Happy Cannesiversary to "Dheepan"

by Nick Taylor

Hello, TFE readers! If you're like me, you'll be sitting out Cannes this year, using the time to read press coverage or finally see that one thing you've been meaning to watch while others swan across the croisette, conduct interviews, and shill merch for Troma Studios. I'll be spending the 78th Cannes Film Festival and the site's 10|25|50|75|100 series to visit ceremonies of years past, making new friends and revisiting familiar faces. To kick things off, we'll be spending the next few days with some Palme d'Or winners!

Some of you might remember I did not particularly like Emilia Pérez, last year’s genre-explosive musical about a cartel leader striving to reconnect with their family after getting gender-affirming care, as facilitated by her lawyer/hostage/business partner. I will not linger on that mess too much, but there’s a nub to the discourse about Jacques Audiard’s failure to meaningfully engage with any aspect of Mexican culture I did have a problem with. Namely, the idea that him being a cis white French man means he’s inherently incapable of having anything to say about someone who falls outside any of those identity markers. Yes, we can and should discuss if the French as a nation are capable of empathy, but I don’t believe artists cannot and should not make art about people outside their demographics and lived experience . . . .

Click to read more ...

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…

Click to read more ...

César Noms: Mustang, Marguerite, Melanie, and More...

Kristen Stewart's César win last year for Clouds of Sils Maria was historicThis year's César nominations (i.e. The French Oscars) have been announced. Due to the oddities of release schedules statesides, especially when it comes to subtitled pictures, many of the French films we've been discussing as "best ofs" like Girlhood, Saint Laurent, and Clouds of Sils Maria were 2014 features in France and honored accordingly. The only real crossovers with our current awards season are Denis Gamze Erguven's Oscar nominated Mustang (now playing in very limited release in the States) which is all over their nominations and two of their "Foreign Film Nominees" Hungary's Son of Saul and Italy's Youth which will compete with last year's US Best Picture winner Birdman.

Their nominations were led by the prestige vehicle Marguerite (which is "loosely based" on the story of Florence Foster Jenkins who is getting her own American biopic starring Meryl Streep this year) and Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days which are both expected to receive US theatrical releases in 2016. (If you see a link, it goes to our review of the picture, or past articles about the actor or director)

BEST FILM 

• Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
• Fatima, Philippe Faucon
• The Measure of a Man, Stephane Brize
• Marguerite, Xavier Giannoli
• Mon Roi, Maïwenn
• Mustang, Deniz Gamze Erguven
• Standing Tall, Emmanuelle Bercot
• My Golden Days, Arnaud Desplechin

Let's discuss their nominations and various beautiful Frenchies after the jump. 

Click to read more ...

TIFF: Did Dheepan deserve its Cannes win?

Amir continues our coverage of TIFF '15 with a review of this year's Palme d'or winner, Jacques Audiard's Dheepan.

Whether Jacques Audiard’s latest film, Dheepan, benefits from the pedigree of its Palme d’or or becomes victim to raised expectations isn’t clear. What is already clear, however, is that the film’s reception has been truly baffling: on the one hand, the Cannes prize is one of the festival’s more curious decisions; on the other, the extent of vitriol that the film receives seems equally unwarranted. Dheepan is on the same emotional and stylistic wavelength as Audiard’s previous films, and it is about ten minutes -- admittedly a disastrous ten minutes — away from being on par with his best work...

Click to read more ...

Cannes Closing Prizes

12:25 The jury arrives and out pours their little soundbytes. Anticipation. Who will win the Palme D'Or?

We're proud of our choices."
-Rossy de Palma 

It was so congenial. One of the best experiences of my life. It was a great group."
-Joel Coen 

Beautiful. Every time we deliberated we went very deep. We argued back and forth in a good way. The Coens made it very clear we should be very passionate. It was one of the best experiences "
-Guillermo del Toro 

It feels like a little family. And the movies were so wonderful. It's odd artists judging artists but I guess it has to be done."
-Jake Gyllenhaal 

The reporter reminds us that Xavier Dolan leaves WITH Marion Cotillard tomorrow to start filming his next movie. He never stops. No rest for the Francophones. All the Jury prizes and quick thoughts after the jump

Click to read more ...