Cannes at Home: Day 8 – The Beautiful People

by Cláudio Alves

Sean Baker's ANORA looks like a top contender for the Palme d'Or.

After much divisiveness in the Main Competition, the Cannes critics finally have something to fawn over in collective uproar. Sean Baker's Anora was a hit with press and audiences alike, standing out in a selection of otherwise derided titles. Indeed, Christophe Honoré's Marcello Mio met critical rejection on the same day of Grand Tour's world premiere, while Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope inspired another wave of dissenting opinions. Some love it, while many others decry the Neapolitan director's obsession with objectified female bodies, beauty above everything else, even cinematic meaning. Considering his last few projects, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

That shall be the theme of this Cannes at Home program—the beautiful people. Let's explore the siren calls of Baker's Tangerine, Honoré's The Beautiful Person, and Sorrentino's Oscar-winning The Great Beauty…

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Cannes at Home: Day 7 – Long Live the New Flesh!

by Cláudio Alves

I can't wait to plunge into the enigmas of THE SHROUDS.

Another day, another lackluster reception to a highly anticipated Cannes title. Ali Abbasi's Donald Trump film, The Apprentice, seems neither thrilling nor especially deep, with various comparisons to Wikipedia entries throughout naysayer's reviews. At least, its cast got general praise, with highest honors to Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. Then again, it did receive one of the festival's longest standing ovations yet, so make of that what you will. On a more somber note, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds is being described as the director's most transparent movie, laying bare the grief of an artist dealing with his wife's passing. In a recent interview, the Canadian master described cinema as a cemetery, and it seems his latest work follows that idea to literal ends.

For the Cannes at Home odyssey, let's examine two horrors from the directors' past - Abbasi's Shelley and Cronenberg's Videodrome, where a very different vision of death awaits…

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Cannes at Home: Days 5 & 6 – Histories of Violence

by Cláudio Alves

Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE is a body horror shocker.

Half of the Cannes Main Competition has screened, and it seems we're in a year of big swings and even bigger faceplants. Divisive titles aplenty, the most acclaimed films of the festival appear to be located in parallel sections rather than Thierry Frémaux's selection. Even so, Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides has confirmed itself as the critics' favorite, though that only extends to writers already fond of the director's oeuvre. The documentary-fiction hybrid made no new converts. Jacques Audiard dazzled audiences with the trans-themed Mexican musical Emilia Perez, and while some critics are ecstatic, others loathe the thing. Reactions are more pointedly adverse to Kirill Serebrennikov's Limonov biopic, while Coralie Fargeat's The Substance has elicited equal pans and praise. Some folks online are trying to characterize the body horror's critical divide as a battle of the sexes, but that ignores the work of various women who've applauded the picture. Still, it's a controversial one.

Since all these cineastes have filled their filmographies with shocking violence, that felt like a good unifying theme for this Cannes at Home program. So, let's delve into Jia's Ash is Purest White, Audiard's Dheepan, Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu, and Fargeat's bloody Revenge…

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Cannes at Home: Day 4 – Guilt Trips

by Cláudio Alves

KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024) Yorgos Lanthimos

After the uproar Megalopolis caused, day four at the Cannes Film Festival was bound to pale in comparison. Nevertheless, it was a busy time at the Croisette, with three Main Competition films making their bows. First was Emanuel Pârvu's Three Miles to the End of the World, which was thought to be a strong contender for the Queer Palm before being met with tepid reviews. Next was Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness, an anthological reunion between the director and his erstwhile writing partner, Efthymis Filippou. The well-reviewed picture marks their first collaboration since 2017. Finally, beloved auteur and Facebook nuisance Paul Schrader presented Oh, Canada, ruminating on mortality and regret. 

Walking down memory lane into these directors' past work, let's consider a tryptic bound by themes of guilt. They're Pârvu's Mikado, Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Schrader's Light Sleeper…

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Cannes at Home: Days 2 & 3 – Blood, Sweat & Tears

by Cláudio Alves

WILD DIAMOND (2024) Agathe Riedinger

The first two days of competition screenings have whipped up a storm at the Cannes Film Festival. Things started normal enough with Agathe Riedinger's Wild Diamond, this year's only feature debut vying for the Palme. Reactions were a tad tepid, but the same can't be said about Magnus van Horn's Girl with the Needle, which has horrified some viewers. All hell broke loose on the second day of competition, when both Andrea Arnold's Bird and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis had their world premieres. The British auteur earned general praise, though some found it confounding. As for the American master's long-awaited opus, opinions are so divided that a chasm seems to have broken open across the Croisette. Some say it's a catastrophe of epic proportions, while others see value in its epic mess. Whatever the case, it sounds like a fascinating watch, even as reports from the troubled shoot have enmeshed the picture in controversy. 

Since Riedinger has no previous features, she won't be included in the Cannes at Home fest. For the other filmmakers, let's revisit Sweat, Red Road, and Apocalypse Now…

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