FROM 'THE VERDICT', FILMS IN OTHER SECTIONS.
STILL FROM LES HARKIS
FATHER & SOLDIER/TIRAILLEURS (Mathieu Vadepied)
Cannes Un Certain Regard opening film. Affecting portrait of paternal love hinges on intensely involving performances by Omar Sy (the "Lupin" star known on Netflix) and Alassane Diong, as an African father who goes to war to protect his conscript son. Tirailleurs Sénégalais were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. This film is set during or just before WWI.
GOD'S CREATURES (Saela Davis & Anna Rose)
Cannes Directors' Fortnight. Emily Watson plays a troubled Irish matriarch in this "handsome but heavy-handed family psychodrama" from directing duo Seala Davis and Anna Rose Holmer. There have been a lot of reviews of this and it sounds strong. Bradshaw goes only for 3/5 and calls it "a tense cine-ballad of guilt and shame."
LES HARKIS (Philippe Faucon).
Cannes Directors Fortnight. "A fiery and timely reflection about a dark episode in French history at the risk of being written out of the books with the normalization of far-right politics in the country," says Clarence Tsui. "Philippe Faucon’s humble mastery of cinematographic pithiness puts under the microscope the cruel page of history of local soldiers engaged on the French side during the Algerian war," says Fabien Mercier (Cineuropa). Philippe Faucon was born in Morocco, and he specializes in depicting the fallout of French colonialism. I reviewed his FATIMA in 2016 (R-V).
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