CANNES Festival 2019

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes 2019 Festival opens. Sex, violence, gender parity issues. Netflix. Jury President Iñárritu.


ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ IÑÁRRITU AT CANNES [GUARDIAN]

[Based on opening surveys in the Guardian and Variety]

Tarantino controversies

So Tarantino is coming, with his new film ready for Competition. But will its treatment of the Sharon Tate murders offend taste? QT is in trouble with the #MeToo crowd following rumors of his maltreatment of Uma Thurman while making the "Kill Bill" movies (he apologized; but he has also been quoted as saying that Polanski's 13-year-old sex victim was "down with it"). Another Cannes biggie who'll be present is Ken Loach, with his gig economy drama Sorry We Missed You, likewise Pedro Almodóvar with his film industry memoir Pain and Glory, and the Dardenne brothers with a radicalization story, The Young Ahmed. Terrence Malick's film, A Hidden Life, is about the anti-Nazi Franz Jägerstätter. (Malick has been elusive of late years, and may not even be present at the festival.)

The gender parity issue

The festival directorship itself has no great feminist reputation given how slow it is to bring in more female directors. Despite Thierry Frémaux's signing a gender parity pledge, only 4 out of 23 Competition films are by female directors. Frémaux has said people are asking more of Cannes than of other festivals. In defense of the honoring of the sexist and homophobic Alain Delon, he has declared, "We’re not going to give the Nobel peace prize to Alain Delon. . .He is entitled to express his views. Today it is very difficult to honor somebody because you have a sort of political police that falls on you."

Netrlix and theaters

French distributors were furious at the 2017 Cannes inclusion of Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories, for which Netflix disobeyed the French requirement of holding streaming release for 36 months after theatrical release. Last year Netflix held their prime release ROMA for another festival. There are no Netflix movies in this year's Cannes Festival either (but Martin Scorsese’s mob tale The Irishman and Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers journalist investigation tale The Laundromat simply weren't ready in time anyway).

Jury President Iñárritu speaks out

The Jury president Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (incidentally the first Mexican ever to hold this post at Cannes) has used his position to blast Trump's wall and defend movie theaters against the encroachments of their territory by Netflix. "Cinema was born to be experienced in a communal experience," he said (i.e., not to be watched at home alone). Of Trump's policies, Iñárritu said "As an artist, I can express through my job and with my heart open what I think to be truthful. I think the problem is what is happening is the ignorance. People do not know, it’s very easy to manipulate." He said his selection by the festival is a repudiation of Trump's anti-immigrant policies.


ROHRWACHER, FANNING, N'DIAYE, IÑÁRRITU AT CANNES [GUARDIAN]

[Chris Knipp]

Mel Gibson to star in Rothchild film?


MEL GIBSON

A movie to be shopped at Cannes has casting that sparks controversy: Mel Gibson, who was ostracized from Hollywood for anti-semitic talk, is reported cast as the scion of a very rich New York family named Rothchild. This is the name of perhaps the most famous Jewish family in history. Emily Nussbaum, the New Yorker TV critic, tweeted:

I tend to lean excessively forgiving about a certain amount of addict behavior & bad speech. But Mel Gibson seems like an unrepentant bigot to me & it's honestly shocking to me that he would be in this movie. I truly don't get it.

Seth Rogen tweeted 'Ho-ho-holocaust denier." The film title is Rothchild. That is of course the name of what is known as the richest family in history, which was Jewish. It began with a German Frankfort court factor in the 18th century who was able to pass on his wealth; it established bases in numerous European cities (London, Paris, Frankfort, Vienna and Naples) and was elevated to noble status in France and England. (Guardian story),

The movie is described as "an action-packed cautionary tale [of] wealth and power."

[Chris Knipp]

The Cannes 2019 Competition Jury



Alejandro González Iñárritu, Mexican filmmaker, Jury President (Amores Perros, Birdman)
Enki Bilal, French graphic novel author, artist and filmmaker
Robin Campillo, French filmmaker (Eastern Boys, BPM)
Maimouna N'Diaye, Senegalese actress and filmmaker
Elle Fanning, American actress (Somewhere, Neon Demon)
Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek filmmaker (The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite)
Paweł Pawlikowski, Polish filmmaker (Ida, Cold War)
Kelly Reichardt, American filmmaker (Old Boy, Wendy and Lucy, Night Moves, Meek’s Cutoff
Alice Rohrwacher, Italian filmmaker (Corpo Celeste, The Wonders, Happy As Lazzaro

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes 2019 Un Certrain Regard jury



President: Nadine Labaki
Lukas Dhont (Girl)
Marina Foïs (L'Atelier)
Nurman Sekerci-Porst
Lisandro Alonso (Los Muertos, Fantasma

Belgian direcor Lukas Dhont, French actress Marina Foïs, German producer Nurhan Sekerci-Porst, and Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso have joined Nadine Labaki on the jury for Un Certain Regard a this month’s Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).

