CANNES 2024 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

NIKIYA ADAMS IN BIRD

BIRD (Andrea Arnold)

In Competition.The soulful and critically acclaimed UK filmmaker - of AMERICAN HONEY (2016), FISH TANK (2009) and RED ROAD (2006) - was last in Cannes Competition for her immersive animal-POV doc COW in 2021. This new one is about a family, a coming-of-age pre-teen, and a neurodivergent person, played by Franz Rogowski. Barry Keoghan is a totally irresponsible single dad covered with folk art tattoos living in a squat in north Kent. When he, who's scheming to sell hallucinogenic toad slime, gets excited about remarrying to a potential step-mom she doesn't like, 12-year-old daughter Bailey (Nykiya Adams) seeks company elsewhere and finds Franz Rogowskii, a fey and rather odd kilt-wearing passionate bird fancier. Making the film was an experience, as an interview with Keoghan and Rogowski shows; in her own case a long and painful one, Arnold said in her acceptance speech for the Golden Coach award she received at Directors' Fortnight. Bradshow's 3/5 star GUARDIAN review shows admiration with reservation: a "chaotic social-realist adventure" he calls it, "with big, chancy performances, grimly violent episodes, tragedy butting heads with comedy and physical existence facing off with fantasy and imagination." He concludes it's "a minor Arnold, with fluency and energy." Owen Gleiberman reviews the film for VARIETY in a very personal way: he loved AMERICAN HONEY but dislikes this film, which, he says, turns a "feel-bad movie" into a "feel-good movie" but he never feels BIRD is a "totally authentic movie." A problem is the show-offy "star' qualities of both Rogowski and Keoghan. The latter (since SALTBURN) "gives off the awareness that he's a star." That was Bradshaw and Gleiberman. Nonetheless BIRD has been #2 or #3 on the jury grid. There was a seven-minute standing ovation after the BIRD premiere, and Leslie Felperin in her HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review is glowing, asying it's a film that sends the audience out "feeling giddy and a smidge weepy in the best sort of way." Jason Buda is also featured as Bailey's brother. There is a generally positive but reserved review (6.5/10 - he is unhappy with the ending) from BROTHER BRO of The Oscar Expert (Justin Jaeger)

[Chris Knipp]

CIPRIAN CHIUJDEA, LAURA VASILIU IN THREE KILOMETERS TO THE END OF THE WORLD

THREE KILOMETERS TO THE END OF THE WORLD (Emanuel Parvu)

A later addition to Competition. Set in a conservative community of the scenic Danube Delta , where a gay teenager's journey of self-discovery clashes with the traditional values upheld by his parents and neighbors. Parvu is Romanian, formerly an actor, featured in GRADUATION by Cristian Mungiu, whose influence (and that of the Romanian New Wave) is evident. Both films begin with the assault on a young person, but THREE KILOMETERS it's a gay bashing, revealing the community's closed-mindedness and homophobia and adding special audience interest. "A disaster unfolding in slow motionsays Wendy Ide in her (favorable) SCREEN DAILY review. The tall, chiseled, handsome, academically high achieving Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea) seemingly has everything going for him, then gets brutally beaten, and the social exclusion is worse. The film examines the outcome of the homophobic assault from multiiple perspectives, says Guy Lodge in VARIETY. Several reviews find this third feature from Parvu conventional, though the subject matter and community-spanning coverage is compelling. Parvu's elevation to Cannes competition, says Lodge, "feels a touch premature," but still the film's rank on the jury grid is pretty high so far. Still even Ryan Lattanzio's most detailed, fluent and sympathetic review for IINDIEWIRE poins out there is far too little of Adi's POV; the story is "told from all sides but the victim's"; and he gives the film only a C+. Lattanzio's Palme d'Or likelihood ranking so far (Sat., May 18, day 5) is:

1. “Bird”
2. “Kinds of Kindness”
3. “The Girl with the Needle”
4. “Three Kilometers to the End of the World”
5. “Oh, Canada”
6. “Wild Diamond”
7. “Megalopolis”

[Chris Knipp]

SELENA GOMEZ IN EMILIA PÉREZ

EMILIA PÉREZ (Jacques Audiard)

TEASER TRAILER

In Competition. David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: "Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and the divine Karla Sofia Gascón light up Jacques Audiard’s fabulous queer crime musical in which a Mexican drug lord enlists the help of a lawyer to undergo gender-affirming surgery in the latest from the French director of THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED, A PROPHET, RUST AND BONE AND DHEEPAN. (For a few years he was my favorite French director. If that changed, it's because he's so open to change himself, genre change - which, in French, could mean sex change, so the theme of this nutty, raucous, semi-comic, half-sung, Spanish language film is a logical step.

