Cannes is also – especially on a rainy day like today – the Film Market nestled in the bowels of the Palais: a veritable small UN of cinephiles.
Two more films: the “Almodovar” of the year and an intriguing film from an Austrian director.
PAIN AND GLORY (DOLOR Y GLORIA) (Pedro Almodovar / Spain).
Salvador Mallo, a director reminiscent of Almodovar, unwell and experiencing a creative block, has a series of encounters: some in the flesh (a former lover, the star actor of one of his major hits…), others as memories from his childhood in a village in the Valencia region (his mother, Penélope Cruz, a friend who is an illustrator…).
But by reconnecting with his past, Salvador feels the need to tell his story and it is thanks to this need and some good medical news that he begins to move forward again.
A very personal Almodovar that is a continuation of “Bad Education” presented at Cannes in 2004. Antonio Banderas is very moving in the role of the blocked creator who plunges into a deadly nostalgia before once again using the past as a source of inspiration. It demonstrates that a very personal story can, when well told, touch the universal.
LITTLE JOE (Jessica Hausner / Austria – United Kingdom)
Alice, a single mother, is a scientist who has designed a very peculiar flower. Vermilion red, it has the power to make its owner happy. Defying the rules of her laboratory, she gives one to her son Joe, whom she naturally names Little Joe.
In reality, instead of being happy, he and the other beneficiaries gradually become empty shells that mimic their previous lives to keep up appearances. The flower becomes increasingly effective and slowly contaminates everyone.
In short, the director, a former collaborator of Haneke (a double Palme d’Or Cannes winner who knows a thing or two about heavy subjects), suggests that social relationships are a theater of shadows, with each person only aspiring to retreat into their vital instinct. As Jessica Hausner’s characters are particularly lethargic even before their contamination, the difference isn’t striking even if Alice and Joe’s universe is visually very successful.
