Best Actress '74 @50: The Greatest of All Time

by Cláudio Alves

Last weekend, on Mother's Day of all days, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore celebrated its 50th anniversary. The occasion calls for some acknowledgment here at The Film Experience, where actressexual Oscar obsessives abound. After all, Ellen Burstyn won the Best Actress race at the 47th Academy Awards, triumphing over what could be described as the greatest lineup in the category's history. Along with the eventual victor, AMPAS nominated Diahann Carroll in Claudine, Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, Valerie Perrine in Lenny, and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. They might have also nominated Liv Ullmann in Scenes from a Marriage had she been eligible, but we'll get there in time. 

As Faye Dunaway presents a new doc at Cannes, the stars have aligned to relitigate the 1974 Best Actress race. Are you ready? Let's go…

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Cannes at Home: Day 1 – Quentin Dupieux is the King of Weird

by Cláudio Alves

Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon in THE SECOND ACT.

Another year, another edition of the Cannes at Home miniseries, specially made to combat cinephile FOMO for those of us not at the French Riviera. For the next week or so, let's explore the filmographies of directors in competition. However, since the festival opened with the latest Quentin Dupieux project, it seems fitting to start our at-home festival by considering the auteur's career and the oddball creations that have made him something of a king of weirdness within contemporary French cinema. Not that such status comes with guaranteed acclaim. The opposite is true, with Dupieux's cinema caught in perpetual polemic, each work more divisive than what came before. 

Such is the case with The Second Act, where the director proposes a comedy on the absurdities of making an AI-based film. Not even Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon, and Raphaël Quenard could prevent the usual, not entirely undeserved critiques that befall every new Dupieux…

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Review: Nature (and the Audience) is Out of Balance in “Evil Does Not Exist”

By Ben Miller

Following the release of Darren Aronofsky’s divisive 2017 film mother!, most of the viewers who saw it didn’t know what was going on. It was only until it was explained that it made any sort of sense, and then it almost made too much sense. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist lives on that same plane, with significantly more subtlety.

Not that this is the time or place to spoil the film by breaking it down scene by scene, but those places exist and can be found relatively easily. That doesn’t exactly bode well for the film. It’s one thing for a filmmaker to make you think, it’s another to send you on a search for answers you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. On the flipside, the answers make so much sense, it enhances the film long after the credits have rolled...

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More news about Mohammad Rasoulof

by Cláudio Alves

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (2024)

Last Friday, among a torrent of festival-related news, the fate of Mohammad Rasoulof was a topic of discussion. The Iranian filmmaker has found himself in trouble with his country's law for many years now, primarily because of political outspokenness and a cinematic output that dares to question the status quo. His latest work, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is scheduled for a Cannes premiere next week, as part of the Main Competition. Though details are scant, it's been reported as the story of a paranoid judge of the Revolutionary Court. When, in a setting of civic unrest, his gun vanishes, the man imposes oppressive rules on his family, turning the domestic space into a tyranny, his wife and daughters into quasi-prisoners…

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Benoît Magimel Turns 50

by Eric Blume

A young Magimel in Benoît Jacquot's A SINGLE GIRL (1995).

This weekend, we’re celebrating one of French cinema’s greatest actors, Benoît Magimel, who turns 50 today. 

Magimel exploded upon the industry in the mid 1990s, making a string of pictures right after his 21^st birthday that involved collaborations with several big names.  Benoît Jacquot used his broad, handsome face and hooded eyes to great effect in 1995’s A Single Girl opposite Virginie Ledoyen.  The two actors have a truthful, easy spark between them that’s quintessential French post-teen.  The next year, he was featured in the excellent Thieves, by then-huge director André Téchiné, alongside two of the country’s finest, Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve...

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