See Peter Bradshaw's Cannes vlog where he tosses off a fluent summary of this semi-musical S.A. gangster-family film, where Bradshaw wonders if the periodic bursts into song of this film aren't maybe designed to mask how far-fetched it all is. He also shows he just got an award for promoting Arab film and is on their Cannes jury this year. Bradshaw is amazing - and seems ageless. Stephanie Bunbury, DEADLINE: "Jacques Audiard’s musical is crazy, but also a marvel." This got a nine-minute standing ovation. Bunbury sees it as "very much a winner," hinting at Palme d'Or possibilities. Debruge says in this VAIETY review that Karla Sofía Gascón "electrifies" in her lead role.) Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez also star.). Gomez wore a beautifully simple YSL gown and a $3.5 million Bulgari diamond necklace. Netflix has bought EMILIA PÉREZ for $12 million.

[Chris Knipp]

NICOLAS CAGE IN THE SURFER

THE SURFER (Lorcan Finnegan)

TRAILER

In the Cannes Midnight slot. In his element here Nicholas Cage plays a "desperate dad who squares off against Aussie surf jocks in a midnight movie that grows increasingly surreal, says Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY who calls the movie a "trippy slapdash comic nightmare." Leslie Felperin in HOLLLYWOOD REPORTER notes the film recalls and also "spoofs""vintage Australian New Wave films" like Roeg's 1971 WALKABOUT that dealt with "alienated outsiders." This is an opportunity for Cage to do a performance of rapid, yet carefully calculated decline, starting with an apparently slick Califonia family man and ending with a penniless desperate reject through his pursuit of his useless, too-late dream of becoming a surfer in Australia. Felperin says THE SURFER looks great and is well edited; is "too rollicking and self-parodying to be taken seriously," but "strikes just the right tone" as a festival midnight movie. A good example of Nic Cage doing his thing but perhaps reserved for his fans.

[Chris Knipp]

BEN WHISHAW IN LIMONOV: THE BALLAD

LIMINOV: THE BALLAD (Kirill Serebrennikov).

In Competition. Quite a range of opinions here, though the "yea's" win. Ben Whishaw plays, brilliantly, says Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN, who gives this 4/5 stars, the "rock’n’roll émigré Russian writer and patriot-dissident" Eduard Limonov, "who wound up poverty-stricken in New York at about the same time as Sid Vicious," was an "adulte terrrible" in Paris in the eighties, then later returned to Russia to lead a violent fascist group, the National Bolshevik Party. Kirill Serebrennikov directs "with terrific gusto," says Bradshaw, from a script adapted from the novel by Emmanuel Carrère, who plays a small comic role; Whishaw "gives a glorious performance." Leslie Felperin in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER finds the film "perplexing,." and also "strange, stilted" and most important "Irritating." Maybe her big problem is the film is 159 minutes long; the other one that she finds the protagonist too unsympathetic, while Bradshaw is amused by him and delighted by Whishaw's fluent performance. So, a matter of taste, perhaps linked with gender, since the boys love it and the girls dislike it. . In VARIETY, Jessica Kiang dislikes the pic ("all swagger and no game") and the protagonist ("an aggravatingly self-aggrandizing solipsist"). She helps with the pronunciation of the name: "Lee-MWAH-nov," but the fact that it's not till after two long paragraphs that Kiang even mentions that Ben Whishaw plays the lead shows she's missing something, including a sense of humor. Jonathan Romney in SCREEN DAILY is enthusiastic, calling this "The most accomplished film yet from the Russian director," and writes that "LIMINOV is a bracingly entertaining piece that should draw international attention on the strength of its central figure’s cult repute (he was the subject of an acclaimed 2011 non-fiction novel by French author Emmanuel Carrère) and of a mesmerizing, protean lead by Ben Whishaw." Ryan Lattanzio's INDIEWIRE review is summed up: "Whishaw is better than ever as an émigré radical in the Russian filmmaker's recklessly beautiful English-language debut." Obviously this is one to see, whatever the two trade journal leading ladies think.

