Like that, it was done! I’d evidently mis-counted the amount of days I was staying here, as it’s actually eleven days. Yikes! What a lot of films and lovely experiences I’ve had.
Let last entry’s queuing situation be the only cloud on the horizon for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. In truth, it has been a wondrous experience. My body is well and truly ready for the heat and light intensity of summer now, but seeing people’s posts from back at home in the UK, I think I might have a bit of a cloudy welcome when I get back in the UK on Saturday night. So what have I been up to these past few days? Well, after the melancholy disaster of attempting to see LOVE, things have got a lot better again. Let me divulge…
Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH was repeat screened in the Salle du Soixantieme on Thursday morning. Like his previous film, THE GREAT BEAUTY, there are some quite simply sublime scenes involving things you never thought you’d see on screen – Michael Caine conducting cows and their bells on a lush Swiss hillside is one such scene which I’m not going to be able to get out of my mind for a long time. It left me feeling wistful and old, but sometimes that’s a pleasant state of mind to wallow in from time to time.
Thursday finished with Takashi Miike’s YAKUZA APOCALYPSE in the Theatre Croisette for Quinzaine. Just the right level of bonkers Asian gangland fighting and biting to raise my spirits again after LOVE. Friday brought with it one of the biggest surprises for me in the whole festival, Guillaume Nicloux’s VALLEY OF LOVE. It stars Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert as estranged former marital partners, who meet in Death Valley to enact the instructions of their late son’s letter to them both. Nicloux opened the 2014 Cambridge Film Festival last year with THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ, and whilst I enjoyed that film, VALLEY OF LOVE is a massive step up. I would happily watch it again for the nuances I am certain are there, as well as the haunting score.
If VALLEY OF LOVE was the first film in the festival that sent shivers up and down my spine, THE LITTLE PRINCE was the first one to make me openly cry in the screening, along with lots of other members of the audience. An adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic, this film from American director Mark Osborne (KUNG FU PANDA), does expand and elaborate greatly on the source material, to the extent that a separate narrative runs through the film about little girl in contemporary America who is slowly growing up with her elderly neighbour and over-bearing mother. But it works, and will help introduce a new generation of children and teenagers to the short story, so favoured by that luminary of 1950s cinema, James Dean.
Friday night was my last full night in Cannes, and we went for a meal at a lovely little wine and tapas bar, tucked away near the old market place, in a bit of town I hadn’t visited before. Who should we bump into on the way but Harvey “I’m not going to release SNOWPIERCER in the UK” Weinstein! One of us plucked up the courage to say hi, to which he replied “A pleasure to meet you”, looking straight through her as he said it. There went one important man, and we were but minnows swimming in his wake.
Saturday morning kicked off with a bloody and accomplished version of MACBETH, from Australian director Justin Kurzel, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Incredibly powerful, but perhaps not the right film for 8.30am on a Saturday morning after very little sleep. I left with palpitations, as I had done after watching WHIPLASH. If this doesn’t have its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June, then there’s no justice in the world. My final screening was the Antarctic documentary, THE ICE AND THE SKY from French director Luc Jacquet, and then there was no more time for me to watch any more films at Cannes.
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For those of you that like lists, I’ll give you my threhttps://youtu.be/bkrxAVMIppse favourite films at Cannes, and then a list of all the films I’ve seen below (as much for my benefit at remembering what I’ve seen over these past eleven days). I’ll try and gets reviews of my top three done and dusted in the next week or so for Take One.
Top Three Films at Cannes Film Festival 2015
1) ARABIAN NIGHTS- Volumes 1,2 &3. OK technically I’m grouping three films together here, but also technically this was one massive six and a half hour film, split into three for screening purposes at Cannes. Miguel Gomes is a new cinematic hero of mine, and I urge you all to see this on the big screen in a similar manner to mine, when it comes out in the UK. I will probably join you! Oh and Dixie the dog from Volume 2 won the Palme Dog award too!
2) SON OF SAUL. I think this one should win the Palme d’Or for all the right reasons. A first time director from Hungary. An incredibly powerful story, told in a unique way which allows the audience glimpses into the horrors of a concentration camp in WWII. Also, fantastic cinematography which reveals just enough to let the mind create a picture of hell.
3) VALLEY OF LOVE. A complete curveball for me. Hitchcockian in parts. Fantastic acting from Huppert and Depardieu. Beautiful score. A plot that ever-so-slowly reveals itself, but leaves you asking questions. Slightly mystic and spiritual if you want it to be, but ambiguous enough to send shivers down my spine!
Films seen at Cannes 2015
1) LES ANARCHISTES, Elie Wajeman, France.
2) LA TÊTE HAUTE, Emmanuelle Bercot, France.
3) SLEEPING GIANT, Andrew Cividino, Canada.
4) TALE OF TALES, Matteo Garrone, Italy.
5) HRÚTAR, Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland.
6) THE LOBSTER, Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece.
7) ARABIAN NIGHTS – VOLUME 1, THE RESTLESS ONE, Miguel Gomes, Portugal.
8) A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS, Natalie Portman, US/Israel.
9) THE SEA OF TREES, Gus Van Sant, USA.
10) SAUL FIA, Lάszló Nemes, Hungary.
11) CAROL, Todd Haynes, USA.
12) ARABIAN NIGHTS – VOLUME 2, THE DESOLATE ONE, Miguel Gomes, Portugal.
13) CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand.
14) LOUDER THAN BOMBS, Joachim Trier, Denmark.
15) MASAAN, Neeraj Ghaywan, India.
16) ARABIAN NIGHTS – VOLUME 3, THE ENCHANTED ONE, Miguel Gomes, Portugal.
17) LAMB, Yared Zeleke, Ethiopia.
18) YOUTH, Paolo Sorrentino, Italy.
19) YAKUSA APOCALYPSE, Takashi Miike, Japan.
20) VALLEY OF LOVE, Guillaume Nicloux, France.
21) THE LITTLE PRINCE, Mark Osborne, USA.
22) MACBETH, Justin Kurzel, Australia.
23) THE ICE AND THE SKY, Luc Jacquet, France.
There we are. My Cannes experience documented here for you in the digital realms of Take One. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it all. I aim to be back next year with high heels for the red carpet, a press or market badge to avoid some of those queues, and the same level of wonder and excitement at the upcoming roster of films we’ll be treated with in the cinema for the next year and a half. It was a pleasure!
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