In France, on Saturday, the Cannes Film Festival ends – the most representative film fair in Europe and the central event of world auteur cinema. This year there are a lot of works by famous masters – Ken Loach, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Catherine Breya, Aki Kaurismyaki, Marco Belocchio. Out of competition – also: here you could see, for example, new works by Martin Scorsese and Takeshi Kitano. In the parallel program “Directors’ Fortnight” – the work “Blizh” by Russian Ilya Pavolotsky. Russian media spoke to Cannes film critics about the film, how the festival went, and the films they celebrated this year.
Anton Dolin*: “Respecting the current context can cost the director his freedom”
Probably the most stunning, current and ambitious masterpiece on the competition program is Aki Kaurismaki’s “Fallen Leaves”, full of visual poetry and wry humor (the love story of a sorter and a sandblaster operator – Russian media). Another important film, “Passion for Daudin-Buffan”, by the French director of Vietnamese origin Tran Anh Hung, free adaptation of a century-old novel on the love of a cook for his cook with Juliette Binoche in one of the roles main. This is a rather innovative attempt to translate into the language of cinema the idea of what taste is – not only in the culinary sense, but also in the broadest sense. Despite all its innovation, this statement is more than intelligible and at the same time very emotional.
Alma Poisti, Aki Kaurismaki and Jussi Vatanen Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP
Out of competition, Martin Scorsese’s The Flower Moon Killers (a film about the FBI’s investigation into the murder of a Native American family in the 1029s – Russian media) was the most impressive image for me. I would even dare to suggest that she is the most convincing candidate for a triumph at the next Oscar. I’m pretty cool about what Scorsese is doing in his later period, but this film, quite unexpectedly for me, was out of the ordinary. Interestingly, it was there that two of his favorite actors met – Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
And it is perhaps the first work of American mainstream cinema that speaks so radically about the genocide of the indigenous population in America. And this anger and this radicalism – they are transmitted to the auditorium.
And if his last film, “The Irishman”, looked like a kind of elegiac farewell to cinema, then this one, on the contrary, amazes with its inner youth and modernity.
Still from The Flower Moon Killers / directed by Martin Scorsese, screenwriters Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, David Grann, composer Robbie Robertson / Appian Way, Apple Studios, etc.
I can’t resist mentioning my favorite Alice Rohrwacher and the little secret miracle of the current Cannes Film Festival – her film “Chimera” (the story of an archaeologist who illegally sells artifacts – Russian media). In general, his works are a pleasure for the connoisseur of cinema, non-mainstream, purely auctorial cinema, with an unusual figurative system and irrational connections between these images. And instead of trying to figure out that connection, you just need to enjoy it.
Well, it is probably worth mentioning the film “The Neck” by Takeshi Kitano, presented in the Cannes Premieres program. This director, whom the general public knows and loves for his poetic films, from the famous “Fireworks” to the no less famous “Dolls”. Now he has filmed a bloody grotesque dedicated to the war that happened after another coup in 1582.
Oddly enough, there’s a lot of funny stuff there – comedian Kitano doesn’t know how to spin in such a way that it’s not funny – but it’s a very bright, talented and not comedic piece at all.
There is a temptation here to see parallels with modernity and to read this image as an anti-war statement – but, firstly, the image was conceived long before the start of the **** (hostilities) in Ukraine, and second, it is centered, in many ways Japanese audiences are so laden with events of Japan’s inner history that it would be an exaggeration to draw parallels with modern history. Another thing is that real artists have a knack for anticipating planetary catastrophes.
Still from the film “The Neck” / director and screenwriter Takeshi Kitano / Asmik Ace Entertainment
I also saw the photo “Which” of the only Russian participant Ilya Pavolotsky (the story of a daughter and her father traveling through Russia in a caravan with an urn with her mother’s ashes – Russian media). It didn’t strike me as love at first sight, but it’s a start — and I wouldn’t want to judge it for some, perhaps secondary, or being excluded from the current critical context. A relevant film in the current critical context can cost the freedom of its author. “Whim” looks like a film from another world – first the pre-war one.
Although, in general, this is very much in line with the trend of the current festival – if Cannes’ past was saturated with the topic of the day and new military wounds, then the current seems to have swung the other way.
Europe is tired of war, of talking about war – including on screen. I think she will come back to it when **** (hostilities) in Ukraine are over – already in the order of reflection.
Unfortunately, Ukraine was not widely represented at Cannes. The selector of one of the programs told me that he really wanted to find and select a Ukrainian film, but that he hadn’t found one that suited him in terms of artistic qualities. Well, it’s understandable – it seems to me that Ukraine is just not up to the job of cinema now. And for representatives of other countries to pretend to understand their catastrophe in advance or for them – well, that would be somewhat strange.
Larisa Malyukova: “Modernity has lost the characteristics of humanity”
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival struck me as unexpectedly interesting – usually, critics’ expectations of the program always turn out to be higher than what they see later. I don’t have it this time. This time there were a lot of directors from the older generation – and they showed a great class of cinema. There were many, so to speak, “vintage” paintings that reflected modernity. And modernity, in my opinion, has lost the traits of humanity. And in this sense, the paintings of the classics – Kaurismyaki, Loach, Koreeda – were dedicated to returning the modernity of these features through a look at him from the past.
Leonardo DiCaprio directed by Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Kara Jade MyersScott Garfitt/Invision/AP
A big event was the screening of the film “Killers of the Flower Moon” by Martin Scorsese – about how politics invades people’s lives, how the empire destroys their lives. A powerful performance with incredible acting.
Another trend this year was a large number of paintings about the relationship of elders – parents, teachers – with teenagers. “Monster” by Hirokazu Koreeda, “Club Zero” by Jessica House, “May-December” by Todd Haynes, “About Dry Grass” by Nuri Bilge Ceylan – they’re all about it. The clash of generations has always interested filmmakers, but now, apparently, this worldwide rift is happening along some sort of bottomless abyss that it’s unclear how we’ll live on.
From the movie “Blizh” / director and screenwriter Ilya Pavlotsky, composer Zurkas Tepla / Black Chamber
About the same film “Which” of the only Russian participant Ilya Pavolotsky, presented in the program “Quinzaine des Réalisateurs”. Interestingly, strong films were offered at Cannes – “Patient No. 1” by Rezo Gigineishvili, “Bullfinch” by Boris Khlebnikov (it eventually became the opening film of the last MIFF – Russian media). The first work of a young Russian author has been chosen. A small road movie collected on two solitudes crossing a completely deserted country. In general, it seemed to me that the Cannes Film Festival decided either not to show Russia at all, or to show it with modest authorial work, which it is impossible to find fault with: it was made according to all the canons of festival cinema.
There was also a Ukrainian film at the festival – a short “How It Was” by Anastasia Solonevich and Polish director Damian Kotsur – about a Ukrainian refugee returning to Kiev from Berlin. But even he, contrary to likely expectations, was not entirely devoted to war: modernity is manifested here through the specific fate of a person. And this approach, it must be admitted, has been the common thread of the festival: perhaps, unlike last year, or perhaps due to other factors, Cannes has decided this year to to move away from the subject of the day, to sacrifice politics for the benefit of artistic expression.
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