[Chris Knipp]

ZHAO TAO AND LI ZHUBIN IN SCENE REWORKED FOR "ANGUISHING VIOLENCE" (DEBORAH YOUNG) IN CAGHT BY THE TIDES

CAUGHT BY THE TIDES (Jia Zhang-ke)

CLIP FROM THE FILM

In Competition. Dazzling, says Deborah Young of THE FILM VERDICT, though "its ravishing poetic beauty tends to obscure the story." Jessica Kiang in VARIETY calls this "an epic, lyrical drama that is both Chinese master Jia's career-retrospective reinvention and a defining portrait of modern China." We must hope that is how it will look to us. Bradshaw gives it 4/5 stars and offers high parise. The theme will sound familiar to Jia fans:" The 20-year failed romance between a singer and a dodgy music promoter becomes the vehicle for director Jia Zhangke’s latest exploration of China’s momentous recent history." That history includes breathtaking economic progress alongside some "very old-fashioned state coercion." Events include the success of "mobster-businessmen," the "patriotic ecstasy" of Beijing hosting the 2008 Olympics, and all the "unacknowledged pain" caused by the displacement of communities for the Three Gorges hydroelectric dam covered by Jia's Golden Lion winning 2006 Still Life. In TIDES, Jia's muse and wife Zhao Tao is the woman, his rep player Li Zhubin the disreputable man who uses and leaves her. She goes on an epic journey to find him, to settle things, and, aging, they finally do. Bradshaw finds "a kind of epic power " in the final scene when that happens. The familiar sound makes sense when we learn from Deborah Young that the whole film is constructed from scenes and outtakes of previous work, which can be done because those two actors played related roles in UNKNOWN PLEASURES, STILL LIFE and A TOUCH OF SIN. She points out his weakness for some viewers: his films have always been "strong on music and wordless images but thin on storylines, pacing and emotional expression." Well, that is not always true. This new film sounds potentially confusing and perhaps odd. But in a way, nothing has ever been quite up to his first four films, yet Jia remains central to contemporary Chinese cinema anyway.

[Chris Knipp]

THE SUBSTANCE (Coralie Fargeat)

TEASER

In Competition. There is big buzz at Cannes over this provocation. In his Oscar Expert YouTube review Brother Bro (Mason Jaeger) points out this is "a genre picture to the bone and also a comedy," and says "that alone makes it quite refreshing to see in the lineup," and concludes "this is one of the entertaining films I have ever seen. Period." (9 out of 10) The director is known for her 2017 French action thriller REVENGE (Metacritic rating: 81%). Demi Moore gamely stars here as an over-the-hill Hollywood star who resorts to extreme measures to get a new body, out of her old one, played by jMargaret Qualley. Dennis Quaid is also featured. In VARIETY Gleiberman sees in this the "flair of a grindhouse Kubrick" in what he calls "a weirdly fun, cathartically grotesque fusion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Showgirls.." In HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Lovia Gyarkye says "a lot is going on" although "not everything works." This new extreme strain in French feminist engagé filmmaking seems over-the-top and not particularly welcome, but has plenty of advocates, hence the Cannes Competition slot. Once again Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN is game and calls THE SUBSTANCE a "cheerfully silly and outrageously indulgent piece of gonzo body-horror comedy." Another 4/5 stars from Bradshaw. Damon Wise, of DEADLINE, argues this film is smart as well as gory. Plus he thinks it extraordinary that Demi Moore has been coaxed into giving "the furthest-out performance this side of Nicolas Cage." The two-hour-and-twenty-minute run-time may make it still more unpalatable for non-genre fans, but if THE SUBSTANCE wins a top prize at Cannes it may turn up at the cineplex. Bought by MUBI for US distribution.

