict police POV account lacks the depth that is direly needed for an event that still leaves the French nation shaken. Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/november-review-novembre-1235274809/) suggests the film is a call to complacency. No carnage is shown, though 130 were killed that night by the terrorists. Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/novembre-november-film-review-cannes-cedric-jimenez-jean-dujardin-1235030126/) (Damon Wise) is fairly neutral. Since the killings, which non-French aren't so aware of, are not shown, the film seems unlikely to play well abroad. The Cannes press conference (https://www.festival-cannes.com/fr/festival/web-tv/channel/conferences-de-presse)shows Jiminez sees the film as a complex procedural with patriotic overtones.

MAY 24
OUR BROTHERS/NOS FRANGINS (Rachid Bouchareb)
Cannes, Premieres. Is based on a real life event, the death of young Malik Oussekine as a result of police violence in the center of Paris during huge protests against a university reform bill during the night of 5-6 December 1986. Bouchareb focuses in his work on abuse of Arabs in French society. He combines documentary and fiction here, writes Fabien Lemercier in Cineuropa (https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/425878/), making ample use of photo and film files. A similar focus oon French colonialism is found at Cannes this year in Philippe Faucon's LES HARKIS about Algerian soldiers who were used and abandoned during and after the Algerian war. "A sobering story" that "needs no embellishment," wrote Tim Grierson in his Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/our-brothers-cannes-review/5171083.article) review.

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STILL FROM OUR BROTHERS/NOS FRANGINS

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 24. ITALIAN COMPETITION FILM

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FRANCESCO DI LEVA, PIERFRANCESCO FAVINO IN NOSTALGIA

NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
Cannes, In Competition. An Italian film! We get so few of them here. This adaptation of Ermanno Rea’s novel is about coming home to a specific quarter of Naples, the impoverished, crime-ridden Rione Sanità, at 55 after being gone since the age of 15, and deciding to stay. The protagonist, played by Pierfrancesco Favino, has settled in Cairo, switched to mainly speaking Arabic, married (someone), and may even have converted to Islam, yet wants to connect with his youthful "brother" (Tommaso Ragno), who is now head of an evil gang everyone warns him against. Departing from the director's sumptuous period pieces that became uninvolving, this is a very watchable, "straightforward, thriller-esque drama," writes Hollywood Reporter's Lovia Gyarkye , who finds it will play well outside Italy. She thinks the nostalgia theme is pushed too hard, but Lee Marshall in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/nostalgia-cannes-review/5171115.article) calls the film a "passionate contemporary ghost story." Favino is known to us as Mafia informer Tommaso Buscetta in Marco Bellocchio’s epic The Traitor/Il traditore (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4679-New-York-Film-Festival-2019&p=37925#post37925) (NYFF 2019), but the critics see flaws, one being that Favino's character's adult past remains too mysterious so in the "ghost story," he is a ghost. But Deborah Young in The Verdict (https://thefilmverdict.com/2022/05/25/nostalgia/?utm_source=The+Film+Verdict&utm_campaign=d742d7cc26-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_09_07_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b645ac61ca-d742d7cc26-216240122)calls it "one of Martone's most accessible works" and is enthusiastic about the film's depth of acting, polished editing and "astonishing locations." Th Guardian's Bradshaw, reviewing it May 26, gives it 4/5 stars and says it's "Tremendously shot and terrifically acted." He describes the film engagingly, but says it "teeters on the edge of something special" but satisfies itself with something generic but "still very good."

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9

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Leah Mondesir Simmons, Eva-Arianna Baxter as young versions of the girls in The Silent Twins. Photo: Jakub Kijowski/Focus Features

THE SILENT TWINS (Agnieszka Smoczyńska)
Cannes, Un Certain Regard. Tim Grierson of Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-silent-twins-cannes-review/5171136.article)calls this based on fact tale of Welsh twin sisters June and Jennifer Gibbons who speak only to each other "A willfully challenging, sometimes abrasive drama." Bradshaw gives it 4/5 stars in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/25/the-silent-twins-review-june-jennifer-gibbons-agnieszka-smoczynska) ("well acted, disturbing"). This is a true story - there is a 1994 BBC documentary - about twin girls in Wales with a speech impediment who are withdrawn, strange, and violent, turning to crime. (Story on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi1_S95620k).) They had artistic (literary) ambitions and did a lot of writing (one self-published a novel); were committed to various institutions; spoke in their own "language." Interesting but creepy tale well dramatized in this Polish-UK production. "An engrossing, well-acted story," writes Bradshaw, "disturbing but also tender and sad." Letitia Wright (BLACK PANTHER) will bring star power to the role of one of the adult twins, and especially toward the end, Grierson says, "it is hard not to be moved by Smoczynska’s uncompromising approach."

