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Thread: Cannes 2022, remote notes

  1. #31
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    CANNES DAY 8 (MAY 24): THE DARDENNE BROTHERS IN FINE FORM



    TORI AND LOKITA (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
    Cannes. In Competition. Story of a young boy and an adolescent girl who have emigrated from Africa to Belgium, and must face up to the challenges of their exile. Variety says the Dardennes are "back on form" and the film is a tale of "wily immigrant kids scrambling for survival" that is "a parable of the age of economic injustice." Jonathan Romney in Screen Daily says this is "at the very least" "their finest since 2011's THE KID WITH THE BIKE and arguably one of their very best." In a story that is evidently typically well-researched for authenticity, the two youths are forced into desperate measures, including pretending to be siblings and drug dealing, to survive as they struggle to establish residency in the Dardennes' usual locales in Solvaing and around Liège. Bradshaw, who awards only a neutral 3/5 stars, thinks this a continued falling off of the brothers' work, noting some crude narrative devices, and "there are sometimes issues with basic plot naivety and plausibility," marring the artistry and detracting from the good research. (It will wind up midway on the Jury Grid, at 2.5 along with TRIANGLE OF SADNESS AND R.M.N.)
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-26-2022 at 12:43 AM.

  2. #32
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    CANNES MAY 24: TWO DOCUMENTARIES


    STRILL FROM MOONAGE DREAM

    MOONAGE DAYDREAM (Brett Morgan)
    Cannes. Out of Competition. This lengthy, kalaidescopic new documentary by Brett Morgan, who previously did ones on Curt Cobain and the Rolling Stones, is a "glorious, shapeshifting eulogy to David Bowie," writes the Guardian's Bradshaw, who gives it his third 5/5 stars top rating at 2022 Cannes. It's about his public personas, creativity, and art, and does not touch on his private life. Bradshaw says on YouTube it sent him into "an extended two-and-a-half-hour swoon"and is "absolutely brilliant." David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter admires this film's "incredible wraparound sound treatment," but finds a huge gap between that and Bowie's interviews, which are mere "blather." Fionnuala Halligan in Screen Daily finds the doc "dizzying" and "a sensory voyage." IndieWire says it's an unapologetic sound and light show, influenced by avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage, with special big-screen presentations essential.

    THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION (Sergei Loznitsa)
    Cannes, Premiere Section. Taking its title from a 1999 book by German writer W.G. Sebald. The Ukrainian feature filmmaker (MY JOY, IN THE FOG) uses an "unprecedented trove of archival footage" to "re-examine the strategic bombing campaign of Allied forces in Germany during the Second World War," a campaign aimed to destroy both war resources and morale. Loznitsa, whose BABA YAR, CONTEXT doc won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes last year, considers whether the use of the civilian population in war is morally defensible, Variety explains. Bradshaw (3/5 stars) says this topic could not be more "brutally relevant" in the wake of Russia's current war on Ukraine. This history is "not natural," and that's the point, says Bradshaw.


    STILL FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION

    JURY GRID CURRENT SUMMARY:
    3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
    2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
    2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
    2.5 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
    2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
    2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
    2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
    2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
    2.1 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
    2.1 BROTHER AND SISTER - Arnaud Desplechin
    2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
    1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

    An updated Screen Daily article about their Jury Gird shows Park Chan-wook's DECISION TO LEAVE has jumped to the top, pushing down James Gray's ARMAGEDDON TIME one; Cronenberg's CRIMES OF THE FUTURE has lodged down with the 2.5's, below the top 3.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-26-2022 at 11:15 AM.

  3. #33
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    SOME EARLIER SCREENINGS (OUT OF COMPETITION; PREMIERE; DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT). FRENCH FILMS ABOUT VIOLENCE, TERRORISM, AND CRIME.


    BENOIT MAGIMEL, VIRGINIE EFFIRA IN REVOIR PARIS

    MAY 20
    NIGHT OF THE 12TH/LA NUIT DU 12 (Dominik Moll)
    Cannes, Out of Competition. French crime & investigation film, sort of a more intimate ZODIAC, says Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter.. Moll has done some arthouse hits, notably the 2000 dark comedy WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY. Lisa Nesselson in Screen Daily calls this "a deft and satisfying police procedural." The investigation show "there are men with an exaggerated sense of their own attractiveness," as well as that there are women who "apparently enjoy being called names and treated roughly in the sack."

