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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TIFF Horror x3

by Chris Feil

Amid screening global cinema and the odd Oscar contender or two, I was able to cram in some horror films to my TIFF lineup. The festival is so large that it doesn’t just limit its horror entries into the genre-centric Midnight Madness program. My sampling was not only a mini European tour, but also a trip through different genre tropes: the French extremity of Revenge, a gothic ghost story with The Lodgers, and a surprising psychological chiller with Thelma.

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Derek Cianfrance and Genre

Paolo here. I am the bearer of bad news. Apparently there are Blue Valentine' haters out there, two of whom are close writer friends of mine. One of these friends has repeatedly criticized the movie through Twitter, especially its director Derek Cianfrance's melodramatic tendencies. 

At first I disagreed with this minor yet tolerably vocal crowd, since that movie evinces hard-hitting, unquestionable emotions. I finally admit that yes, its saturated colours do evoke a hispter version of a Todd Haynes picture (nothing wrong with that!). And as it pains me to write this, Young Dean's (Ryan Gosling) appearance and actions are reminiscent of the cartoony, blinding spark on a boyband member's smile.

Maybe it's Cianfrance's new movie, The Place Beyond the Pines, that allowed me come to terms with the director's melodrama leanings. This release is being sold as an epic crime drama and sure, it delivers on that regard; a movie with a masculine cast gets slapped and labelled with a masculine genre. I normally take most movies at face value but I'll share with you how I see this movie. One that features a handsome man from the wrong side of the tracks, dysfunctional families, rapid aging and time lapses, and the revelation of a secret identity.

We're watching a fucking soap opera, people. Revenge with Boys. 

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TV: Arrow, Nashville, Revenge, Copper, Homeland

For as much as I've tried to ween myself off of TV, it remains the go to entertainment medium when I'm tired- sick, writer-blocked or basically-broke... add those  things up and that equals a lot of time. I wish I could kill time by listening to music since there's so much good stuff out there that I'm unfamiliar with but music, like the cinema, absorbs all of me. I can't do much else while indulging in it. The only other things I can do while listening to music is exercize and clean.  

Welcome to the Nineties! Jennifer Jason Leigh and Madeleine Stowe are stars again!

So herewith a few thoughts on various shows from the fall season, new and returning... would love to hear if you're watching or feel differently in the comments. More...

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Madeleine Stowe

Confession: On Sundays I think of little else.

P.S. my apologies that I haven't written about Revenge this season. I feel so overwhelmed by every episode. Where to even begin?