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9

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STILL FROM LEILA'S BROTHERS

LEILA'S BROTHERS (Saeed Roustayi)
Cannes. In Competition. This film revolves around the parasitic, misogynistic male relatives of a woman (Taraneh Alidoosti of THE SALESMAN) who supports them. Bradshaw in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/25/leilas-brothers-review-one-woman-five-misogynistic-parasites-in-fierce-iranian-drama) gives it 4/5 stars and calls it a "fierce Iranian drama." Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/leilas-brothers-review-cannes-2022-1235146844/) says Roustayi (or Roustaee? سعید روستایی), who's 32, made one of the most complex crime dramas for the big screen, JUST 6.5, but it hasn't been released in the US. The current picture is a busy, complex portrait of moral corruption and and economy "forever teetering on the brink of disaster." With this third feature, in Competition at Cannes, will bring the young filmmaker wider recognition. The woman supports four useless brothers and her father, "a whining, self-pitying schemer, addicted to opium," Bradshaw explains, who wants to become "'patriarch' of his extended clan," which will bring financial perks. The film is fueled by the "simmering rage" of Leila toward the "contemptible mediocrity" of the lazy, preening males in her family. The film, a compendium of rivalries and frauds, is "Like a massive 19th century novel by Zola or Dickens condensed into a three-hour story," says Mintzer. This sounds like something exciting and new from Iran, bolder, more out there, and more monumental and complex in construction than any other Iranian filmmaker - the work of a new generation, says Variety's (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/leilas-brothers-review-baradaran-e-leila-1235277080/) critic, who calls it "dense and demanding."
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SAEED ROUSTANYI

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9

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AUSTIN BUTLER IN ELVIS

ELVIS (Baz Lurhmann)
Cannes. Out of Competition. Austin Butler plays Elvis; Tom Hanks the Colonel, Maggie Gyllenhaal Elvis' mother, Kodi Smit-McPhee Jimmy Rogers, Kelvin Harrison Jr. B.B. King. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (who gives it a lousy 2/5 stars) is very disappointed the film follows a "defanged" script that doesn't show Presley's dysfunctional sides. If you like Luhrmann's "signature brash, glitter-bomb maximalism," says David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter, (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/elvis-baz-luhrmann-cannes-2022-1235152957/) it's pretty great, and by the way it received a 10-minute standing ovation at the premiere, allegedly this year's longest at Cannes so far. (Variety says it was 12 minutes; these figures tend to vary.) Rooney says that "if the writing too seldom measures up to the astonishing visual impact, the affinity the director feels for his showman subject is both contagious and exhausting." Without the interesting omitted details, says Bradshaw, this is "just another exercise in Elvis impersonation, its upper lip twitching to no purpose." And it puts the callousness on the Colonel, and makes the Republican Elvis a liberal. Mix the views out with Joshua Rothkopf's rave in Entertainment (https://ew.com/movies/movie-reviews/elvis-baz-luhrmann-austin-butler/), and Robbie Collin's and Clarisse Loughrey's high praise in The Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/elvis-review-cant-help-falling-love-baz-luhrmanns-jukebox-epic/) and The Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/elvis-review-movie-austin-butler-b2087479.html) respectively, and you get the MetaCritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/elvis/critic-reviews)rating: 61%. The film comes out in theaters June 24, 2022. The trailer makes you want to see it, and at the same time think maybe you already have.

ELVIS TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBDLRvjHVOY)

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AUSTIN BUTLER, TOM HANKS IN ELVIS

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes: LA JAURÍA Tops Critics' Week Prizes
The film from Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido earned the Grand Prize, the top award in the Cannes sidebar.

