I’m bringing two days’ worth of diary entries together here for my Sunday and Monday experiences at Cannes. There’s been a lot going on, with a late evening screening in the Lumiere every night, that’s messing with my ability to write cohesively. Casting my mind back to Sunday morning, and it was back up to Salle Bazin, on the top floor of the Palais des Festivals for a film that Isabelle wholeheartedly recommended: Hungarian first-time director László Nemes’ SAUL FIA , or SON OF SAUL in its English title. Quite simply the most powerful film I have seen at the festival so far, it’s not a question of enjoying the film in any way, but knowing you’re watching a piece of cinema that will be held up in high esteem for years to come.

Shot predominantly in short focus, hand-held, close-up, for reasons that become obvious, nay, necessary from the opening scene, the film follows Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, work units of Jewish prisoners forced to assist the Nazis in their extermination techniques in WWII concentration camps. Saul thinks he sees the body of his young son in the gas chamber he is forced to work in, setting off a chain of events in which he tries desperately to find a Rabbi who will assist him in giving his son a proper burial, away from the prying hands of the autopsy doctor and the flames of the crematorium. In many WWII concentration camp docs, testimonials from survivors are overlaid with CGI representations of the gas chambers and killing pits, harrowing enough I am sure you’ll agree. In Nemes’ film, the short-focus close-ups are there to protect us from the horrors in the background, but the sound mix of the film is not muffled in the slightest. The film is in competition for the Palme d’Or, and based on what I’d seen up to this point, I hope it wins.

I’d walked down to Salle Bazin with Jason, and we’d had a chat about his work and festival experiences which should be winging its way onto TakeOne very shortly. He and Isabelle were both off home today, but it’s been great to get to know them in this special festival environment! Queued for two hours to see Jeremy Saulnier’s GREEN ROOM, the follow-up to BLUE RUIN. Didn’t get in. There, that’s short and sweet. Humpfh. I did however managed to secure a hot ticket to Sunday’s gala screening of CAROL in the Lumiere. I got there on time, but our queue was held up by VIPs on the red carpet, so we weren’t allowed into the main auditorium. Instead, they put us in a smaller screen called Salle Balzin (with much comfier seats) and we got to watch the film fifteen minutes after the main Lumiere screening had started. I liked CAROL a lot. Todd Haynes has kept rigid control over a film which could easily have become melodramatic, but instead, felt understated and tense. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are near-perfect castings in this inter-generational, 1950’s lesbian love story, and had it not been for SON OF SAUL in the morning, I would have gone with this one for the Palme d’Or, but Nemes’ film trumps this still.

There was a grey, beige air to the film…

Over to Monday and Sarah was heading back to the UK in the early afternoon. We nipped out for a farewell drink and de-brief on our experiences of the festival. These moments of saying goodbye to a friend who has characterised the last few days’ experiences for you are always bittersweet. All I can say is that you couldn’t ask for a better film festival companion than Sarah McIntosh – look out Quebec, she might be coming your way!

My ARABIAN NIGHTS adventure continues, with Volume 2’s screening, THE DESOLATE, in which I am certain I have just watched this year’s Palme Dog performance from Dixie, a little Westie/Terrier cross who holds the audience’s attention for the duration of his little tale of changing owners on a high rise estate in sunny Portugal. Volume 2 is as good as Volume 1, but funnier! The film’s director, Miguel Gomes, gets up on stage after the screening and lets us know to expect and even more raucous third act to come on Wednesday. I can’t wait! This experience of watching a film over five days, has really marked Quinzaine des Realisaturs out as the experimental and bold strand for Cannes this year. I love it.

Back over to Salle Debussy to queue for CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest film from Thailand, and the follow-up to UNCLE BOONMEE. I got burnt to high heaven in the queue as the sun was ferocious today. In the cool confines of the auditorium, I can feel my body radiating heat and telling me off. There’s an ancient burial ground beneath the temporary clinic that mild-mannered housewife, Jenjira volunteers at. It’s having an effect on the bed-ridden, injured soldiers who are refusing to wake up from their recuperative slumber. The film is a masterful example of how to show one scene on the screen and another in your mind. Think the invisible food eating scene in Spielberg’s HOOK, but add a healthy dollop of mysticism to the fray. Fingers crossed this gets over the UK as soon as possible!

The evening screening in the Lumiere was LOUDER THAN BOMBS, Joachim Trier’s tense, English-language, family drama. There was a grey, beige air to the film, both in its colour scheme and its tonal shifts of mood, which I rather enjoyed. This one wins the best use of super-slow motion cinematography for me, in day-dream scenes that are really rather beautiful to watch, even if the subject matter of the day-dream is disturbing. Lots of applause afterwards, but still, I’m sticking in team SON OF SAUL for the Palme d’Or. Tomorrow, I will watch more short films in the basement, as I managed to catch a few today, and really enjoyed the instant gratification they bring. Burnt arms, tired eyes, happy smiles.