    MAY 21
    PARIS MEMORIES/ REVOIR PARIS (Anne Winocour)
    Cannes, Directors' Fortnight. Film about the aftermath of Paris terrorism. A woman retraces her steps that night to try to come to terms with her traumatic memories of fictional event inspired by the Bataclan concert hall attack of November 2015, which Winocour's own brother survive. Stars Virginie Effira, already seen at this Cannes in Don Juan with Tahar Rahim. The film includes some nice Parisian panoramas, says Jordan Mintzer in another Hollywood Reporter review, but is mostly about Mia (Effira), who leaves Paris for a while, then comes back to cope, with her surgeon boyfriend, played by Claire Denis regular Gregoire Colin. Mia is fighting to recover memories because she blacked out.Through a support group Mia develops a relationship with a fellow victim, Thomas (a gnarly, fun Benoît Magimel). Story doesn't "pop" till the end, but thenl, does, Mintzer says.

    MAY 22
    NOVEMBER/NOVEMBRE (Cédric Jiminez)
    Cannes, Out of Competition. A fact-based film about the Nov. 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, this, says Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter, is "The kind of thriller that’s so caught up in its breathless, relentless race against the clock, it never fully stops to consider what it’s trying to say." Other reviews confirm November has some force as a police procedural, but its strict police POV account lacks the depth that is direly needed for an event that still leaves the French nation shaken. Variety suggests the film is a call to complacency. No carnage is shown, though 130 were killed that night by the terrorists. Deadline (Damon Wise) is fairly neutral. Since the killings, which non-French aren't so aware of, are not shown, the film seems unlikely to play well abroad. The Cannes press conference shows Jiminez sees the film as a complex procedural with patriotic overtones.

    MAY 24
    OUR BROTHERS/NOS FRANGINS (Rachid Bouchareb)
    Cannes, Premieres. Is based on a real life event, the death of young Malik Oussekine as a result of police violence in the center of Paris during huge protests against a university reform bill during the night of 5-6 December 1986. Bouchareb focuses in his work on abuse of Arabs in French society. He combines documentary and fiction here, writes Fabien Lemercier in Cineuropa, making ample use of photo and film files. A similar focus oon French colonialism is found at Cannes this year in Philippe Faucon's LES HARKIS about Algerian soldiers who were used and abandoned during and after the Algerian war. "A sobering story" that "needs no embellishment," wrote Tim Grierson in his Screen Daily review.


    STILL FROM OUR BROTHERS/NOS FRANGINS
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-24-2022 at 11:57 PM.

  4. #34
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    MAY 24. ITALIAN COMPETITION FILM


    FRANCESCO DI LEVA, PIERFRANCESCO FAVINO IN NOSTALGIA

    NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
    Cannes, In Competition. An Italian film! We get so few of them here. This adaptation of Ermanno Rea’s novel is about coming home to a specific quarter of Naples, the impoverished, crime-ridden Rione Sanità, at 55 after being gone since the age of 15, and deciding to stay. The protagonist, played by Pierfrancesco Favino, has settled in Cairo, switched to mainly speaking Arabic, married (someone), and may even have converted to Islam, yet wants to connect with his youthful "brother" (Tommaso Ragno), who is now head of an evil gang everyone warns him against. Departing from the director's sumptuous period pieces that became uninvolving, this is a very watchable, "straightforward, thriller-esque drama," writes Hollywood Reporter's Lovia Gyarkye , who finds it will play well outside Italy. She thinks the nostalgia theme is pushed too hard, but Lee Marshall in Screen Daily calls the film a "passionate contemporary ghost story." Favino is known to us as Mafia informer Tommaso Buscetta in Marco Bellocchio’s epic The Traitor/Il traditore (NYFF 2019), but the critics see flaws, one being that Favino's character's adult past remains too mysterious so in the "ghost story," he is a ghost. But Deborah Young in The Verdict calls it "one of Martone's most accessible works" and is enthusiastic about the film's depth of acting, polished editing and "astonishing locations." Th Guardian's Bradshaw, reviewing it May 26, gives it 4/5 stars and says it's "Tremendously shot and terrifically acted." He describes the film engagingly, but says it "teeters on the edge of something special" but satisfies itself with something generic but "still very good."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-26-2022 at 11:49 AM.

