Now that I am so fancy I have been to Cannes twice, I am delighted to report that it is even better the second time around. I knew where things were (mostly), I ate so many pizzas from the same place the owner apologised to me for closing for cataract surgery a few days before I left, and my French is good enough to sustain a conversation about cataract surgery (and wish him well). On the downside I spent more time this year in the satellite venues, meaning there were fewer celebrities walking past me in the street, disappointing to everybody. It was a more sociable year though and I am hopeful it will lead to even more better career opportunities – please hire me to write for you!
My #1 movie also won the Palme d’Or: Anora. Great taste everybody. I am not sure when a movie has surprised me more, both in the plot twists (though go in cold, don’t spoil it for yourself if you can help it) and in how emotionally involved everyone got as director Sean Baker kept raising the stakes. No one breathed for the last ten minutes at least and for a jaded festival audience that is rare. Yura Borisov is new to me though a monster star of Russian cinema, and now has a global ticket for the rest of his career should he play his cards right. Mikey Madison does such unbelievable work here you forget she is acting, and hopefully this will open every door for her as well.
Another personal favourite featuring a smoking hot actor in a black hoodie who doesn’t talk much is Black Dog, which won the Un Certain Regard strand. Chinese superstar Eddie Peng does a masterclass here in physical acting and in working with a partner who hasn’t read the script. That would be Little Xin, the dog who played the main black dog and who was robbed (robbed!!!) of the Palme Dog, which went to the otherwise forgettable Dog on Trial.
My thoughts on the other award winners I saw are as follows: All We Imagine As Light is sublime, a word I don’t use much, and I am excited to see it again to be better absorbed in its richness. Grand Tour is one of those movies that is impossible to describe and difficult to write about, which makes its multilingual excellence a jaw-dropping achievement. (Also I am SO happy I got to describe a movie as “Wisconsin Death Trip meets Apocalypse Now.”) Emilia Perez won two big prizes and while I am delighted Jacques Audiard made a musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord, in which Zoe Saldana isn’t painted some alien color, the experience was a little academic. Kinds of Kindness is fucking awful and I didn’t think Jesse Plemons did anything special in it. Furthermore I was sent an article in which a journalist complained that overhearing the woman sitting behind her (evidently me) saying “that was so unbelievably awful” during the credits reduced the Cannes environment to that of her local AMC. And here I’d thought I was being ladylike and restrained. Ah well! It’s not a festival if there isn’t tutting about other people’s manners.
But back to cinema, especially when there’s a little more than my hurt feelings at stake. The Seed of the Sacred Fig kind of had to get a special jury prize due to how Iran has treated its cast and crew, and while the movie is not flawless it is very good, doesn’t miss with its political punches and therefore deserves all the support we can give it. Armand was a swing and a miss, with dancing more interesting than the plot. At least the dad was wearing a t-shirt from the Molde Jazz Festival, which I have been to! On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a tough film with a tough plot, but made by a first-rate talent and with such slow power it’s very easy to admire, if not enjoy. The Damned is a mumblecore about the American civil war, with some of the most distinctive visuals of the festival, and an unusual sense of itself; it’s no surprise a mood piece that strong shared the directing prize. The Shameless is hard-core, which is meant as extreme high praise, and the way in which Vicky Krieps spoke about Anasuya Sengupta’s performance at the awards ceremony was a class act.
I also sat through the first hour of The Substance before getting bored and walking out; it’s very visually impressive but even with Demi Moore making an important comeback, it’s nothing to write about.
As for the others, let’s go alphabetically. The Apprentice deserves an American release, not least for its poisonous depiction of 80s New York, but mostly for seeing how Jeremy Strong goes terrifyingly hard as the suited personification of evil. The Balconettes is all over the place tonally, and plotwise a big old mess, but its message of female empowerment was pretty cool, if more reliant on nudity than anybody was expecting (the moment I am talking about, which you will realise when you see it, is shocking, and not remotely sexual). Beating Hearts sounded great on paper but after the high point of the dance duet to “A Forest” by The Cure collapsed under its own sense of itself. It didn’t even let its two big stars get to enjoy themselves, separately or together. Someone needed to get Andrea Arnold to think through her plot twists in Bird, which managed to squander Franz Rogowski in some pretty disturbing ways. (The scene where the friends serenade the toad with Coldplay makes it worth seeing, though.) An epic of epic epicness, The Count of Monte-Cristo is a real demonstration of what French cinema can do when it puts its back into it, and so cartoonishly beautiful that it deserves its long runtime.
