The Assassin dir. Hou Hsiao Hsien
To call The Assassin ‘eagerly awaited’ would be something of an understatement. The martial-arts epic, about a Tang Dynasty killer sent to snuff out the man she loves, has been in production since 2012, with some early photography dating back to 2010. Some prognosticators had it pegged for last year’s festival, though it appears the film was not done in time.
It is now. And there are many us curious to see what the Taiwanese auteur, famous for his studied minimalism and his never-ending takes, has cooked up with his biggest budget yet, working in a mythic register he’s never been known for.
Indeed, Hou came to prominence as one of the banner directors of the Taiwanese New Wave, a film movement that was all about pivoting away from chopsocky and historical remove, in favor of politically engaged, here-and-now tales of modern Taiwanese life. Hou developed a style big on improvisation and naturalistic performance, and there’s no reason to think he’s simply thrown that all away now that he’s gonewuxia. Rather, it will be fascinating to see how he paints his deeply intimate style into a genre that usually calls for the broadest of brush strokes.
Carol dir. Todd Haynes
In Todd Haynes’ 2002 film Far From Heaven, Julianne Moore played a 1950s housewife whose life is thrown for a curve when she discovers her husband’s secret homosexuality. Now, in 2015’s Carol, Cate Blanchett takes the reins as a 1950s housewife who awakens to her own homosexuality (or at least, bisexuality), falling into a passionate affair with shop-clerk Rooney Mara.
Don’t be mistaken: Carol is no simple redo for the celebrated American director. Whereas Far From Heaven was an homage to/commentary on the splashy big screen melodramas of the time, the origins of his latest are stem far more in the page.
Carol is an adaptation of the 1952 novel The Price of Salt, a pulp fiction sensation in its time and a cult classic to this day, written by Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train writer Patricia Highsmith but released under a pseudonym.
Haynes is about two-parts grad student to one part director, and his approach is not just to work within a style but to outwardly comment on and subvert it. How much of Carol will be a straight-ahead love story and how much a treatise on the whole pulp-romance genre remains to be seen, though it will probably be less outré than his last feature, the dizzying anti-biopic Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There.
Chronic dir. Michel Franco
Tim Roth stars as a troubled nurse who helps the terminally ill reconnect with loved ones. He, of course, has dark secrets of his own.
Written and directed by Mexican director Michel Franco, the searing psychological portrait is the only film representing Latin America in this year’s festival, and yet…
Chronic was a late inclusion, announced a week after the rest of the line-up was presented. In the days following the main announcement there was some uproar at the lack of Spanish language films in this year’s selection. But Chronic does not quite fit that bill. The product of one of Mexico’s most notable young talents, it is his English language debut with an English speaking cast.
Such is the case with much of this year’s slate. Films by Norwegian, Italian, French-Canadian, Greek and Mexican filmmakers are all being shot and cast in English. Add to that two films by American directors and one by an Australian, you have a full half the competition filled by English language films.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux jokingly remarked that “English is the new Esperanto” at the announcement press conference, but removing tongue from cheek, it certainly reflects a rather eyebrow raising trend in international cinema.
Dheepan dir. Jacques Audiard
The latest from France’s high prince of gritty prestige. Audiard’s films always manage to hit a near perfect balance between tough-guy thrills and social conscience. 2005’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped followed a slimeball hood with middle-class aims; 2009’s A Prophet set its sight on prisons, asking if they don’t simply create better criminals rather than reforming them.
This year brings Dheepan (title subject to change!), the story of a Tamil freedom fighter newly escaped from Sri Lanka, who finds a different set of battles to wage in the violent suburbs outside of Paris.
It sounds right in Audiard’s wheelhouse, and that’s cause to cheer. Audiard is about the best there is at what he does.
The Lobster dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Man, I don’t even know what to expect from this one.
Here’s the description: The Lobster “is set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules.”
Here’s the cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly.
And here’s what we do know: the film is the English language debut of Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director of the disturbing, blackly funny Alps and Dogtooth. The film comes to Cannes already an award winner, having won a screenplay competition at the 2013 Rotterdam film festival. And it comes to the festival with worldwide distribution deals all fixed and set. So clearly, somebody has seen it, and they liked what they saw.