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES - MARKET NEWS
SOURCE

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation at the Cannes market, A24 is landing an eight-figure deal to acquire U.S. rights to one of the biggest art house crossover projects in town in THE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM IS DOWN, the next movie from two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund.

The deal was struck between A24 and Paris-based Co-Production Office, which has been making the rounds with the project at the Cannes market. The pic recently added Nicholas Braun and Samantha Morton to a starry cast that already includes Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst and Daniel Brühl.

[Chris Knipp]

CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER'S POINT (Tyler Taormina)

In Competition. Not much plot in this, but extraordinarily involving and rich version of an Italian American (but not-mafia) family Christmas party. The cast includes Michael Cera, Maria Dizzia, Ben Shenkman and Francesca Scorsese. Damon Wise's DEADLINE review: "a surprisingly relatable experience, part anthropological study, part nostalgia kick, lit up (literally) like a Christmas tree". Another 4/5 stars from GUARDIAN'S Bradshaw, who says it makes its entire 105 minutes consist of what in any other movie would be "considered background establishing detail, yet it's "unexpectedly beguiling and engrossing, with an almost experimental refusal of narrative in its normal sense." Tim Grierson, SCREEN DAILY: "Generously mixing comedy, nostalgia, pathos and misanthropy, CHRISTMAS EVE IN. MILLER'S POINT embraces its brood’s rambunctious spirit, resisting the temptation to let any character become the central protagonist." Sheri Linden, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, describes the movie as "Veering at times into sensory overload as it reconfigures the holiday-gathering template, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point can feel like a party that refuses to end, one that could have used some judicious streamlining. But it’s a memorably adventurous party, fueled by intense hopefulness, and Taormina’s fondness for the characters is the movie’s beating heart." Bradshaw, GUARDIAN: "something weirdly mysterious and even exalted about this film, with its flashes and mosaic-fragments of dialogue and detail. It might resemble other family dramas, but there’s a hum of something strange underneath, a sense that life is about surrendering to the infinite flow of events."

[Chris Knipp]

ARMAND (Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel)

Un Certain Regard. This Norwegian film starts with a six-year-old schoolboy accusing his best friend of sexual abuse and goes on to other things involving connected adults. It features Renate Reinsve, who won Best Actress at Cannes in 2021 for Joachim Trier's THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. She plays Elizabeth the mother of Armand, the accused boy, an actress, and a real drama queen. In SCREEN DAILY Jonathan Romney explains the film "begins as contained chamber piece with comic touches," that is a sort of "terse variation" on "courtroom drama," but has other "abstract, poetic registers" as well. Damon Wise, of DEADLINE, goes into far more specific detail about this absorbing partly comic drama, which he calls "a sprawling film to absorb rather than follow studiously," but to be watched for Reinsve 's performance.

[Chris Knipp]

MONGREL (Chiang Wei Liang & You Qiao Yin)

Directors' Fortnight. This Taiwanese directorial debut is a "Zen-like tale of compassion and suffering among migrant care workers", says Bradshaw, who gives it 4/5 stars; there is "a feeling that penetrates the film’s fabric like months of steady rain in a rural landscape." The patience and stasis reflects influences of Tsing Ming-liang and the executive producer, Hou Hsiao-hsien. The setting is a province of Taiwan where illegal migrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are "exploited and abused." Focus is on a caregiver and the bosses who exploit him. "A sombre, sober movie but made with impressive artistry," concludes Bradshaw. John Berra in SCREEN DAILY explains that MONGREL has "a sense of claustrophobia" through its boxy academy ratio images filmed by dp Michaël Capron.

[Chris Knipp]

HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER ONE (Kevin Costner).

Out of Competition. The film got a ten-minute standing ovation that left Costner in tears, but produced only boredom and disappointment in the critics. David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER calls it "a clumsy slog," that "plays like a limited series overhauled as a movie, but more like a hasty rough cut than a release ready for any format." With his extensive Western experience he should have known better, Rooney says. Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY calls this first of four "chapters" both sprawling" and "thinly spread." "The first part of Costner's "Western epic" feels "like the set-up for a TV miniseries," he says. It's set in 1859 and has "a few vivid characters, from settlers to Native Americans," but "jumps around too much and explains too little." Gleiberman points out the flm devotes much of its time to settler-Indigenous violence, and thus "takes it back to the age when American Westerns were flagrantly racist" and while HORIZON isn't that, its dealing "with Native issues" is "not without its problems."Costner "casts himself as wildly desirable cowboy," says Bradshaw, giving HORIZON a measly 2/5 stars in the GUARDIAN. It's "handsome-looking" but "oddly listless" and does't introduce anything exciting to make one anticipate the subsequent "chapters." Its three hours left him "saddle-sore."