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    MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9


    Leah Mondesir Simmons, Eva-Arianna Baxter as young versions of the girls in The Silent Twins. Photo: Jakub Kijowski/Focus Features

    THE SILENT TWINS (Agnieszka Smoczyńska)
    Cannes, Un Certain Regard. Tim Grierson of Screen Daily calls this based on fact tale of Welsh twin sisters June and Jennifer Gibbons who speak only to each other "A willfully challenging, sometimes abrasive drama." Bradshaw gives it 4/5 stars in The Guardian ("well acted, disturbing"). This is a true story - there is a 1994 BBC documentary - about twin girls in Wales with a speech impediment who are withdrawn, strange, and violent, turning to crime. (Story on YouTube.) They had artistic (literary) ambitions and did a lot of writing (one self-published a novel); were committed to various institutions; spoke in their own "language." Interesting but creepy tale well dramatized in this Polish-UK production. "An engrossing, well-acted story," writes Bradshaw, "disturbing but also tender and sad." Letitia Wright (BLACK PANTHER) will bring star power to the role of one of the adult twins, and especially toward the end, Grierson says, "it is hard not to be moved by Smoczynska’s uncompromising approach."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-25-2022 at 10:17 PM.

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    MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9


    STILL FROM LEILA'S BROTHERS

    LEILA'S BROTHERS (Saeed Roustayi)
    Cannes. In Competition. This film revolves around the parasitic, misogynistic male relatives of a woman (Taraneh Alidoosti of THE SALESMAN) who supports them. Bradshaw in The Guardian gives it 4/5 stars and calls it a "fierce Iranian drama." Jordan Mintzer in Hollywood Reporter says Roustayi (or Roustaee? سعید روستایی), who's 32, made one of the most complex crime dramas for the big screen, JUST 6.5, but it hasn't been released in the US. The current picture is a busy, complex portrait of moral corruption and and economy "forever teetering on the brink of disaster." With this third feature, in Competition at Cannes, will bring the young filmmaker wider recognition. The woman supports four useless brothers and her father, "a whining, self-pitying schemer, addicted to opium," Bradshaw explains, who wants to become "'patriarch' of his extended clan," which will bring financial perks. The film is fueled by the "simmering rage" of Leila toward the "contemptible mediocrity" of the lazy, preening males in her family. The film, a compendium of rivalries and frauds, is "Like a massive 19th century novel by Zola or Dickens condensed into a three-hour story," says Mintzer. This sounds like something exciting and new from Iran, bolder, more out there, and more monumental and complex in construction than any other Iranian filmmaker - the work of a new generation, says Variety's critic, who calls it "dense and demanding."

    SAEED ROUSTANYI
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-25-2022 at 10:22 PM.

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    MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9


    AUSTIN BUTLER IN ELVIS

    ELVIS (Baz Lurhmann)
    Cannes. Out of Competition. Austin Butler plays Elvis; Tom Hanks the Colonel, Maggie Gyllenhaal Elvis' mother, Kodi Smit-McPhee Jimmy Rogers, Kelvin Harrison Jr. B.B. King. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (who gives it a lousy 2/5 stars) is very disappointed the film follows a "defanged" script that doesn't show Presley's dysfunctional sides. If you like Luhrmann's "signature brash, glitter-bomb maximalism," says David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter, it's pretty great, and by the way it received a 10-minute standing ovation at the premiere, allegedly this year's longest at Cannes so far. (Variety says it was 12 minutes; these figures tend to vary.) Rooney says that "if the writing too seldom measures up to the astonishing visual impact, the affinity the director feels for his showman subject is both contagious and exhausting." Without the interesting omitted details, says Bradshaw, this is "just another exercise in Elvis impersonation, its upper lip twitching to no purpose." And it puts the callousness on the Colonel, and makes the Republican Elvis a liberal. Mix the views out with Joshua Rothkopf's rave in Entertainment, and Robbie Collin's and Clarisse Loughrey's high praise in The Telegraph and The Independent respectively, and you get the MetaCritic rating: 61%. The film comes out in theaters June 24, 2022. The trailer makes you want to see it, and at the same time think maybe you already have.

    ELVIS TRAILER


    AUSTIN BUTLER, TOM HANKS IN ELVIS
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-25-2022 at 10:23 PM.