Ok, that’s enough – I’m excited.
Louder Than Bombs dir. Joachim Trier
Joachim Trier’s last film, the drug-addict drama Oslo, August 31st premiered in Un Certain Regard and got the kind of reviews most filmmakers only dream of. So beloved was it that many assumed Trier would be offered a blanket Official Competition promotion for his follow-up work. Lo and behold, here we are.
Bombs is the Rashomon-like story of hidden lies and family strife. Isabelle Huppert plays a famous war photographer killed in a car crash. When her family, including Jesse Eisenberg and Gabriel Byrne, gather years later for a retrospective in her honor, they are forced to contend with an unsettling secret from her past. I don’t mean to be coy – that’s really all I know.
Regardless, if this one gets even a fraction of the love his previous film got, the Norwegian director (and yes, cousin of Lars) will be in line for some serious awards swag.
Macbeth dir. Justin Kurzel
The pitch is pretty simple for this one: it’s Macbeth. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard lead the way, with Paddy Considine and David Thewlis picking up the rear, so it’s got a great cast.
Like most of the big Shakespeare adaptations of recent years, the filmmakers keep the Bard’s words and amp up the action and atmosphere around them. The idea here is to slavishly recreate the look and mood of 11th Century Scotland and to orchestrate some big-scale carnage, all in the hopes of making the 17th Century tragedy feel immediate, brutal and fresh. From the looks of the picture above, they’ve certainly achieved one of the three.
Perhaps every generation gets the Macbeth adaptation it deserves. Previous ones have had Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles and Roman Polanski’s takes on the Scottish play; they stack up pretty well. How are we doing in comparison? How well does our generation succeed? The floor is yours, Mr. Kurzel.
Marguerite and Julien dir. Valerie Donzelli
Rising star Anais Demoustier (Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf, Francois Ozon’s The New Girlfriend) and local heartthrob Jeremie Elkaim (Jim on the French remake of The Office) and are the titular M. & J., a pair of aristocratic siblings driven out of high society due to a love for each other that grows a little too intense, a touch too icky.
The film is notable for a couple reasons. First, in that it marks the Official Competition debut of director Valerie Donzelli. Donzelli made her name with 2011’s Declaration of War, the high-spirited, emphatically autobiographical story of a couple (played by Donzelli herself, alongside real-life ex-partner Elkaim) navigating the illness of their child and their subsequent break-up. War premiered at Critic’s Week, received widespread critical acclaim, and went on to be France’s submission for Best Foreign Film.
Their 2012 follow-up, Hand in Hand, if not quite as successful, was still buoyed by the same energetic charm that made War such a fun watch. It would be interesting to see whatever their next collaboration would be, let alone an adaptation of a 1970 screenplay originally developed by Francois Truffaut. Which is, of course, the second notable reason.
The Measure of a Man dir. Stephane Brizé
Festival director Thierry Fremaux was taken to task in the French press for snubbing some high-profile local films long considered sure-fire locks for the Competition (Arnaud Deplechin’s My Golden Years most notable among them). His response? The festival wanted to spotlight lower-profile talents who had never benefited from a Competition spotlight before. In so many words, he was referring to Stephane Brizé.
Though working steadily as an actor, screenwriter and director since the 90’s, Brizé has managed to fly under the radar for most of his career. Despite his past successes he’s still not particularly well known in France and even lesser known abroad. That should change pretty soon with the release of this ethical thriller.
Vincent Lindon (Claire Denis’ Bastards) stars as a long-unemployed fifty-year old who accepts a job as supermarket security guard, despite the fact that he’s significantly overqualified and that his new bosses will require him to spy on his colleagues. The heady questions of morals and money, and the supporting cast of non-professional actors will no doubt prevent this from ever feeling like a Gallic Paul Blart.
