It was Thierry Fremaux, the general delegate himself, who, with a voice full of emotion, expressed the solidarity of the F.I.F. with Manchester, the new martyr city, on the stage of the Grand Auditorium Lumière.
A statement that would be followed a few hours later by a minute of silence throughout the festival grounds. Manchester and Cannes, two audiences seeking shared pleasures, culture, and freedom: everything that Islamists hate.
For the rest… the show must go on, which means for us three new films from different horizons: a Greek one, a Japanese one, and an Iranian one.
But as every year, Cannes is once again the pleasure of wandering before and after screenings in the mysterious hallways and improbable corners of the Palais. Playing the daytime Belphégor in the entrails of this magnificent building, so unfairly nicknamed the “bunker,” is certainly a somewhat childish but intense pleasure. The photos accompanying this post give a (very) small idea of it.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece)
Steven, a brilliant surgeon, takes under his wing the teenage son of a patient who died during an operation. But the boy gradually interferes within his protector’s family, becoming increasingly disturbing and then threatening.
The director of the intriguing The Lobster, presented in Cannes two years ago, makes the first half-hour of his film a masterpiece of anxiety and black humor. Unfortunately, the following part is quite predictable and somewhat conventional. And while Barry Keoghan’s performance and face as Martin, the young psychopath, may provoke some nightmares in fragile viewers, the performances of the two stars, Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, do not call for particular comments.
Radiance, Naomi Kawase (Japan)
Misako is a film audio describer. During a screening, she meets a famous photographer whose vision is irreparably deteriorating. Then, after a rather tough observation period, strong feelings arise between a man who is losing light and a woman who is pursuing it.
As often in Japanese films, the story is quite slow to unfold. But once it is set up, the emotion is present. With, as a bonus, a beautiful reflection on the role of imagination in our perspective.
24 Frames, Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)
This experimental film by the 1997 Palme d’Or winner (for The Taste of Cherry) is screened as part of the events of the festival’s 70th anniversary, so it is out of competition. It was mainly an opportunity for Thierry Frémaux to celebrate Iranian cinema and through it, the positive evolution of the country, as evidenced by last Sunday’s elections.
Well, it’s quite conceptual… We start from often black-and-white photographs, and the director shares with us what happens before or after. A strange idea for me, who has never cared about what happened before or after my favorite painting, Monet’s The Magpie. The photos being mainly of winter forests and waves crashing on the shore, featuring actors like crows, cows, and reindeer, naturally, it gets a bit tedious. But that’s the magic of Cannes: you can watch crows for two hours without flinching!
by Patrick Mottard