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LA JAURÍA (Andrés Ramírez Pulido)I
Cannes. Critics' Week/Semaine de la critique. Awarded Critics' Week Grand Prize. The French Touch Jury Prize weht to Charlotte Wells' AFTERSUN, which Bradshaw admired so much. Jonathan Holland in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/la-jauria-cannes-review/5170313.article) describes LA JAURÍA's setting: "a[n experimental] reform school for young offenders set deep in the Colombian jungle, far from the scenes of their crimes." The film "mashes up potent atmospherics" with "thriller and classical tragedy elements" to form "a brooding, troubling whole," Holland says. Stephanie Bunbury explains in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/la-jauria-film-review-cannes-1235031462/) this plays is "an open prison," but "run like a cult" by "a remote boss" who's using these "juvenile prisoners" as "cheap labor to turn the hacienda into a spa hotel." The film is "a finely calibrated mix of recognizable social realism and dystopian weirdness." She also finds this film "pays tribute" to Alejandro Landes' "remarkable 2019 film MONO, "about a cult of teenage warriors who are trained in the Colombian mountains by a cabal of maniacs." "Kids at war; kids in prison," many "high as kites." "LA JAURÍA is grim going," she concludes," but it really is a very special film."

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9: CLAIRE DENIS' 2ND-EVER COMPETITION ENTRY

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JOE ALWYN, MARGARET QUALLEY IN STARS AT NOON

STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
Cannes. In Competition. "Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn work up a sweat in Claire Denis' seductive Latin American escapade," reports Variety. (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/stars-at-noon-review-margaret-qualley-joe-alwyn-claire-denis-1235277208/) In the film, which Quailey carries, she's an American journalist in Nicaragua who lies on a hotel bed having intercourse with a young officer, pining for more romantic times, like those of Graham Greene, perhaps. Denis is updating the 1984 Denis Johnson novel The Stars at Noon to the present Covid era and shows that "young rebels — and officials, and outlaws, and shady international oilmen, and drifters who don’t know exactly what they are — can still be very sexy indeed," especially when played with "teasing, taciturn, ten-drinks-down chemistry by performers as gorgeous as Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn." The BBC (https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220525-the-stars-at-noon-review-a-beguiling-immersive-film) calls this "a beguiling, immersive film" that's "beautifully made," even if "its plot drifts in places." David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/stars-at-noon-claire-denis-cannes-2022-1235154017/) notes Cannes has slighted Denis: this is only her second Competition slot since CHOCOLAT. But sadly, says Rooney, this is one of her "least interesting films," with "unpersuasive" lead performances" and overall "almost perversely lacking in dramatic tension or in momentum." Writing for Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/stars-at-noon-review-cannes-claire-denis-margaret-qualley-1235032926/), Todd McCarthy also uses the word "unpersuasive," plus "listless." Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/stars-at-noon-review-benny-safdie-claire-denis-drama-nicaraguan) finds STARS' languidness turns to lethargy, and its leads lack chemistry and conviction. Alas, the Cannes selection committee should have brought her in for 35 SHOTS OF RUM or HIGH LIFE instead of this and she'd have had a much better chance at the Palm.

[Chris Knipp]

JURY GRID UPDATED - MAY 25, MAY 26

(Screen Daily article (https://www.screendaily.com/news/nostalgia-secures-joint-third-place-on-screens-cannes-jury-grid-tori-and-lokita-struggles-to-shine/5171147.article))

DECISION TO LEAVE is at the top. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE and NOSTALGIA have been given positions high up. LEILA'S BROTHERS and STARS AT NOON aren't rated yet.
[/SIZE]


3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.7 NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.1 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER (Arnaud Desplechin)
2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (Vandermeersh, Groeningen)
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

Since then (as of Thurs., May 26) TORI AND LOKITA has moved up to 2.7 and NOSTALGIA has moved to the middle of the pack (2.5), while LEILA'S BROTHERS got a "middling" score of 2.3. DECISION TO LEAVE and ARMAGEDDON TIME remain in first and second place on the Grid. Coming titles: PACIFICTION (Albert Serra), BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda - in Korean this time!), CLOSE (Lukas Dhont), SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt), and MOTHER AND SON (Eleanor Serraille).