  8. #38
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    Cannes: LA JAURÍA Tops Critics' Week Prizes
    The film from Colombian director Andres Ramirez Pulido earned the Grand Prize, the top award in the Cannes sidebar.




    LA JAURÍA (Andrés Ramírez Pulido)I
    Cannes. Critics' Week/Semaine de la critique. Awarded Critics' Week Grand Prize. The French Touch Jury Prize weht to Charlotte Wells' AFTERSUN, which Bradshaw admired so much. Jonathan Holland in Screen Daily describes LA JAURÍA's setting: "a[n experimental] reform school for young offenders set deep in the Colombian jungle, far from the scenes of their crimes." The film "mashes up potent atmospherics" with "thriller and classical tragedy elements" to form "a brooding, troubling whole," Holland says. Stephanie Bunbury explains in Deadline this plays is "an open prison," but "run like a cult" by "a remote boss" who's using these "juvenile prisoners" as "cheap labor to turn the hacienda into a spa hotel." The film is "a finely calibrated mix of recognizable social realism and dystopian weirdness." She also finds this film "pays tribute" to Alejandro Landes' "remarkable 2019 film MONO, "about a cult of teenage warriors who are trained in the Colombian mountains by a cabal of maniacs." "Kids at war; kids in prison," many "high as kites." "LA JAURÍA is grim going," she concludes," but it really is a very special film."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-25-2022 at 05:49 PM.

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    MAY 25. CANNES DAY 9: CLAIRE DENIS' 2ND-EVER COMPETITION ENTRY


    JOE ALWYN, MARGARET QUALLEY IN STARS AT NOON

    STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
    Cannes. In Competition. "Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn work up a sweat in Claire Denis' seductive Latin American escapade," reports Variety. In the film, which Quailey carries, she's an American journalist in Nicaragua who lies on a hotel bed having intercourse with a young officer, pining for more romantic times, like those of Graham Greene, perhaps. Denis is updating the 1984 Denis Johnson novel The Stars at Noon to the present Covid era and shows that "young rebels — and officials, and outlaws, and shady international oilmen, and drifters who don’t know exactly what they are — can still be very sexy indeed," especially when played with "teasing, taciturn, ten-drinks-down chemistry by performers as gorgeous as Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn." The BBC calls this "a beguiling, immersive film" that's "beautifully made," even if "its plot drifts in places." David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter notes Cannes has slighted Denis: this is only her second Competition slot since CHOCOLAT. But sadly, says Rooney, this is one of her "least interesting films," with "unpersuasive" lead performances" and overall "almost perversely lacking in dramatic tension or in momentum." Writing for Deadline, Todd McCarthy also uses the word "unpersuasive," plus "listless." Bradshaw finds STARS' languidness turns to lethargy, and its leads lack chemistry and conviction. Alas, the Cannes selection committee should have brought her in for 35 SHOTS OF RUM or HIGH LIFE instead of this and she'd have had a much better chance at the Palm.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-25-2022 at 10:28 PM.

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    JURY GRID UPDATED - MAY 25, MAY 26

    (Screen Daily article)

    DECISION TO LEAVE is at the top. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE and NOSTALGIA have been given positions high up. LEILA'S BROTHERS and STARS AT NOON aren't rated yet.
    [/SIZE]


    3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
    2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
    2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
    2.7 NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
    2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
    2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
    2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
    2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
    2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
    2.1 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS - Felix Van Groeningen
    2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
    2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER (Arnaud Desplechin)
    2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (Vandermeersh, Groeningen)
    1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
    Since then (as of Thurs., May 26) TORI AND LOKITA has moved up to 2.7 and NOSTALGIA has moved to the middle of the pack (2.5), while LEILA'S BROTHERS got a "middling" score of 2.3. DECISION TO LEAVE and ARMAGEDDON TIME remain in first and second place on the Grid. Coming titles: PACIFICTION (Albert Serra), BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda - in Korean this time!), CLOSE (Lukas Dhont), SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt), and MOTHER AND SON (Eleanor Serraille).

