Cannes at Home: Murder in the Alps, Fire in Galicia, and more!

by Cláudio Alves

I don't know about you, but I can't contain my excitement for SIRÂT.

After Schilinski and Loznitsa had the honor of opening this year's Official Competition at Cannes, the next few days at the fest have seen many another auteur take their bow. Reviews vary wildly, but it seems that Oliver Laxe's Sirât is a winner, while Dominik Moll's Dossier 137 has inspired some of the least enthusiastic reviews coming out of the Croisette. Hafsia Herzi's The Little Sister didn't make much of a splash either, though critics have been kinder to the second French production vying for the Palme d'Or. Finally, nobody's indifferent to Ari Aster's Eddington, a polarizing Cannes premiere if there ever was one. But that's business as usual for the American director, whose works have caused extreme reactions of adoration and revilement ever since Hereditary hit theaters in 2018.

For Cannes at Home, I invite you to revisit Moll's The Night of the 12th, Laxe's Fire Will Come, Herzi's You Deserve a Lover, and Aster's Beau Is Afraid…

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Cannes Diary 04: Ari Aster's "Eddington" is uncomfortably contemporary

by Elisa Giudici

In Eddington, Ari Aster brings his signature excesses and flaws, yet, as always, these are interwoven with genuine strokes of genius, his remarkable visual talent, and a flair for the audacious. Eddington is set to be divisive, much like his previous film Beau is Afraid, though it's arguably more focused and sharp, albeit still far from perfect.

The very fabric of Eddington makes it incendiary, divisive, and ultimately, a tough nut to crack. Set in the fictional New Mexico town of its title, it's an uneven but admirable attempt to take a genre deeply rooted in the past -- the Watern -- and use its tropes and language to narrate our present. Naturally then we get the classic standoff as well as  reaking shop sign swinging in a desert landscape. The shop is actually a gun store, from which the protagonist will emerge armed with both an automatic rifle and a smartphone. Because today, vigilantes and criminals alike carry a lens ready to film themselves or to be pointed in others' faces, like a weapon...

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Cannes Diary 03: Our first Palme d'Or contender "Sound of Falling"

by Elisa Guidici

Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling is only the first film in competition but it's already a strong contender for the Palme d'Or, at least according to initial press reactions. These reactions, however, were divided on which directorial comparison best captured the German film's unsettling power and evocative atmosphere. Some critics have invoked Haneke – indeed, it’s hard not to recall The White Ribbon when faced with a narrative that unearths the unknowable, often dark, elements lurking even within children. Others point to Bergman, an almost inevitable comparison given the screenplay's skill in excavating the lives of four generations of women in a German farmhouse. It delves beneath their facade to touch upon a harsh, undiluted humanity where good and evil, innocence and cruelty, inextricably merge and overlap.

My own mind, however, drifted to Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, though Angelika, Erika, Alma, and Lenka represent a far rougher and utterly unsentimental iteration of young womanhood...

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Cannes at Home: We're Back!

by Cláudio Alves

Could SOUND OF FALLING be the first German film to win the Palme since THE WHITE RIBBON?

As the title says, we're back! Well, I'm back, to be precise. Apologies for my absence in the last few weeks, but I've been busy, here in Portugal, covering the IndieLisboa Film Festival. Indeed, I might still write something about the many great works I caught there for The Film Experience readership. But, in the meantime, my attention shall be on Cannes and batting away the cinephile FOMO that befalls those of us who're staying home, watching from afar as some of the year's most anticipated films make their bow at the Croisette. Nick Taylor is doing some anniversary posting while Elisa Giudici is reporting from the festivities, so I'll be doing my usual schtick and explore past works from this edition's Official Competition auteurs. 

A few days of competition screenings have passed. Still, it all started with German director Mascha Schilinski's Sound of Falling, which received sterling reviews from international critics and is already considered a contender for end-of-the-festival honors. Sergei Loznitsa's Two Prosecutors marks a more unheralded return to fiction from the Ukrainian filmmaker. Let's look at their triumphs from years past…

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Cannes Diary 02: On the side of Tom Cruise

by Elisa Giudici

From a revealing and free-flowing conversation at Cannes today, the impression I got of Christopher McQuarrie,the acclaimed writer-director and creative force behind many of Tom Cruise's biggest hits, was of a compelling and fascinating personality. What emerged was a portrait of a man unflinchingly candid, at times almost brutal in detailing his own perceived limitations and failures, who also spoke with deep loyalty about Cruise, the figure he credits as the enabler of his remarkable career.

Here are 8 key insights from his remarks:

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