Everybody Loves Touda managed to be bleak and uplifting at the same time, quite an achievement, with a seventeen-minute final shot (done on location in a hotel in Casablanca) that everyone should see in how it sums up a mood, a culture, and our society. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a barnstormer of a movie, with Chris Hemsworth reminding us all why he’s such a tremendous star, and with stunts that come up to Fury Road’s level. It’s a delight. The Girl with the Needle was kind of a sister film to Anora, only incredibly grim and based on a horrible true story, and filmed with a surprising visual panache. Girls Will Be Girls (which I saw as part of Sundance this year) is a lovely coming-of-age story that’s also fair to the mother. I also got to realise I am a huge, maybe even lifetime, fan of Kevin Costner. Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One was so casually excellent you kind of forgot how good it was as you were watching it, with an enormous scope that will absolutely stand up to the planned three further movies. Also, a man named Jon Beavers strode around wearing an entire wolf pelt over his shoulders, which was pretty damn memorable if you know what I mean.
I am very surprised I recommended Marcello Mio as literally nothing about this suggested it was anything other than nepo-baby inside baseball, and yet. The Marching Band was terrific, a old-school tearjerker about class, identity and music, and I’m shocked that my review linked there is (as of now) still the only one on Rotten Tomatoes. Meeting with Pol Pot is a noble depiction of the importance of journalism to shame the devil, but in being neither documentary nor wholly fictional it didn’t really succeed at either. Though I did like the dioramas. Megalopolis is such a disappointment it’s hard to talk about, though Aubrey Plaza has kicked her career up several notches through her ability not to embarrass herself playing someone called Wow Platinum. The fact it swallowed all the attention that Horizon deserved to share is hard to bear.
Motel Destino is as reliant on its sound design as The Zone of Interest was but while the sex was hot the plot was a snooze. Niki is exactly my kind of film and it did a wonderful job of showing how an artist finds her feet despite a pretty bleak backstory. Oh, Canada was a positive surprise, with a subtle depiction of masculinity that’s surprising from Paul Schrader (the subtlety, I mean), and with a performance from Richard Gere that is quite the bravest thing from a Hollywood leading man of his reputation in some time. It’s thrilling Cate Blanchett did Rumours but no movie with masturbating zombie bog people should be boring.
Santosh was another surprise in how it shows a woman figuring herself out by way of some remarkable good work combined with an unforgivable mistake but the journey was earned and the ending didn’t punk out. The Second Act is not first-rate Quentin Dupieux, but its sense of humour and the plot twist were worthwhile all the same. Sweet As (which I saw at last year’s Berlinale) is a really terrific own voices story with a very raw and relatable depiction of being a teenager in its highly unusual outback setting. When the Light Breaks has a slight plot but an outsize emotional impact and I suspect will be one of the movies from this year with the longest tail. Finally I will always admire any movie that takes the ambition of working-class women seriously, and the ways in which Wild Diamond holds up a mirror to our current ideas of sex and power is really important IMHO.
So that’s 35 movies, not counting the walkouts.
One final thing. I had a press, as opposed to a festival pass, this year, meaning I was able to attend the final press conference where the jury discussed how proud they were at how well they worked together and the winners discussed how happy they were. In other words, I was briefly in the same room as Lily Gladstone, among many other artists of importance. (She’s my favourite though, and the ivy necklace – undoubtedly made out of emeralds – she wore to the closing event was an incredible thing of beauty.) I am a critic and not a journalist, but I absolutely need to raise my game so this can happen a lot more often.
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