    (May 26 Screen Daily article )


    3.2 DECISION TO LEAVE - Park Chan-wook
    2.8 ARMAGEDDON TIME - James Gray
    2.7 EO - Jerzy Skolomowski
    2.7 TORI AND LOKITA (Jeanne-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
    2.6 CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
    2.5 NOSTALGIA (Mario Martone)
    2.5 TRIANGLE OF SADNESS - Ruben Östlund
    2.5 R.M.N. - Christian Mungiu
    2.3 LEILA'S BROTHERS (Saeed Roustayi)
    2.3 BOY FROM HEAVEN - Tarik Saleh
    2.2 TCHAIKOVSKY'S WIFE - Kirill Serebrennikov
    2.1 HOLY SPIDER - Ali Abassi
    2.0 BROTHER AND SISTER (Arnaud Desplechin)
    2.0 THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (Vandermeersh, Groeningen)
    1.8 FOREVER YOUNG - Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-27-2022 at 06:24 PM.

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    CANNES DAY 10, MAY 26: KORE-EDA COMPETITION FILM


    SCENE FROM KORE-EDA'S BROKER

    BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda)
    Cannes. In Competition. Gets a miserable 2/5 stars from Bradshaw of The Guardian, who calls this child adoption tale "sudsy" and says he "gets the tone all wrong." Bradshaw acknowledges Kore-eda's a kind of heir to Ozu (though he himself prefers a nod to Naruse), and that he's "rightly revered. But the Japanese master has "a sweet tooth for whimsy and sentimentality" also shown in LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, which comes out here, says Bradshaw, who thinks this film "silly," "shallow," and "not a single word of it" "really believable.". But Tim Grierson in Screen Daily finds it "sensitive and compassionate," and that seems to be a widespread critics' view, admiring, respectful, not hugely enthusiastic of the film as a film in Kore-eda's oeuvre. Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or in 2018 for SHOPLIFTERS. This is about a black market business of selling abandoned babies. It's illegal, but this time the wrongdoers are closer to being do-gooders and claim to be so. Ben Croll in The Wrap calls the film "fine but not too memorable." In Hollywood Reporter David Rooney is admiring, but admits some later story twists are "incongruously movie-ish."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-27-2022 at 12:09 AM.

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    MAY 26 CONTINUED: ALBERT SERRA COMPETITION FILM


    BENOIT MAGIMEL IN PACIFICATION

    PACIFICTION / TOURMENT SUR LES ÎLES (Albert Serra).
    Cannes. In Competition. After previous experiences with Serra (who has never had a film in Competition at Cannes before, by the way), I would have the strongest doubts, but Bradshaw of The Guardian (who gives it 4/5 stars) fell under the spell of this sure, slow-moving portrait of colonial evil - or as he calls it "cheese-dream of French imperial tristesse, political paranoia and an apocalyptic despair," starring Benoît Magimel. The glamorously decadent-looking Magimel seems like a good start. Bradshaw says he "seems to be morphing into Gérard Depardieu before our eyes"; does he know Magimel played Depardieu's son in the 2016-2018 French TV series "Marseille"? The setting is Tahiti, part of French Polynesia. Magimel is the High Commissioner. A club-owning pal is the "reliably unsettling" Sergi López of WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY. There is hocus-pocus about nuclear testing and about the High Commissioner's departure. Serra leaves the period costumes of Casanova and Louis XIV behind here for the present day. In his Screen Daily review Lee Marshall briefly contrasts this Tahiti with the drabber one of Claire Denis's "challengingly opaque" 2004 The Intruder. Will this have some of that magic? With its "almost three-hour running time, dreamlike pacing and wafer-thin plot," this film isn't going to "light up the cineplexes." But would we like it? Maybe. In Deadline Pete Hammond says it "works on many levels," and seems somewhat natively appreciative.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-27-2022 at 12:08 AM.

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    CANNES DAY 10 MAY 26: DHONT COMPETITION FILM

    Competition films still to be covered:
    CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
    SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt)
    MOTHER AND SON (Léonor Serraille)

