Interesting how the atmosphere changes from about midweek onwards as the Festival starts to run down - fewer Marché films and the Marché stands in the Palais start closing down. Still plenty of people on the Croisette though - and on the beach, of course. I really must try and find time to do that ...I spent the last three days at the Festival mostly focusing on the Selection films. Unfortunately there were a few on my wish list that I didn't manage to get into: Toni Erdmann which became a really hot ticket by the beginning of the week - joined the queue for this on Thursday but sadly I was just behind the last few people to get in... (See review here and trailer here). To add to the frustration, after queueing for an hour at the Soixantieme for La mort de Louis XIV Spanish (Hors Competition), I also failed to get into that (trailer here; review here)! All a bit infuriating but I did get to see some other great films.
So here come the highlights of Wednesday and Thursday:
La fille inconnue/ The Unknown Girl ***** (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France 2016). This Competition film was one of the ones that you had to apply for tickets to see in the Debussy cinema and fortunately that came good (both John and I got tickets for this) though you still have to queue to get a good seat! A really strong film - well worth the early rise (it started at 8.30am; in the queue at about 8!). This is a slow-burning thriller in vérité mode. Young doctor, Jenny (Adèle Haenel) works in a surgery in a deprived area on the outskirts of Liege. After a round black woman is murdered on the riverbank near her surgery, Jenny is driven by a sense of guilt to discover the identity victim, a young black woman whom, it seems, no-one recognises or cares about. A review of the close circuit TV in response to police enquiries reveals that the woman had rung the surgery bell in a state of panic just before she was killed. Although Jenny had heard the bell and Julien, her young intern (Oliver Bonnaud), wanted to respond, Jenny refused to go to the door because it was after hours and because (as she later recognises) she wanted to establish her authority over him. The fact that her criticism of Julien's work contributes to his decision to give up medicine increases her sense of self-approbation. Jenny's quest to find the woman's identity and pay for a grave leads her to a closer engagement with the social realities of this community and a series of violent encounters. The heightened by naturalistic performances and pared down style throw the aggression of these encounters into striking relief and heighten the gradually building tension of the film. Hollywood Reporter Cannes review here. Trailer here.Voir du Pays/The Stopover **** (Delphine Cousin and Muriel Coulin, France/Greece 2016) In the Un certain regard selection. Voir du pays focuses on three women soldiers on leave from a tour in Afghanistan. The whole company is taken to a Greek holiday resort complex (how likely is that??) for three days of 'decompression' during which they review their experiences under the guidance of an army team including psychologists. Their reflections focus particularly on an exercise in which one of the women was wounded and several of their colleagues were killed in an ambush. The film explores stress and trauma and the different ways in which individuals within the company have responded to an extreme experience. The drama focuses around the shifting dynamics and building tension between members of the group as uncomfortable facts and perspectives on the exercise emerge, coming to the boil when some of them go 'awol' to a village fiesta with some locals. The film grapples powerfully with gender relations and ingrained sexism within the male-dominated context of active service and poses searching questions about the institutionalised 'decompression' process. A very powerful and unusual film. Trailer here. Variety Cannes review here. Review and trailer in French here.
Two lovers and a bear**** (Kim Nguyen, Canada 2015) - in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Although it sounded quirkily interesting, I actually went to see this when I failed to get in to another film that was over-subscribed - and I loved it. In a tiny, isolated community in the North Pole Lucy Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane Dehaan) are lovers. Both have a troubled past in which they experienced childhood abuse by their fathers, the effects of which live on in Lucy's nightmares and Roman's alcoholic binges. When Lucy eventually decides to leave and go south to escape her demons, she and Roman embark on a journey across the frozen wastes which will become life-threatening. The tense drama which pervades this intriguing film is relieved by moments of great tenderness between the lovers, and unexpected humour as we discover that Roman can talk to bears...! Shame about the other film but this was a real bonus! Trailer here; review here.Juste la fin du monde/It's only the end of the world **(Xavier Dolan, Canada/France 2016). In Competition. Gay writer, Antoine (Vincent Cassel), goes home to see his family after 12 years' absence. As they gather, the spirit of reunion is undermined by a range of emerging tensions which the film deftly builds between the various family members. Their various feelings of awkwardness, apprehension, fear and resentment create an atmosphere in which it comes increasingly difficult for Antoine to fulfil his reason for returning: to 'announce his death' to his family.
Reviews here from Hollywood Reporter, trailer here.
Ma'Rosa *** (Brillante Mendoza, Phillippines 2016) In Competition.
A really interesting - though depressing - film in which Ma'Rosa (Jaclyn Jose) scratches out a living from her little convenience store with a little drug-dealing on the side. When she and her husband , Néstor (Julio Díaz), are arrested, the whole family is drawn into the race to scrape together the funds to pay off the local drug squad. Police corruption, prostitution and betrayals paint a sordid portrayal of hand-to-mouth existence and survival amid the chaos and noise of this down-at-heel quarter of Manila. At the end of the film we are left with the impression of a cycle of corruption and survival that will just keep repeating itself. Very strong acting. Screen Daily Cannes review here. Trailer here.
Resurección/Resurrection *** (Eugenio Polgovsky, Mexico 2016) - is Marché film. A fascinating - documentary about albeit not very tightly structured - about El Salto, the Juanacatlán Falls in Jalisco, near Guadalajara, Mexico. The film brings together images of El Salto from 1950s when it was a healthy and fertile farming area, rich in plants and wildlife, and a well-known beauty spot for tourists: 'the Niagara Falls of Mexico.' Images from fifties' tourist films and brochures are combined with interviews with locals, footage showing the decline in the quality of the water and farming from the 1970s onwards with the unregulated growth of industrialisation and powerful local companies. The film demonstrates how the waste from these has polluted the river and falls, resulting in huge loss of flora and fauna, the shrinking of the Falls and a huge increase in cases of cancer and skin diseases among the local population. A government campaign initiated in 1980s is shown to have failed to address these issues and local community groups have now taken matters into their own handset push for action, including mounting an environmental 'horror tour' of the area. Website here.Fado ** (Jonas Rothlander, Germany/Portugal 2016) in the Marché. A relationship drama in which Fabián (Golo Euler), a German doctor follows his former girlfriend, Dora (Louise Heyer) to Lisbon after losing a patient who looks like her. Not long after they resume their relationship the reason for their previous split resurfaces: Fabián's jealousy. Only managed to see the first half of this due to screening times and clashes with one of my 'must see' films but it's one I'll probably try to catch again if/when it gets a UK release.
The Student/Uchenik (Krill Serebrennikov, Russia 2016) In Un Certain Regard Clearly others have seen qualities that escaped me - for me it was the most disappointing film I saw at the Festival. Veniamin (Peter Skvortsov), the student of the title, goes through a mounting moral, spiritual, and psychological crisis in which his bible-quoting religious mania reaches a level of fanaticism which leave his exhausted single mother desperate and cause chaos in his school - and take the film into the realms of farce. The teachers become overwhelmed by the situation, with the exception of his Sociology tutor who becomes almost equally obsessed with finding the biblical evidence to refute Veniamin's increasingly ranting declarations and his relationship with the hapless fellow student 'disciple' he acquires take the film full tilt into its soberingly dark conclusion. See Screen daily review here; and Variety here. See trailer here.
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| Cannes bus station |
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