Cannes wrapped another edition last weekend, and a new batch of prize winners have been announced. I’ve typically used this final wrap-up to offer brief comments on many of said winners, namely those Vadim and I didn’t already address in prior dispatches. Ruben Östlund and co. did well, though, because the only victor currently unremarked upon is Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, a poetic drama about a Japanese toilet cleaner for which its lead, Koji Yakusho, was awarded Best Actor. We already published my discussion with Wenders about his new 3D film, Anselm, which premiered as a Special Screening earlier in […]
by Blake Williams on May 29, 2023Faith, divinity, transcendence and/or what one might otherwise call “magical” interventions remain thematic staples of arthouse filmmaking, not least in Cannes films that carve out a space for poetic languors and modest effects work which elevate non-commercial films’ often make-do or naturalistic mises-en-scène. Austere Austrian auteur Jessica Hausner is not necessarily in need of stylistic elevation—her ongoing collaboration with DP Martin Gschlacht produces immaculately, almost imposingly detailed front-to-back compositions—yet her work remains devoted to characters navigating the world’s capacity for miracles, spirituality or some great beyond. Despite an opening on-screen trigger warning preparing the audience for upsettingly frank depictions of eating […]
by Blake Williams on May 27, 2023German filmmaker Wim Wenders has two new features in Cannes this year, one of which, Anselm, is a documentary portrait of German artist Anselm Kiefer. Like Pina (2011)—his filmed portrait of the late Tanztheater dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch—Anselm was shot and projected in 3D (his fourth solo feature to be filmed in the format, with a fifth already on the way), reasserting Wenders’ dedication to the format at a time when few filmmakers in the industry not named James Cameron or Ang Lee continue to explore it. Kiefer’s work, like Bausch’s, is naturally accommodating to 3D photography. Filmed at various […]
by Blake Williams on May 24, 2023Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, instantly hailed as a masterpiece upon the conclusion of its first screenings in Cannes last Friday, finds the British filmmaker once again engineering a vehicle with which to burrow beneath viewers’ skin. After opening his previous film, an adaptation of Michel Faber’s 2000 sci-fi novel Under the Skin, with an on-screen reminder of cinema’s intrinsic visuality—darkness, then pulsating orbs and, finally/explicitly, a dilating pupil—here Glazer turns to the aural. Another literary adaptation (this time of a work by Martin Amis, who died of oesophageal cancer the same day Glazer walked the red carpet), The […]
by Blake Williams on May 22, 2023Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry, the opening film of this year’s Official Selection, is at least the eighth feature-length biopic to center around Louis XV’s final maîtresse-en-titre, and the first significant film to feature her as a prominent character since Sofia Coppola’s famously booed 2006 Palme d’Or contender, Marie Antoinette (portrayed therein by Asia Argento). As with most Cannes openers, Maïwenn’s film is most notable for its cast: Johnny Depp, stunt-cast as Louis XV; Melvil Poupaud as the Count du Barry; and Maïwenn herself as the titular titillator. The film screened amidst ongoing national protests over pension reform, which almost certainly […]
by Blake Williams on May 19, 2023Only a couple of months after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s completion of their decades-long endeavor to totally delegitimize the Oscars, Cannes provided another argument for doing away with all cinema awards entirely. The Vincent Lindon-led jury of nine couldn’t manage to make admirable choices even as they lauded virtually half the contenders in the field. Then again, at least one member of said jury admitted to not knowing who or how old Jerzy Skolimowski is until after the screening of his radiant EO—ex aequo winner, nevertheless, of the Jury Prize (something like third or fourth or […]
by Blake Williams on May 29, 2022Day 10 is winding down, and it’s become quite clear that, as was the case for the Berlinale last February, this year’s Cannes is a significant regression after a 2021 edition that overflowed with a pre-pandemic backlog. So many of the films I’ve seen, produced and completed (if not completely developed) in the midst of COVID-era constraints, have felt smaller, cheaper, cruder than what I’ve encountered here in editions past—not a judgment per se, of course, but a new, ill-fitted look from a festival that so pointedly touts its eventitude: the spectacle, the glamor, the scope of its pet auteur’s […]
by Blake Williams on May 26, 2022Triangle of Sadness stands as the conclusion of what Ruben Östlund has recently deemed a trilogy about “being male in our times.” (It will not be a quartet.) As with the middle entry of said triptych (his 2017 Palme d’Or-winner The Square), Triangle is a movie of set pieces blanketed by a shapeshifting social critique obsessed with the myriad ways in which civilization and morality distort human life. Its initial target is the modeling industry, a chapter (the first of three, Östlund’s new favorite number) dominated by cheap shots at the scene’s stereotypical superficiality and cattiness, especially its particular gender […]
by Blake Williams on May 24, 2022“What if this movie’s just a donkey green screened onto a bunch of Koyaanisqatsi-looking footage?” I joked to a friend as the lights dimmed for Polish master Jerzy Skolimowski’s new film, Eo. It wasn’t, but honestly I wasn’t as far off as I thought. Touted (in the media, at least) as a remake of Robert Bresson’s 1966 classic Au hasard Balthazar, the 84 year-old’s latest offers one of the more radical updates of that film imaginable. Pitched somewhere between sacrilege and tribute (Skolimowski is a notorious Bresson fan, even if his work has rarely shown his influence), Eo is an […]
by Blake Williams on May 21, 2022Ticketing catastrophes, internet outages at the badge claim station, and complimentary gold buttons featuring lame movie-related quotes from uncited sources in either French or broken English—“I swear to you: I had an eye contact with Timothée,” reads mine—in sans-serif font atop the number 75. A quick Google search tells me that the traditional gift to celebrate a 75th anniversary is diamonds, but two days into Cannes’ three-quarter century extravaganza I might’ve guessed it was lead. The inauspicious Opening Night Film selection, Michel Hazanivicius’s Final Cut, was in lockstep with the festival’s other launch fumbles. Scooped up by Thierry after the […]
by Blake Williams on May 19, 2022