Cannes 2023 roundup

Ooh la la! I went to Cannes, baby!!!

Of course, it was not nearly as glamorous as it might have been. I barely spoke to anyone on the ground; some mild chatting in various queues but otherwise went around in silence. Sad! Please invite me to your parties or to chat on your podcast, I’m good company and can talk about other stuff than movies. There was some mild bother with my pass but that worked out and I managed to watch 32 films. Two of those were in the archive section – an Armenian new wave picture called “Hello, It’s Me” (about the sex lives of nuclear scientists, with an excellent plot twist) and then a German new wave film called “It” about a young woman who manages to procure an abortion because her boyfriend – a real estate agent selling off parts of 1962 Berlin to developers – doesn’t want to settle down into bourgeois responsibility yet. Both very good, and fresh-feeling in a way which doesn’t always persist in the new wave as time passes, but that’s probably because both of those movies were feminist right before second-wave feminism.

For the new stuff, I saw thirty movies. Not Killers of the Flower Moon, alas, or the new Indiana Jones (though the queue for that was a memorable morning, and not in a good way). But I was there in the room when John C. Reilly sang a song to stall for time as Molly Manning Walker rushed in to pick up her award for How to Have Sex, and I was also in the room (in my best cocktail dress) when Justine Trier had a pop at French pension reforms when collecting her Palme d’Or for Anatomy of a Fall. (That is a movie with an unusual afterlife, and not just because of the damn song.) The other award winners I saw were Fallen Leaves (moody, hilarious); The Taste of Things (an all-time food movie, and up there as a love story); Monster (which I did not like, not at all); Perfect Days (which I loved very much); Augure aka Omen (unusual and shocking, in subject matter and attitude, in good ways); The Mother of All Lies (distinctive visually and emotional, and those intertwined); and Crowrã aka The Buriti Flower (in every way a surprise). I am not a fan of Nuri Bulge Ceylan, so I skipped his picture, and while I did see The Zone of Interest I am guarding my review of that for elsewhere – here, with From the Sublime

The two other documentaries I did see were both excellent. Four Daughters was a vivid exploration of a family and its mistakes, while Bread and Roses was a disturbing reminder of the price of courage. (Jennifer Lawrence’s red dress was a fine act of solidarity, too.)

As for the rest, let’s go alphabetically: The Animal Kingdom (spectacular). Asteroid City (come back to me about the names of the triplets when one of my novels finally gets published; also the movie’s delightful). Banel & Adama (gorgeous, but somehow feeble). Bonnard, Pierre & Marthe (a solid entertainment; somehow my review is only the second on RT). A Brighter Tomorrow (good lord). Close Your Eyes (maybe the biggest disappointment). Club Zero (a hateful piece of shit). Elemental (what if elements had feelings, and those feelings were racist?). Eureka (when Viggo Mortensen disappears, so should we). Jeanne du Barry (eaten by its own casting). Kubi (to quote Karl Malden in Pollyanna, death comes unexpectedly!!!!!). La Chimera (what noses). Last Summer (seriously, good lord). May December (another, even more irritated ‘good lord’). The New Boy (Deborah Mailman is a miracle). Une Nuit aka Strangers by Night (honestly, no woman would). Simple Comme Sylvain aka The Nature of Love (philosophers should never fall in love). Strange Way of Life (sweet Jesus, and not in a good way).

But it was a Chilean debut called The Settlers aka Los Colonos that’s stayed with me the most. Its intelligence, violence, sadness and twist of hope was a tremendous surprise, and its confidence in what it was doing was just immense.

Also I would like to thank the caretaker of the AirBnB where I stayed, who was very kind to me. When things are this intense, the little kindnesses go a long way.