[Chris Knipp]

JEREMY STRONG, SEBASTIAN STAN IN THE APPRENTICE

THE APPRENTICE (Ali Abbasi)

In Competition. Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump, Jeremy Strong as his lawyer play in this film about the early Trump years. The film begins in 1973 when Trump is 27 and VP of his father's real estate company and craving power but soft and sort of a blob when Cohen pounces on him. Later Trump becomes stronger and dumps the closeted Cohen, dying of AIDS. Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY says this film is sharp and scathing, but avoids cheap shots, Strong's he thinks is "a magnetic impersonation of the Roy Cohn who turned bullying into a form of cutthroat vaudeville." This "superb and chilling account" is "first and foremost the story of a Faustian pact," says David Rooney in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. . Strong as Cohen, active in the McCarthy trials, is "suitably icy, a fast talker with a withering stare and an almost inhuman intensity." The toxicity that is our everyday reality today is sharply revealed in the "unholy alliance between two men half a century ago," says Rooney. Peter Bradshaw in his GUARDIAN review is unimpressed with what he sees as this "cartoon" and "genially ironic, lenient TV movie-style" version of "chump-in-chief Donald Trump’s early years," and gives the film 2/5 stars. The pic "presents young Donald as an amoral narcissist, wastes the talent of Jeremy Strong and includes a grisly rape scene" (of Ivana) "that is quickly glossed over," Bradshaw says. Inferior to Abbasi's earlier work in HOLY SPIDER and BORDER, this film, he argues, is dangerously "obtuse and irrelevant" in taking us back to the harmless "joke Donald." The joke now "is beyond unfunny."

[Chris Knipp]

CATE BLANCHETT IN RUMOURS

RUMOURS (Guy Madden, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson)

In Competition. A funny and silly (or fanciiful?) dark comedy about politics from the Canadian trio, the brothers working with Madden for the third time, whose cast includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, Charles Dance and French star Denis Ménochet. Leslie Felperin reviewed if for HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Focuses on world leaders drafting a vapid joint statement. The idea that the Group of Seven can solve some massive world issue by drafting such a statement is "kookily but ruthlessly skewered" here, in what becomes "a wildly entertaining shaggy-dog satire" where the summit devolves "into a murky, muddy and strangely isolated zombie apocalypse," says Guy Lodge in his VARIETY review. This Guy Madden film may be more relevant than usual, but no less eccentric and artistic.

[Chris Knipp]

VINCENT CASSEL, DIANE KRUGER IN THE SHROUDS

THE SHROUDS (David Cronenberg)

In Competition. The titular cloth is fitted with dozens of tiny cameras so the bereaved can watch the decomposition of the beloved in detail after he or she or they is or are buried. The purveyor of these shrouds is one Karsh (Vincent Cassel, standing in for the director), who runs a restaurant with a hi-tech cemetery attached. Diane Kkruger plays the bereaved Karsh's wife, her sister, and a virtual AI avatar. Giving it his respectful but reserved rating of 3/5 starts, Peter Bradshaw in his GUARDIAN review describes THE SHROUDS as another example of the filmmaker's "eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief," with his "now very familiar Ballardian fetishes," and lots of "intriguing and exhausting" details in the elaborate plot-line. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S Scott Roxborough and Patrick Brzeski talk about how respectful the Cannes audience was, and reserved. The director is 81; his own wife died six years ago. They say Croneenberg's is seventh film in Competition at Cannes, and his body horror genre "casts a long shadow on the Crousette," reflected ih JULIA DUCOURNAU'S 2021 Palme d'Or TITANE and this year in Coralie Fargeat’s' THE SUBSTANCE, "one of this year’s hottest competition titles," starring Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid and Margaret Qualley.