Cannes Diary #7: Park and Cronenberg are back with incredible movies
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 1:43PM by Elisa Giudici
The masters are back with masterful movies! Seeing Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave followed by David Cronenberg’s Crimes of future with only a 20 minutes break between them seemed almost a waste. These two are among the most (rightfully) hyped movies of the entire year and of this Cannes edition. I really wanted some time after the first especially to think fully on what I had just seen, savoring the first impression instead of deep diving into an equally immersive but radically different film experience. Especially considering that one of the two is a perfect movie, a rare five out of five stars, 10 out of 10, or whatever other token of appreciation you can imagine.
Those two films and a new French movie after the jump...
LES AMANDIERS / FOREVER YOUNG by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (France)
COMPETITION FILM
Autobiographical movies are very personal by definition. It is entirely understandable (if regrettable) then, when they turn out a little too self-absorbed to make room for the audience. Such is the case with Bruni Tedeschi’s Les Amandiers which is going by Forever Young as its English title. The story is set within a hugely influential French theatrical company that Bruni Tedeschi attended as a student under the guidance of legendary director Patrice Chéreau (played by ubiquitous French star Louis Garrel). Les Amandiers as a school and as a movie is full of youthful energy, creative chaos, and predictable recklessness. The lead actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz also has a resemblance to the young Bruni Tedeschi which works well for the movie.
Unfortunately, it is also an annoying film given that it leans into all the stereotypes of young, talented self destructive actors: drugs, recklessness, narcissism. The problem is not how stupidly the protagonists behave, but how the movie never frames their experiences inside a larger world. École des Amandiers is a sort of bubble of drama that pops whenever the movie has to face the next challenge. Nothing is soul-shaking enough: not playing Chekov for the first time on the main stage, not the possibility of having AIDS, nor the suicidal, violent tendencies of a boyfriend. While the drama is underlined and cried over nothing is at stake. It is very tempting to file this one in the “spoiled theatre kids taking themselves too seriously” folder and move on.
DECISION TO LEAVE by Park Chan-wook (South Korea)
COMPETITION FILM
Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Park Chan-wook and I have waited impatiently for this movie. My excitement was warranted since Decision to Leave might well be a masterpiece. During this edition of the Cannes Film Festival we have discussed two good to great procedurals or detective stories like Boy From Heaven and Holy Spider, but neither come close to this classical yet profoundly innovative take on genre tropes. Here we have a lone, sleepless detective (Park Hai-el) dangerously charmed by a real femme fatale (Tang Wei) whose husband has died under mysterious circumstances. There are so many themes and elements of Decision to Leave that warrant full thinkpieces and discussions of their own: the barriers of language as a tool for increasing tension, the color-coded ambivalence of the protagonist’s real intentions, the superb editing which is full of incredible transitions, slight time jump reveals, and sudden visual parallels. I strongly suspect Park Chan Wook had directed this entire movie frame by frame before ever arriving on set. Park Chan-wook is not the heir of Alfred Hitchcock. Rather he is as much a master of this era as Hitchcock was of his. The director has made a film so intricate and layered it surely requires more than one sitting to be fully grasp it. I can't wait to see it again.
I want to underline how experimental and modern Decision to Leave is, especially considering the classical genre it belongs to. It is one of the first movies to successfully and fully integrate smartphone and smartwatches not only as “functional but ugly devices” but as a way to enhance a cinematic experience, experimenting a lot with how vocal notes are heard, and how texts are seen. Smartphones are of course ever present in contemporary cinema, but they tend to be tolerated at beast and hidden whenever possible. Chan-wook has turned them into something revealing in a cinematic way.
Final note: I absolutely loved the ending, even if it smashed the last surviving pieces of my heart.
(Decision to Leave will be theatrically released this fall in the US and UK with a streaming release to follow on MUBI)
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE by David Cronenberg (Canada)
COMPETITION FILM
I kept accidentally calling this "Crimes of the Future Past" and how right I was in my mistake! Cronenberg's latest film is very well made but not easy to judge since it feels so out of time. It's like a miraculous discovery of an old, forgotten dystopian cult movie that's been found by chance while switching on the television late at night. Even this late-night television comparison betrays how 'old' Crimes of the future feels. It's both a summarization of Cronenberg's filmography and a reminder or imagining of how people in the 1980s or 1990s wanted or feared the future would be. The practical feel of it is very pleasurable, the lack of visible CGI making the movie feel like a tactile relic.
It's curious and funny that a movie that's been so hyped as provocative and shocking would also feel so nostalgic (at least for fans of early Cronenberg). I admit I haven't fully absorbed it yet (again, festivals don't give you much time), but I was carried away by the romance, love, and sex as filtered through our dear Cronenberg's ultra specific fixations.
(Crimes of the Future will be released theatrically by NEON in the US next month)
more tomorrow
Day 1 Opening Night, Coupez!
Day 2 Tom Cruise, The Eight Mountains, Scarlet
Day 3 Armageddon Time, EO, Tchaivosky's Wife
Day 4 Corsage, Brother and Sister, When You Finish Saving the World
Day 5 3000 Years of Longing, RMN, Triangle of Sadness, Boy From Heaven
Day 6 Holy Spider, Men, Smoking Makes You Cough, Marcel!
Day 7 Decision to Leave, Crimes of the Future, Forever Young
Day 8 Silent Twins, Tori and Lokita, Nostalgia
Reader Comments (2)
Crimes of the Future and Decision to Leave... man, I would love to be first in line to get a ticket for those 2 films when they arrive in the U.S.
Love the dispatches, Elisa! Please, please keep 'em coming!
Both of these films sound beyond intriguing, though once again, Cronenberg is probably out for me because I just can't do body horror or extreme violence. Hell, even Park Chan-wook is a little strong for me.