Dhont participated in the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence in 2016 with the script of his first acclaimed feature Girl, which won the Caméra d’Or for best first feature in Un Certain Regard in Cannes last year. He is now working on his second feature.

Foïs was nominated for the César for most promising actress in Filles Perdues, Cheveux Gras in 2003. She followed that up with best actress nods for Darling in 2008, 2011 Cannes Competition selection Polisse in 2012, Irréprochable in 2017, and Un Certain Regard 2017 entry L’Atelier in 2018. The actress appeared in the 2018 Gilles Lellouche comedy and Cannes 2018 selection Le Grand Bain, and earlier this year garnered a Molière awards nomination for her portrayal of Hervé Guibert on stage in Les Idoles by Christophe Honoré.

Buenos Aires-born Alonso’s Los Muertos screened in Directors’ Fortnight in 2004. Two years later, he completed his trilogy with Fantasma. Liverpool screened in Cannes in 2018, and Jauja, set in 19th century Denmark and Argentina and starring Viggo Mortensen, which won the FIPRESCI award in Un Certain Regard in 2014.

Şekerci-Porst has worked with German director Fatih Akin since 2005. They co-founded the production company Bombero International in 2012 and produced The Cut and In The Fade, which premiered in Cannes 2017 and earned Diane Kruger the best actress award.
-Screen Daily

[Chris Knipp]

Cannes opening night film: Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die


STILL FROM THE DEAD DON'T DIE

Opening Night at Cannes. Some reviews.

Mixed reports, but a sense this will worth seeing for Jarmusch completists but not particularly invigorating. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian: "Jim Jarmusch’s undeadpan comedy is laconic, lugubrious and does not entirely come to life, despite many witty lines and tremendously assured performances by an A-list cast." "Lethargic," and has "more brains than bite," says David Erlich in IndieWire. The premise is that an excess of polar fracking has warped the planet’s rotation and reanimated the corpses at the local morgue. The theme, Erlich says, is "When Hell is full, the dead will walk the Earth. And when the Earth is fucked, the living will do whatever they can to sleepwalk through the nightmare." Many interesting cast members including Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Danny Glover, Chlöe Sevigny, Caleb Landry Jones, Steve Buscemi and Tom Waits, with Tilda Swinton as a Scottish immigrant mortician whose "delightful performance shoots the movie full of fresh embalming fluid every time it starts to rot. Which is often." Owen Gleiberman of Variety typecasts this as a "hipster zombie comedy" and says it "congratulates itself for doing what other movies have done better." Nonetheless there are some original plot twists, as you'll learn if you read Todd McCarthy's Hollywood Reporter review, which tells all about the flick's plot-line. Current Metascore: 64%. Hipness level: surely much higher. Note: A favorite of mine, Dead Man, has a Metascore of 62. Todd McCarthy's concluding words:

Typically for Jarmusch, the songs, led by the title tune, and score are outstanding, enlivening nearly every scene. And the sheer diversity of the castmembers, along with their individual senses of humor, sustains one’s attention even when inspiration sometimes lags. It’s a minor, but most edible, bloody bonbon.

[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.

[Chris Knipp]

Other anticipated titles at Cannes


TARON EGERTON AS ELTON JOHN IN ROCKETMAN

Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher)
A biopic about Elton John with Taron Egerton in the lead role. Egerton is the handsome 30-year-old British TV actor-singer known for the series "Smoke" and the 2014 action comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service. Dexter Fletcher, who was memorable (briefly) playing the young Caravaggio in Derek Jarman's film, got lucky last year by landing the job of finishing Bohemian Rhapsody. This film's screenplay is by Lee Hall, who did the writing for Billy Elliot, and is costars Jamie Bell as John's longtime songwriter Bernie Taupin. When shown the photo above Elton John is said to have thought it was him. Premiering Out of Competition.

A Hidden Life (Terence Malick).
A German-language film with Bruno Ganz and August Diehl about the Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector who refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II. Competition. This seems to signal the end of Malick's long period of navel-gazing. Why he chose this subject matter remains to be discovered.

Pain and Glory/Dolor y gloria (Pedro Almodover)
This stars Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Penélope Cruz, Julieta Serrano and Leonardo Sbaraglia. It's a kind of retrospective, being focused on a director (played by Banderas) who ponders on his life choices as he finds the world crashing down on him. This opened in Spanish theaters (Sony) in March, but is in Competition at Cannes nonetheless.

The Traitor/Il traditore (Marco Bellochio)
Bellocchio's seventh time in competition at Cannes, but he has never been a winner. Depicts pentito Mafia boss (Italian word) Tommaso Buscetta. Pierfrancesco Favino stars as Buscetta with Maria Fernanda Cândido and Luigi Lo Cascio. The only Italian film in Competition at Cannes this year. Buscetto claims "I am and remain a man of honor. It's they who betrayed the ideals of Cosa Nostra." Caught in Brazil, where he managed the drug trade, he saw the killing of sons and brothers in Palermo, and the film shows his trial.