Mountains May Depart dir. Jia Zhang-ke
For the third year in a row, Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke will be hitting the Croisette. Jia brought his violent social-commentary A Touch of Sin to the 2013 festival and for his effort, was awarded the Screenplay Prize by Stephen Spielberg’s jury. Last year, Jia himself sat on the jury, which ultimately gave Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep the Palme d’Or.
Now Jia is back competing for it again with his decade spanning, continent hopping saga of intimacy and globalization. Mountains starts in 1990s China and ends in 2025 Australia telling three connected stories, each one a tale of aching hearts set against a rapidly changing economic landscape.
Sight unseen, this feels like the early favorite to win gold. It’s got that mix of Big Ideas and emotion, and you can tell it has Something To Say. Moreover, it comes from a director who has been embraced with open arms by the festival without ever having won the Palme. Exactly how Turkish director Ceylan went into Cannes last year, and we know how that worked out for him.
Cannes often rewards ‘favorite sons’, and though the Coens have never been ones to play by the rules, I think its safe to assume Jia Zhang-ke will not be going home empty handed.
My King dir. Maiwenn
Holed up in physical rehab and hopped up on painkillers, Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) spends the weeks following a debilitating ski-accident reflecting on her violent affair with Georgio (Vincent Cassel).
My King marks the fourth feature from French multi-hyphenate Maiwenn. Best known for her roles as the blue diva in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (picture it— you remember) and the screaming target in Alexandre Aja’s High Tension, Maiwenn has moved behind the camera in recent years to great acclaim. Her previous film, Polisse, took home the Jury Prize (essentially third place) at the 2011 Festival and was a big hit in France.
She’s also what you could call an ‘actor’s director’. She is generous with her casts, allowing them space to stretch out and develop their characters… sometimes to the expense of plot and pace. My King, with its flashback structure and tale of torrid love, seems to keep very much apace.
My Mother dir. Nanni Moretti
The latest from Italian director Nanni Moretti presents an interesting case.
You see, Cannes has a fairly carved in stone stipulation that in order to qualify for the Official Competition a film has to make its worldwide premiere there. Which is to say, unseen anywhere before its big festival showcase. But Moretti’s latest, a tender dramedy about a brother and sister dealing with the impeding death of their mother, has been out in Italy since April.
Is this a case of an unqualified masterpiece? A film too damned spellbinding to pass up, whose merits will be heralded for decades to come, long after the chattering masses will have forgotten the flagrant violation of festival policy?
Err… not quite.
The reviews coming from the Mama-land have been respectful, polite. But there’s little to make us think this is will be knocking anyone on their behinds. Rather, it seems a case of the festival standing with its own. Moretti won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for The Son’s Room. His four films previous films have played in Competition. He was president of the jury in 2012. He’s famiglia.
Add to that, it stars John Turturro, the American actor who won the Best Actor prize in 1991 for Barton Fink, which also took home the Palme d’Or and Best Director prizes for who again? Ah yes, jury presidents Joel and Ethan.
Our Little Sister dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Three sisters, aged 19, 22 and 29, share a house on the beach. The three leave for their estranged father’s funeral and come back four, bringing home with them an orphaned 13-year-old half-sister nobody knew existed.
Though based on the popular manga Umimachi Diary, Our Little Sister appears to share just as much in common with director Kore-eda’s previous work. His 2004 breakthrough Nobody Knows also followed four half-siblings living together under the same roof, and his most recent film, 2013’s Like Father, Like Son was about late in life revelations and family shake-ups. The latter won Jury Prize under Steven Spielberg’s Jury, while the former took Best Actor honors from the one led by Quentin Tarantino. Now Kore-eda’s back for his third go-around under his third American Jury president(s). Which is only to say, for those inclined to see omens, there you go.
For those who prefer empiricism, consider this: Kore-eda is widely respected for his sentimental-but-never-maudlin takes on family and childhood. He can navigate difficult subjects with a deft touch and an even-keel; he can do emotion without ever laying it on thick. Which is only to say, this is Kore-eda in his element right here.
Sea of Trees dir. Gus Van Sant
Two strangers meet in the eerily quiet woods. One’s American. Not just any American, mind you. Matthew McConaughey American. The other’s Japanese. Ken Watanabe-- so he’s not sweating it either. Both have come for the same reason: in the shady brush below Mount Fuji, they have come to take their own lives.
