The Cannes Film Festival made a step forward this week only to find itself in a series of quagmires. That the opening film was directed by a woman, Maïwenn’s period drama Jeanne du Barry, might have been applauded by those who have for years chastised its selection committee for inequality. But not after it emerged that the actor-director’s co-star was Johnny Depp, returning to work in France after having been sidelined by Hollywood. He may have emerged largely victorious from his messy public court battle with ex-wife Amber Heard but neither came out smelling of roses.
In Cannes, Depp arrived on the red carpet to resounding cheers and the voice of Michael Jackson singing “I Want You Back”, a dubious choice by the DJ. While the rest of the world questioned the optics, many French observers were more concerned about Depp mangling the King’s French in the role of “le Bien-Aimé”, Louis XV.
As it turned out, Depp’s involvement was the least of the film’s problems, his Louis a man of few words, mostly mumbled. While Maïwenn’s boldest moves are to cast herself as the mistress who won the king’s heart and to retell history through the eyes of this “fallen woman”, Jeanne du Barry soon settles into the familiar mode of plodding royal procedural. For a film with a subversive streak, it spends an inordinate amount of time in thrall to the usual trappings: macaron-coloured costumery, fussy protocols, the machinations of three mean-spirited sisters and courtly intrigue that too often fails to intrigue. Far from a daring break from convention, it repeated the festival’s longstanding tradition of opening with a dud.
★★☆☆☆
From the patriarchy, the talk turned to absent fathers. The Competition strand got under way with Le Retour (Homecoming), the story of single mother Khedidja (Aïssatou Diallo Sagna) and her two teenage daughters leaving Marseille for a working holiday in Corsica that becomes a journey of self-discovery for all concerned. Jessica (Suzy Bemba) is the star student and apple of her mother’s eye, Farah (Esther Gohourou) the more hot-headed and miscreant, if not an entirely bad apple.
Under the Corsican sun, the shadows surrounding the death of their islander father become more pronounced, leading to a meditation on the lies and half-truths that we tell the ones we love. Pleasantly languid but a little aimless, Catherine Corsini’s film (co-written with Naïla Guiguet) is lifted by finely tuned performances, especially by the fiery Gohourou.
But this female-led film, too, arrived tainted. Corsini, co-founder of the feminist organisation 50/50, was forced to explain why she had failed to obtain the necessary government approval for a sexually suggestive scene involving two minors and to respond to reports of inappropriate conduct by a stuntman and an acting coach.
★★★☆☆
The metaphorical cloud hanging over Cannes was joined by actual ones. Riding to the rescue came Pedro Almodóvar, his name enough to bring crowds out in the rain to queue for an hour to see a short of only 30 minutes. The Spaniard, who was once in the running to direct Brokeback Mountain, gives us a glimpse of what might have been in Strange Way of Life, in which handsome horseman Silva (Pedro Pascal) rides into dusty Bitter Creek and rekindles a 25-year-old romance with old flame Jake (Ethan Hawke), a former gun for hire turned sheriff.
Typical Almodóvarian touches are immediately evident: the opening song is a fado lament sung in Portuguese, and there are eye-grabbing flashes of colour, Silva’s jacket a shade of green entirely new to the Old West. Given the curtailed running time, there is no time for horseplay or foreplay, let alone the furtive glances and halting advances of Brokeback. Almodóvar cracks the whip and the whole thing rattles along like an episode of Bonanza with more shots of bare bottoms.
What complicates matters is that Jake is convinced that Silva’s son is responsible for the murder of his sister-in-law and unconvinced that Silva’s return is coincidence, setting up a melodramatic crescendo in which loving looks turn murderous. The story is just building a nice head of steam when the credits roll — perhaps enough to serve as a pilot for a future streaming series.
★★★★☆
The theme of absent fathers wouldn’t go away. Who is the monster in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster? The Japanese auteur behind the Palme d’Or-winning Shoplifters and last year’s Korea-set Broker returns to home soil for a twisty head-scrambler delivered with his usual tender touch. Written by Yuji Sakamoto, it begins with single mother Saori (Sakura Ando) searching for her son Minato (Soya Kurokawa), who exhibits worrying behaviours. Is he being bullied at school? By children or a teacher? Or is he the bully? Could he even be responsible for the arson attack that opens the film?
When Saori descends on the school, she is placated with apologies that ring hollow, Kore-eda daring to satirise a hallowed Japanese tradition in a scene of bowing that grows absurd. But then the script skips back, the events replayed in a way that casts them in a different light. Our first impressions look less certain, Kore-eda cunningly challenging today’s culture of snap judgments and hasty but hollow apologies.
This use of shifting and conflicting perspectives inescapably brings to mind the Rashomon effect and Akira Kurosawa, whose daughter Kazuko is credited here as costume designer (it could be coincidence but nothing else in the film seems to be). The approach’s use here seems tricksy at first but, by the end, the divergent points of view cohere to form a complex picture that takes the story to an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. It may not quite measure up to Kore-eda’s best work but he only has himself to blame for the bar being so high, his ever-climbing reputation a monster of his own making.
★★★★☆
As for Cannes, frequent visitors know that it often gets off to a bumpy start and buries its treasures for later. With names such as Scorsese, Haynes and Breillat still to show their hands, the festival may well yet turn the opening days’ succès de scandale into plain old success.
Festival runs to May 27, festival-cannes.com
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