(May 26 Screen Daily article (https://www.screendaily.com/news/middling-scores-for-leilas-brothers-stars-at-noon-on-screens-cannes-jury-grid/5171204.article))



3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.7 TORI AND LOKITA (Jeanne-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
2.5 NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.3 LEILA'S BROTHERS (Saeed Roustayi)
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER (Arnaud Desplechin)
2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (Vandermeersh, Groeningen)
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 10, MAY 26: KORE-EDA COMPETITION FILM

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SCENE FROM KORE-EDA'S BROKER

BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda)
Cannes. In Competition. Gets a miserable 2/5 stars from Bradshaw of The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/broker-review-kore-eda-gets-the-tone-all-wrong-in-sudsy-korean-baby-adoption-tale), who calls this child adoption tale "sudsy" and says he "gets the tone all wrong." Bradshaw acknowledges Kore-eda's a kind of heir to Ozu (though he himself prefers a nod to Naruse), and that he's "rightly revered. But the Japanese master has "a sweet tooth for whimsy and sentimentality" also shown in LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, which comes out here, says Bradshaw, who thinks this film "silly," "shallow," and "not a single word of it" "really believable.". But Tim Grierson in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/broker-cannes-review/5171214.article) finds it "sensitive and compassionate," and that seems to be a widespread critics' view, admiring, respectful, not hugely enthusiastic of the film as a film in Kore-eda's oeuvre. Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or in 2018 for SHOPLIFTERS. This is about a black market business of selling abandoned babies. It's illegal, but this time the wrongdoers are closer to being do-gooders and claim to be so. Ben Croll in The Wrap (https://www.thewrap.com/broker-review-hirokazu-kore-eda-cannes/)calls the film "fine but not too memorable." In Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/broker-hirokazu-koreeda-cannes-2022-1235154570/) David Rooney is admiring, but admits some later story twists are "incongruously movie-ish."

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 26 CONTINUED: ALBERT SERRA COMPETITION FILM

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BENOIT MAGIMEL IN PACIFICATION

PACIFICTION / TOURMENT SUR LES ÎLES (Albert Serra).
Cannes. In Competition. After previous experiences with Serra (who has never had a film in Competition at Cannes before, by the way), I would have the strongest doubts, but Bradshaw of The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/pacifiction-review-trouble-in-paradise-in-apocalyptic-tahitian-mystery) (who gives it 4/5 stars) fell under the spell of this sure, slow-moving portrait of colonial evil - or as he calls it "cheese-dream of French imperial tristesse, political paranoia and an apocalyptic despair," starring Benoît Magimel. The glamorously decadent-looking Magimel seems like a good start. Bradshaw says he "seems to be morphing into Gérard Depardieu before our eyes"; does he know Magimel played Depardieu's son in the 2016-2018 French TV series "Marseille"? The setting is Tahiti, part of French Polynesia. Magimel is the High Commissioner. A club-owning pal is the "reliably unsettling" Sergi López of WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY. There is hocus-pocus about nuclear testing and about the High Commissioner's departure. Serra leaves the period costumes of Casanova and Louis XIV behind here for the present day. In his Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/pacifiction-cannes-review/5171237.article) review Lee Marshall briefly contrasts this Tahiti with the drabber one of Claire Denis's "challengingly opaque" 2004 The Intruder. Will this have some of that magic? With its "almost three-hour running time, dreamlike pacing and wafer-thin plot," this film isn't going to "light up the cineplexes." But would we like it? Maybe. In Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-review-benoit-magimel-in-albert-serras-pacifiction-1235033453/) Pete Hammond says it "works on many levels," and seems somewhat natively appreciative.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 10 MAY 26: DHONT COMPETITION FILM


Competition films still to be covered:
CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt)
MOTHER AND SON (Léonor Serraille)

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GUSTAV DE WAELE AND EDEN DAMBRINE IN CLOSE

CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
Cannes. In Commpetition. Young Belgian director Dhont won the 2018 Cannes Camera d’Or for best debut (as Léonor Serraille did the year before) and the Queer Palm for GIRL, about a trans woman who wants to dance ballet with the other girls, which I saw then and described in my Paris movie journal (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4068) as "a frustratingly restricted but brilliant and memorable film." I barely remember it now, though. (His choice of a cis-male actor to play the trans lead was criticized in trans and LGBTQ circles.) The new film concerns two 13-year-old very very close best friend boys - Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele) - whose bond of idyllic, apparently asexual, intimacy and affection is gradually broken when they go to secondary school because its intense physicality is found by others to be inappropriate. Whether one or the other or both or neither is gay is never shown (Dhont himself is openly gay). Léo, the more demonstrably "in love" (and the main protagonist) is the strongest to turn against the relationship. The Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/close-review-1235277094/) review says CLOSE is "so subtle and sensitive in the first half, so devastatingly false from its tragic twist on" (I won't list that "twist" as they do) and concludes Dhont, who is still only 31, "has a masterpiece in him," but "there’s an immaturity to his movies that he must first overcome." Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/close-is-a-exquisite-tale-of-childhood-heartbreak-cannes-review-20220526/) ("A-") doesn't mention the twist at all and admires the "euphoric joy" of the scenes showing the boys' friendship before, in school, pressure causes Léo to break away from Rémi. David Erlich in IndieWire (https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/close-review-lukas-dhont-1234728513/) like Variety's critic thinks Dhont, though very gifted, still has some growing up to do, and takes the easy way out and misses out in subtlety in his second film's second half (he gives it a B-). Wendy Ide in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/close-cannes-review/5171228.article), plainly taken by the film, focuses on "knockout performances," particularly by Dambrine, direction "of uncommon sensitivity" and the film's "intimate" scope but "considerable emotional wallop." Veteran critic Leslie Felperin, writing in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/close-review-cannes-2022-1235154654/), is also extremely admiring.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 10 MAY 26: LOUIS GARREL'S 'INNOCENT'

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GARREL, ZEM, AND MERLANT IN THE INNOCENT

THE INNOCENT/L'INNOCENT (Louis Garrel).
Cannes. Out of Competition. A "delicate blend of fraught family comedy, parodic heist flick and meta thesp commentary" an earlier Phil Hoad Guardian (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-review-louis-garrel-comedy-1235033347/) interview piece reported, and it's "flat out entertaining and full of droll irony and belly laughs. This is Garrel's fourth outing as feature film director. I haven't seen his 3rd, The Crusade, and it's hard to come by. Tim Grierson in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-innocent-cannes-review/5171161.article) calls L'Innocent "a contrived charmer full of fizzy pleasures" and "filled with goofy good cheer." We may need that. The plot line concerns a protective son (Garrel) who objects to his mother (Anouk Grinberg) marrying a career criminal (Roschdy Zem), then decides "an occasional heist" might not be a bad idea, "bring some spice to his [own] life." Garrel is his alter ego Abel again, and this time he has a "zesty rapport" with his 'best friend,' Clémence (Noémie Merlant), with whom he's working things out. It's all fun, but Garrel thends to "overdo the story’s playful ludicrousness" a bit, undercutting the real emotions, Grierson says. The Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/the-innocent-review-louis-garrels-crime-comedy-romance-caper-is-breezy-elegant-fun-cannes-20220526/) calls THE INNOCENT "breezy, elegant, and fun." Valerie Complex in her Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-review-louis-garrel-comedy-1235033347/) review calls it "flat-out entertaining.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES MAY 27, DAY 11, LAST TWO COMPETITION FILMS

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AHMED SYLLA IN UN PETIT FRÈRE

MOTHER AND SON/UN PETIT FRÈRE (Léonor Serraille)
Cannes. Competition. Bradshaw gives it 4/5 stars in his Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/27/mother-and-son-review-cannes-film-festival) review, mainly for the excellent acting, especially Annabelle Lengronne as the mother, Rose, who is praised by everybody. A meditative recollection, ranging from 1989 to 2005, of a son who emigrated to France with his older brother and "wayward mother" from Ivory Coast in the nineties. Léonor Serraille won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 2017 for her debut film about a ditsy lady, JEUNE FEMME/MONTPARNASSE BIENVENUE (which I saw twice, and found skillful but implausible, unworthy of the Caméra d'Or). This seems something more solid. The common thread is the messy, irresponsible woman, this time the recollected mother whose children do well in spite of her promiscuity and irresponsible behavior while working as a hotel cleaner. Stephanie Bunbury in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2022/05/cannes-mother-and-son-review-leonor-serraille-director-1235034654/) thinks the film seems too researched at times, "a dossier of the immigrant experience." This film is about African immigrant experience by a young white woman; Serraille has degrees in comparative literature from the Sorbonne and in scenario writing from La Fémis, the state film school. Fabien Mercier in Cineropa (https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/426044/) calls LE PETIT FRÈRE "a subtly crafted work" and singles out its "sophisticated screenplay" for manipulating a complex timeline and three POV's. After JEUNE FEMME I'm dubious, but this would clearly merit a watch.