    GUSTAV DE WAELE AND EDEN DAMBRINE IN CLOSE

    CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
    Cannes. In Commpetition. Young Belgian director Dhont won the 2018 Cannes Camera d’Or for best debut (as Léonor Serraille did the year before) and the Queer Palm for GIRL, about a trans woman who wants to dance ballet with the other girls, which I saw then and described in my Paris movie journal as "a frustratingly restricted but brilliant and memorable film." I barely remember it now, though. (His choice of a cis-male actor to play the trans lead was criticized in trans and LGBTQ circles.) The new film concerns two 13-year-old very very close best friend boys - Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele) - whose bond of idyllic, apparently asexual, intimacy and affection is gradually broken when they go to secondary school because its intense physicality is found by others to be inappropriate. Whether one or the other or both or neither is gay is never shown (Dhont himself is openly gay). Léo, the more demonstrably "in love" (and the main protagonist) is the strongest to turn against the relationship. The Variety review says CLOSE is "so subtle and sensitive in the first half, so devastatingly false from its tragic twist on" (I won't list that "twist" as they do) and concludes Dhont, who is still only 31, "has a masterpiece in him," but "there’s an immaturity to his movies that he must first overcome." Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist ("A-") doesn't mention the twist at all and admires the "euphoric joy" of the scenes showing the boys' friendship before, in school, pressure causes Léo to break away from Rémi. David Erlich in IndieWire like Variety's critic thinks Dhont, though very gifted, still has some growing up to do, and takes the easy way out and misses out in subtlety in his second film's second half (he gives it a B-). Wendy Ide in Screen Daily, plainly taken by the film, focuses on "knockout performances," particularly by Dambrine, direction "of uncommon sensitivity" and the film's "intimate" scope but "considerable emotional wallop." Veteran critic Leslie Felperin, writing in Hollywood Reporter, is also extremely admiring.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-28-2022 at 12:18 AM.

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    CANNES DAY 10 MAY 26: LOUIS GARREL'S 'INNOCENT'


    GARREL, ZEM, AND MERLANT IN THE INNOCENT

    THE INNOCENT/L'INNOCENT (Louis Garrel).
    Cannes. Out of Competition. A "delicate blend of fraught family comedy, parodic heist flick and meta thesp commentary" an earlier Phil Hoad Guardian interview piece reported, and it's "flat out entertaining and full of droll irony and belly laughs. This is Garrel's fourth outing as feature film director. I haven't seen his 3rd, The Crusade, and it's hard to come by. Tim Grierson in Screen Daily calls L'Innocent "a contrived charmer full of fizzy pleasures" and "filled with goofy good cheer." We may need that. The plot line concerns a protective son (Garrel) who objects to his mother (Anouk Grinberg) marrying a career criminal (Roschdy Zem), then decides "an occasional heist" might not be a bad idea, "bring some spice to his [own] life." Garrel is his alter ego Abel again, and this time he has a "zesty rapport" with his 'best friend,' Clémence (Noémie Merlant), with whom he's working things out. It's all fun, but Garrel thends to "overdo the story’s playful ludicrousness" a bit, undercutting the real emotions, Grierson says. The Playlist calls THE INNOCENT "breezy, elegant, and fun." Valerie Complex in her Deadline review calls it "flat-out entertaining.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-28-2022 at 12:18 AM.

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    CANNES MAY 27, DAY 11, LAST TWO COMPETITION FILMS


    AHMED SYLLA IN UN PETIT FRÈRE

    MOTHER AND SON/UN PETIT FRÈRE (Léonor Serraille)
    Cannes. Competition. Bradshaw gives it 4/5 stars in his Guardian review, mainly for the excellent acting, especially Annabelle Lengronne as the mother, Rose, who is praised by everybody. A meditative recollection, ranging from 1989 to 2005, of a son who emigrated to France with his older brother and "wayward mother" from Ivory Coast in the nineties. Léonor Serraille won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 2017 for her debut film about a ditsy lady, JEUNE FEMME/MONTPARNASSE BIENVENUE (which I saw twice, and found skillful but implausible, unworthy of the Caméra d'Or). This seems something more solid. The common thread is the messy, irresponsible woman, this time the recollected mother whose children do well in spite of her promiscuity and irresponsible behavior while working as a hotel cleaner. Stephanie Bunbury in Deadline thinks the film seems too researched at times, "a dossier of the immigrant experience." This film is about African immigrant experience by a young white woman; Serraille has degrees in comparative literature from the Sorbonne and in scenario writing from La Fémis, the state film school. Fabien Mercier in Cineropa calls LE PETIT FRÈRE "a subtly crafted work" and singles out its "sophisticated screenplay" for manipulating a complex timeline and three POV's. After JEUNE FEMME I'm dubious, but this would clearly merit a watch.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-28-2022 at 12:22 AM.

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