CANNES Festival 2019

[Chris Knipp]

From the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, his "top ten must-see films" at Cannes


LEO DICAPRIO IN ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD


Peter Bradshaw is one of the few high-profile English-language film critics who provide detailed daily coverage at Cannes so if you want to follow it day-to-day and your language is English, he's invaluable. His list but my notes. Note: I continue to miss Mike D'Angelo, whose thumbnail tweet-reviews were very useful. Let's hope the fest offers more than what's below.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Leo DiCaprio is a fading TV star and Brad Pitt his stunt double in Hollywood, late Sixties, as the Sharon Tate murders occur. Bruce Lee is a character. Much anticipated, at first not expected, promoted by Cannes Festival director Thierry Frémaux who declared QT is "a friend."

Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Céline Sciamma)
Noémie Merlant plays a young painter asked to do a portrait of a young woman (Adèle Haenel) without her knowledge. The 40-year-old French woman director Céline Sciamma is noted for female-centric gender-conscious films. Her first three, Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood, have brought her rapid prestige in a 12-year-period. She also did the screenplay for the animation My Life As a Courgette/Zucchini. In French.

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner)
English philosophical comedy with Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw concerning a botanist who develops a flower she nicknames Little Joe that can induce happiness in all those who grow it properly, but when its developer takes it home, she comes to suspect it may have a dark side. (The theme somehow makes one think of Alexander Mackendrick's 1951 English classic, The Man in the White Suit, starring Alec Guinness.)

Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)
Loach continues his worker-centric filmmaking with the study of a delivery driver having hard times. With longtime cowriter Paul Laverty. Loach's last film, I Daniel Blakek won him his second Cannes Palme d'Or.

The Swallows of Kabul/Les hirondelles de Kabou (Zabou Breitman, Eléa Gobé Mévellec)
Animated film based on a novel by the very prolific Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra (who writes in French, and is actually a man), about Kabul in the late Nineties and a young love affair threatened by the Taliban. In French. You can see a clip of this on IMDb, but without English subtitles. Un Certain Regard.

The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)
Cannes regular Jarmusch, who two features ago delivered the swoony, gloomy vampire movie Only Lovers Left Alive] (NYFF 2013), offers the festival "a bit of unwholesome confectionery" (Bradshaw) with this Opening Night film, a slow-moving zombie comedy-nightmare set in a small town, with an offbeat A-List cast including Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi, Adam Driver, Selena Gomez and Danny Glover and with an appearance by Iggy Pop. (Already reviewed: Opening Night film.)

An Easy Girl/Une fille facile (Rebecca Zlotowski)
A romance set on the French Reviera. Bradshaw desribes Zlotkowski's Grand Central (R-V 2014) as a 'cult classic.' I was not so impressed, though I certainly liked the stars, Tahar Rahim and Léa Seydoux. Directors' Fortnight. In French.

Frankie (Ira Sachs)
Isabelle Huppert stars (with Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei and Greg Kinnear) in Ira Sachs’s film about a family on holiday in Portugal. In English. (I don't think Huppert is as good, ever, in English, as in her native French. It loses the edge.)

Sick, Sick, Sick/Sem Seu Sangue ["Without your blood"] (Alice Furtado)
Debut feature by the young Brazilian director depicts an obsessive and tormented high-school love affair (with Nahuel Pérez Biscayart of 120 Beats Per Minute). Directors' Fortnight. Tragic, deranged finale. IMDb summary: "An introspective young girl falls for the new boy in class, an outcast who is also a hemophiliac." For a longer summery, go H E R E. In Portuguese.

Diego Maradona (Asif Kapadia)
The hand of God descends with this documentary from British filmmaker Asif Kapadia, who made the successful doc about Amy Winehous, Amy, about the troubled football genius. Emir Kusturica has already done a film about him but Bradshaw says this "promises a treasure trove of new material." Already bought by HBO Sports. See article H E R E.