Last day at Cannes Film Festival 2016: Fri 20 May

Friday 20 May was our last day at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The Marché was pretty much like ghost town by then - almost all of the stands for the multitude of organisations had been packed up. Screenings continue but fewer - a much smaller selection of market films - but opportunities to catch up on some of the films from the official selections, as well as selection films premiering in the last couple of days. This was my chance to see the Competition films Aquarius and The Last Face, La larga noche de Francisco Sanchis (in Un Certain Regard) and the Cannes Classic Memorias del subdesarrollo/Memories of Underdevelopment.

Aquarius line-up make their statement on
Brazil's political situation (on the red carpet)

Aquarius ***** (Kleber Mendonça, France/Brazil, 2015). Great film about a woman's struggle to retain her home in the face of efforts by a powerful developer to oust her from her apartment after all her neighbours have been bought out. The film is in 3 acts, the first of which is set in the 1980s at a family gathering for an aunt's 70th birthday, just after Clara (Sonia Braga) has recovered from cancer; the second focuses on Clara's resistance to the developers in which she is presented as a determined and forthright woman. In a medium which is not renowned for a wealth of strong mature female roles, Aquarius offers a very positive model, in the strength of the character and the way in which sensitive (and rarely tackled) issues such as maturity and sexuality, feelings around the female body and the impact of surgery on (self-)perception and self-confidence are addressed. Sonia Braga's impressive performance - and the film - offer a very strong role model as well as a compelling narrative about an individual standing up for her rights in the face of the unscrupulous determination of a powerful organisation. Clip on YouTube here. Reviews from Indiewire, Variety, Screen Daily.

Memorias del subdesarrollo/Memories of Underdevelopment ***** (Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Cuba 1968) - in the Cannes Classics section. Great to have the opportunity to see this newly digitally restored classic from this great Cuban filmmaker. Sergio (  ) is a middle-class intellectual in his 40s who opts to stay in Cuba after the Revolution when his wife and parents leave for the US. An outsider, living off the compensation he received for property that has been expropriated by the government, he drifts through life and his relationship with a 16-year-old girl, taking a supercilious, pseudo-intellectual view of what he sees as Cuba's endemic underdevelopment and lack of culture, rejecting the past but also disengaged and cynical about the ambitions of the Revolution. The film follows his reflections as he tries to make sense of the past and present and his own life. Set between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, the film includes fascinating archive footage of those events and of the Havana of the period (fascinating to see these having recently been to Cuba). Cannes Classic. NY Times - review from 1973 here.

La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis/The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis *** (Andrea Testa, Francisco Márquez, Argentina 2016. Quite a short film (80m) set in Buenos Aires 1977 where Francisco, an ordinary family guy, is contacted by an old friend from his student days some 20 years before when he belonged to a radical group. She asks him to help warn a couple of people that they are in danger of being picked up that night (by the secret police). The request is in disturbing contrast to his uneventful and pedestrian home and work life but he feels he must do something to help. The film focuses on his quest, initially to find someone else who can deliver the message, following him through the dark and deserted streets and creating a chilling sense of the drab and fear-ridden atmosphere of the 1970s under the dictatorship, all the more disturbing for the lack of clarity about the nature of the threat which is in no way diminished by frustratingly enigmatic end of the film.
Reviews Slant and Variety. Trailer on YouTube here.

Sean Penn leaving the premiere
(on Croisette big screen)

The Last Face *** (Sean Penn, USA 2014). In Competition. The film ended up being a probably well-meaning but ill-judged attempt to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis of war and the critical role of international aid.  Javier Bardem is a doctor with a humanitarian aid organisation in war-torn Africa, working desperately to save lives. When the director of major fundraising organisation (Charlize Theron), who is also a trained doctor, rolls up her sleeves to help out, their romance takes front stage. As they wrestle with angst of their relationship, the realities of the humanitarian crisis are relegated to an - albeit harrowing - backdrop. The film was seriously panned as soon as comments from the press screening filled social media - see selection of comments gathered by Variety here. Trailer here. Cannes press conference here.

So that;s it for the Cannes Festival this year. Lots of interesting films! I guess my overall highlights of the festival were as follows but lots of other interesting films I've mentioned in the blog are really worth seeing when you get the chance.

From Latin America: Neruda; Aquarius; Transit Havana; La ciénaga/Between sea and land

From Spain: Julieta

From other European countries: Les vies de Therese; Mal de piers; La pazza gioia/Like Crazy

From USA and Canada: Café Society; Two lovers and a bear

We celebrated our last night in Cannes this year
with our friend Charles Rubinstein
at a great restaurant he recommended -
we'll definitely be going there again....
Thanks, Charles!