Cannes Diary #10: Au Revoir, Cannes!

Another round of applause, please, for Elisa Giudici for giving us such great on-the-ground Cannes coverage this year. She reviewed the entire Competition slate! Can you believe it? What follows are her last two reports, condensed into one - Editor

by Elisa Giudici

I will miss the French summer -- hot and breezy. Yes, it is time to say goodbye to the Cannes Film Festival. Already? Finally! A little bit of both. My first time here was incredible but I think I am quite close to the limit of my cinematic intake without compromising the ability to enjoy the films. After years of enviously reading reportage by friends and colleague, this was everything I thought it would be. I fear I was even spoiled. There were no infinite queues where I thought I might be shut out and (a little brag is coming, but please allow it) I was able to see the whole competition lineup despite having a yellow pass! Insanity.

It was amazing being able to write this diary every day and read the comments from such a passionate audience. I hope I was able to give you a little glimpe into the movies that are coming as well as the feeling of seeing them at this majestic Festival. It was all quite demanding (I covered the Festival for a couple of italian magazines, too) but I am incredibly happy as a completist that I never skipped a day's entry. A lot of these diary entries were written in the middle of the night or near dawn so a huge thank you to Nathaniel for the editing to make them comprehensible to you; After 2 AM my English tends to be even more convoluted than usual.

So final round. SEVEN movies! Ready?

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Horror Actressing: Sofia Boutella in "Climax"

by Jason Adams

Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 freak-out flick Possession, starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill, has spent the past couple of decades being rediscovered as a major work of art -- Adjani won Best Actress at Cannes and the Cesars that year but the film was nearly chopped in half for its U.S. release (from 126 minutes down to 81) making an already cryptic and eccentric story totally incomprehensible. In short it bombed, and critics here in the US sneered. Still one has the feeling that the film's become a foundational text nowadays, and this year's Gaspar Noé movie Climax, with its gloriously unhinged central performance from Sofia Boutella, feels like Adjani's LSD-soaked descendant.

A professional dancer before becoming an actress it's only natural that Boutella would nail the physical requirements necessary to play Selva, the lead figure in Climax's troupe of overripe boogie-woogers who get more than they bargained for from the homemade sangria served at their snow-bound after-party...

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New in Theaters: Greta, Transit, Climax, and Woman at War

by Nathaniel R

Woman at War -- see it before the American remake dumbs it down!

Consider this weekend a warm-up to the 2019 Film Year! Yes, yes, we've technically had 2 full months of releases but for us each new year begins once we've recuperatd from the Oscars. So our personal rebirth begins next weekend with a double dose of Best Actresses Brie Larson and Julianne Moore (in Captain Marvel and Gloria Bell, respectively) -- Actressexuality forevah!

But if you're ready to dive into 2019 already, there are a lot of films opening this weekend and we happen to have covered three of them already so check it out. ★ = highly recommended...

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Queer TIFF: "Climax"

by Chris Feil

The first third of Climax achieves the most gobsmacking of feats: it convinces you, and wholeheartedly, that provocateur Gaspar Noé might actually have gotten his shit together. After languorous attempts to shock like Love, overly lethargic flashes of innovation like Enter the Void, and burdensome levels of grimness like Irreversible, his new film emerges as something both audacious and (most importantly) succinct. But jokes on us because this is, after all, a Gaspar Noé experience. It also happens to be the best one yet.

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The Tweet that Jack Built at Cannes

Is Book Club a remake of the scene in Mad Men when these ladies read Lady Chatterley's Lover? pic.twitter.com/98dRbIk7Vl

— Kyle Stevens (@cinementalist) May 15, 2018

IF ONLY

Other tweets after the jumpvincluding little bits of Meryl Streep, jokes about Titanic and Infinity War and Cannes battles and general Cannes mania (it all ends today)...

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