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 27, CANNES DAY 11: KELLY REICHARDT'S FOURTH COLLABORATION WITH MICHELLE WILLIAMS

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MICHELLE WILLIAMS IN SHOWING UP

SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt)
Cannes. In Competition. Features Michelle Williams as a sculptor assembling a gallery show in the "outsidery-y" artistic community of contemporary Portland, Oregon in what Rodrigo Perez in The Playlist (https://theplaylist.net/showing-up-review-kelly-reichardt-captivates-with-a-warm-comical-look-at-the-world-of-arts-crafts-cannes-20220527/) thinks "one of Reichardt’s most playful, warm, sweet, and funny works," and another of her oblique statements about political and emotional survival in America. Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/showing-up-review-michelle-williams-kelly-reichardt-1235278695/) points to this as the best with Williams since WENDY AND LUCY (of four collaborations). In The Guardian, (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/27/showing-up-review-kelly-reichardts-indie-art-drama-is-downbeat-but-diverting)Bradshaw is not so entranced (3/5 stars) and finds SHOWING UP "downbeat but diverting" and sees the action as "torpid," the dialogue as "murmured." He finds this film "a bit studied and passionless" especially compared with the previous one, the (I think) very subtle and touching FIRST COW (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4679-New-York-Film-Festival-2019&p=37917#post37917). David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/showing-up-michelle-williams-kelly-reichardt-cannes-2022-1235150987/) would disagree: he calls this "a gorgeous reflection on making art," an " unpolished jewel of a film." The warmth of FIRST COW has lingered, and I'll want to see this new movie, whose milieu sounds close to home.

[Chris Knipp]

DAY 11 JURY GRID UPDATE

PACIFICTION landed mid-pack with 2.6; Kore-eda's BROKER tanked at 1.9; and CLOSE fell below Serra's film with 2.4. Kelly Reichardt's SHOWING UP and Leonor Serraille's MOTHER AND SON remain to be graded by the poll.

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JURY GRID CURRENT SUMMARY:

3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.7 TORI AND LOKITA - Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE - David Cronenberg
2.6 PACIFICTION - Albert Serra
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.5 NOSTALGIA - Mario Martone
2.4 CLOSE - Lukas Dhont
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
2.0 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER - Arnaud Desplechin
1.9 STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
1.9 BROKER - Hirakazu Kore-eda
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

[Chris Knipp]

MORE ON THE LAST DAY: A GAY TALE FROM MOROCCO

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LUBNA AZABAL AND SALEH BAKRI IN THE BLUE CAFTAN

THE BLUE CAFTAN/LE BLEU DU CAFTAN (Maryam Touzani)
Cannes. Un Certain Regard. The Moroccan director is back in Un Certain Regard after being reviewed favorably by Deborah Young in Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/adam-1212273/) for her 2019 debut there, ADAM (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4625-CANNES-Festival-2019&p=37615#post37615), about a small bakery owner who rescues an unwed pregnant woman. This time her subject is the triangle of a gay tailor, his assistant, and his accepting wife in a Salé medina shop where the man must hide his true sexuality. Jonathan Romney showers this film with praise in Screen Daily (https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-blue-caftan-cannes-review/5170993.article), calling it "beautifully textured," "an elegant artisanal film" and a "superbly acted and emotionally resonant offering." In his Hollywood Reporter (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/blue-caftan-cannes-2022-1235142967/) review, David Rooney calls it "a film of exquisite sensuality and sadness."

UN CERTAIN REGARD AWARDS TO THE WORST ONES, JOYLAND, CORSAGE

At the awards Jury President Valeria Golino gave a little mentioned French film called LES PIRES/THE WORST ONES by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret the top prize. THE WORST ONES is "a playful film-within-a-film about the challenges and perils of street casting." It's more about how using non-actors culled from a poor "cité" can be more exploitive than beneficial. a review in A Moveable Feast (https://moveablefest.com/les-pires-worst-ones/) explains. This may mean THE WORST ONES is in line for the prize for best first film, the Caméra d'Or. The runner up was the Pakistani film JOYLAND, which was a popular favorite. The acting prize went to another favorite, praised by critics like Variety's (https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/corsage-review-1235270514/) Jessica Kiang: Vicky Krieps for her performance as the Hapsburg Empress Elisabeth in Austria in Marie Kreuzer's CORSAGE, a Variety (https://variety.com/2022/film/festivals/un-certain-regard-awards-the-worst-ones-vicky-krieps-1235279964/) article explains.

