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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Review: Pietro Marcello's "Scarlet" is a picture out of time

by Cláudio Alves

Whether documentary or fiction, Pietro Marcello's films always convey the quality of artworks lost somewhere between modernity and an undefined past. 2019's much-lauded Martin Eden took this aspect to its peak, evoking the palpable authenticity of Neorealist cinema while playing fast and loose with history in its design. That film's relationship with the past circumvents reactionary nostalgia. The anachronistic scenography suggests an atemporal milieu, breaching the porous membrane separating the narrative's period and the viewer's sense of now. This further underlined the piece's political gestures, turning retrospective into a direct address. In comparison, Scarlet represents a more conventional object though it shares many qualities with its predecessor. 

Like Martin Eden, Scarlet is a literary adaptation looking back to Europe in the first half of the 20th century. The raw material is Alexander Grin's 1923 novella Scarlet Sails, once brought to the big screen by Soviet filmmaker Alexandr Ptushko. In Marcello's film, the Russian setting is transposed to rural Normandy…

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César Winners: David Fincher, "The Night of the 12th" and surprise presenter Brad Pitt

by Arnaud Trouve

Brad Pitt and Virginie Efira present the Honorary César to David Fincher

The 48th French César Awards were just held and, as expected, The Night of the 12th was the big winner. It won Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Best Male Newcomer, just like last year's champion Lost Illusions. Its two additional prizes were for Best Sound and Best Director. Dominik Moll almost broke the record at the Césars for the longest time between two directing wins (he previously won 22 years ago for the thriller With A Friend Like Harry)...

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Rome Diary #2: Women in love and another Caravaggio

by Elisa Giudici

JEONG-SUN

Two indie movies about how women find and lose love and an ambitious production about the life and art of Caravaggio. At the end of the day, it's one small gem followed by two disappointments...

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Eva Green is Evergreen

by Jason Adams

A very happy 42nd birthday to the queen Eva Green today! I was going to take this opportunity to do what I usually do whenever Eva Green comes up -- complain about her being under-used and under-appreciated, because she is! -- but she does actually have several big projects lined up to come out possibly this year, so let's try to be positive and celebrate those...

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