Cannes at Home: Days 7 & 8 – The Grand Tour of Europe

by Cláudio Alves

Victor Erice's "Close Your Eyes"

The last few days of the Cannes Film Festival have been a whirlwind. The titles premiering out of the main competition have given audiences reason to talk. Why on earth would Thierry Frémaux doom them to less prestigious sections? Victor Érice's grand return to feature filmmaking after a 30 years absence is the most glaring example. The director spoke out in an open letter about being blindsided by the programmer, having been persuaded to present Close Your Eyes at the Croisette under false pretenses. Less controversial is the announcement of a Fists in the Pocket English-language remake which will star Josh O'Connor, Kristen Stewart, and Elle Fanning. The director will be none other than Karim Aïnouz who is currently in competition against the original Fists in the Pocket director, Marco Bellocchio...

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Cannes at Home: Days 5 & 6 – Stories of Women

by Cláudio Alves

The festival is past its midpoint, and it's looking like this'll be a banner year. At least, that's the general tenor of the international coverage. The films of the moment offer a wide variety of cinematic approaches. Ramata-Toulaye Sy's debut feature Banel & Adama is being lauded for its rich visuals, while many have declared Todd Hayes's May December as a return to form with juicy acting across the board. And yet, one feels that the Cannes Best Actress frontrunner is neither Portman nor Moore, but Sandra Hüller, who dazzled viewers in Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall. Finally, Karim Aïnouz's first English-language feature Firebrand (starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law) is an outlier earning harsh reviews.

For this Cannes at Home chapter, we consider Our Lady of the Nile which is not directed by Sy, but she co-wrote the script with the director. Then, let's explore Haynes' first Moore movie Safe, Triet's main competition debut Sibyl, and Aïnouz's sensual Love for Sale. They all tell stories about the feminine experience, from imperiled schoolgirls to sexually liberated women…

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Cannes at Home: Day 2 – Of Mothers and their Children

by Cláudio Alves

The second day of Cannes saw the start of the competition screenings, with Hirokazu Kore-eda and Catherine Corsini leading the pack. Though The Film Experience's writer at the festival, Elisa Giudici, wasn't convinced by the Japanese master's latest effort, Monster has been met with critical support. Nothing comparable to the reception of his Palme d'Or-winning Shoplifters, but still encouraging. As for Corsini, her Homecoming has caused controversy because of a sex scene featuring underage actors, which the director admits she'd approach differently in the future, citing the need for intimacy coaches. A masturbation scene was also eventually cut from the film after it cost production funding from France's National Cinema Centre.

Looking back at these auteur's past works, let's choose to remember less divisive fare. In both cases, familial bonds are at the forefront, tales of mothers and their children lost in dysfunction. They are Kore-eda's Nobody Knows, and Corsini's An Impossible Love…

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Cannes: Maïwenn & Johnny Depp in "Jeanne Du Barry"

Elisa Giudici reporting from Cannes!

It is fascinating how carelessly Maïwenn gives her detractors such easy targets and ways to tear apart her work. She is the director, screenwriter, and lead actress of Cannes opener Jeanne Du Barry. The biopic takes place in Versailles in the years when both the old king Louis XV and the young and naive future queen Marie Antoinette walked through the halls and the gardens of the magnificent French court. The focus here though is elsewhere. The film centers on the elderly king's favorite, the low-born, sensual, and witty Jeanne. Multi-hyphenate Maïwenn shares Jeanne's giggly confidence, playing the protagonist with Johnny Depp as the aging Louis XV.

If you're thinking of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, you’re not alone. It’s the same realm of extreme luxury, absurd etiquette, and incredible loneliness, but viewed from a different side of the royal playground... 

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Review: Virginie Efira is miraculous in "Other People's Children"

by Cláudio Alves

Watching Rebecca Zlotowski's Other People's Children, I was reminded of a discussion I once had with a professor. Despite the class focusing on theater, we talked about cinema and what stories deserve to have the camera pointed at them. In short, we debated the merits of dramatizing ordinary people. For me, there's plenty of interest in exploring individuals whose lives are entirely un-dramatic, maybe even anti-dramatic. Great art can be created by investigating the complexities of the simplest-seeming experiences. Just because something appears anodyne or common doesn't mean there aren't beguiling specificities or that we should be above it. My professor disagreed.

At the time, a great deal of the conversation centered around the films of Chantal Akerman, but Zlotowski's latest effort feels like an up-to-date if more conventional, example. Indeed, I imagine my former pedagogue would hate the thing if he ever set eyes on Other People's Children…

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