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TIMEO MAHAUT IN THE WORST ONES

[Chris Knipp]

MAY 28, CANNES DAY 12 - JURY GRID COMPLETED

The last two Competition films - SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt) and MOTHER AND SON/UN PETIT FRÈRE (Léonor Serraille) - have been added to the Screen Daily Jury Grid. SHOWING UP scored 2.7, tying it for third position with the Dardenne brothers' TORI AND LOKITA. MOTHER AND SON got 2.4, tying it in the middle with Lukas Dhont's CLOSE. So the winner is Park Chan-wook's DECISION TO LEAVE. This is a good picture of the journalists' reactions to the Competition films, but not a prediction of the top awards to be granted by the Competition Jury presided over by Vincent Lindon.

JURY GRID FINAL SUMMARY:

3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
2.7 TORI AND LOKITA - Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2.7 SHOWING UP - Kelly Reichardt
2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE - David Cronenberg
2.6 PACIFICTION - Albert Serra
2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
2.5 NOSTALGIA - Mario Martone
2.4 CLOSE - Lukas Dhont
2.4 MOTHER AND SON/UN PETIT FRÈRE - Léonor Serraille
2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
2.0 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER - Arnaud Desplechin
1.9 STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
1.9 BROKER - Hirakazu Kore-eda
1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES AWARDS

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STILL FROM TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Palme d’Or: TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (Ruben Östlund)
Grand Prix: (tie) CLOSE (Lukas Dhont) and STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
Jury Prize: (tie): THE EIGHTH MOUNTAIN (Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen) and EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Best Actress: Zar Amir Ebrahami, HOLY SPIDER (Ali Abbasi)
Best Actor: Song Kang-Ho, BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda)
Best Director: Park Chan-wook, DECISION TO LEAVE
Best Screenplay: Tarik Saleh, BOY FROM HEAVEN
Camera d’Or: WAR PONY (Gina Gammell, Riley Keough)
Un Certain Regard Prize: LES PIRES/THE WORST ONES (Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret)
Short Film Palme d’Or: BIAN SHENG QI YI ZUO XUAN YA/ THE WATER MURMURS (Jianying Chen)
Short Film Special Distinction: LORI/MELANCHOLY OF MY MOTHER'S LULLABIES (Abinash Bikram Shah)
Special Jury Mention for Short Film:
Honorary Palme d’Or: Forest Whitaker; Tom Cruise
75TH Award: TORI AND LOKITA (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

Ostlund is one of eight ever to get two Palmes. Did he need another one? There was a lot of critical disagreement over the merit of his new satire. Its Metascore is 66%. Last year's Palme, TITANE, did better: 75%. Bottom line: the critics and the people who give out the big awards at Cannes (mainly actors and directors) are two different camps. But not totally different. The Jury Grid's favorite, DECISION TO LEAVE, gets serious acknowledgment in the Best Director nod for Park Chan-wook. EO, which ranked high on the Grid, co-received the Jury Prize. TORI AND LOKITA, which tied for third spot on the Grid, is acknwledged in the special 75th anniversary award for the Dardenne brothers. But ARMAGEDDON TIME, which kept its 2nd spot on the Grid, and Cronenberg and Serra, who tied for 4th place, got no mention here. Nor did much-admired mid-rankers Mungiu's R.M.N. and Mario Martoni's NOSTALGIA. There was a lot of talk about Serra's PACIFICTION toward the end and some journalists thought it might be destined for a top prize. From some critics points of view, these top prizes represent relative mediocrity. I suspect DECISION TO LEAVE stands above the awarded films. As a James Gray fan, I'm glad ARMAGEDDON TIME was here and came 2nd on the Jury Grid.

And here's Peter Bradshaw's roundup in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/28/a-great-cannes-goes-pear-shaped-giving-the-palme-dor-to-triangle-of-sadness)- what he thinks of the awards and the festival, HERE (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/28/a-great-cannes-goes-pear-shaped-giving-the-palme-dor-to-triangle-of-sadness). I've read all his Cannes reviews and summarized most of them, so we should check out his conclusions - which are more or less as I suggest: some good choices, but the best was not rewarded. Bradshaw himself deserves an award. No English language film critic is more tireless and present at Cannes. He earns his top spot on The Guardian and then some.