If the pitch sounds to you like Gus Van Sant has returned to that woozy, poetic style of his mid-2000’s ‘Death Trilogy’ (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days), well, you and me both pal. But apparently not!
In a recent interview, Cannes honcho Thierry Fremaux described Sea of Trees as “a bit more commercial, a bit more mainstream” than the more formally radical films Van Sant previously brought to Cannes.
Now at this point it still sounds a lot more like Last Days than it does Finding Forrester, but who the heck knows? Wait and see, I suppose. And anyway, I liked Finding Forrester.
Sicario dir. Denis Villeneuve
The only out-and-out thriller playing in this year’s crop, occupying a spot previously held by Takeshi Miike’s Shield of Straw and the Coen’s No Country for Old Men, among others. Whether Villeneuve’s drug-cartel bruiser receives Miike’s quick dismissal or is set down the body-paved path to awards season remains to be seen, though the film does share more than a few cosmetic similarities with the Coen’s 2007 champ, including leading man Josh Brolin and cinematographer Roger Deakins.
Brolin and Emily Blunt star as a pair of US agents hunting a drug kingpin along Mexican border, with Benecio del Toro as the hitman they send out to make the kill. Tables will inevitably turn. Blood, it can be assumed, will a-spill. Things will undoubtedly go awry.
Villeneuve’s upcoming films are of the big budget, sci-fi variety – the Amy Adams adventure Story of Your Life is next, followed by an equal parts awaited/dreaded sequel to Blade Runner – so this Cannes entry could be a kind of outlet for the director’s grislier impulses before his studio plunge. “It is a very dark film,” he promises, “a dark poem, quite violent.”
Son of Saul dir. Laszlo Nemes
No getting around it, this one sounds bleak.
A Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, one of the prisoners in charge of the crematorium, finds the body of young child that reminds him of his son, and decides to have it blessed and buried in accordance with Jewish tradition, rather than incinerated in the ovens. All while his fellow prisoners are planning a doomed revolt.
See, I told you.
But there is much about the film that intrigues as well. Son of Saul is a first-time feature, a distinction all too rarely seen in the Official Competition. It helps that project was developed through the festival’s Cinefondation incubator, and that director Laszlo Nemes was the assistant to & protégé of Bela Tarr for several years.
Tarr, retired Hungarian film director, is beloved by fans of art-house cinema. Indeed, the idiosyncratic Tarr, famous for his extremely long takes, his stark use of black and white and his technical mastery, is esteemed by many as one of international cinema’s most unique and talented voices. He’s certainly one of its most influential. After retiring in 2011 he gave himself entirely over to teaching his craft. Now, with protégé Nemes’ first film, it seems that his guidance and labors are beginning to bear fruit.
The Tale of Tales dir. Matteo Garonne
This one has to be the wild card, right?
Italian director Matteo Garrone, known for his sprawling Mafia-exposé Gomorrah and his celebrity-culture satire Reality has gone and made an English language fantasy (“…with horror elements”) based on the work of 17th century poet Giambattista Basile.
Garrone has taken home Cannes’ runner-up Grand Prix for his past two films, and some oddsmakers are calling Tales this year’s favorite to win the gold. I remain unconvinced.
It certainly is the odds on favorite to be the most WTF. Were it not for a certain Greek in competition you could conceivably offer Garonne the Gonzo-Cuckoo Wreath right now. But the famously tony festival awarding top honors to, well, Queen Salma going to town on a monster heart, it just seems out of character, no?
Still, Jury presidents Joel and Ethan Coen have been known to shake things up, and you just know fellow juror Guillermo del Toro will be going to bat for this. And maybe, just maybe, if Garonne succeeds in imbuing the ancient tales with the allegory and eroticism drained from them through the post-Disney era…
Hell, you never know!
The Valley of Love dir. Guillaume Nicloux
What if they threw a massive ten-day party on the French Riviera and Gerard Depardieu didn’t show up? Thankfully we will not have to entertain that troubling thought, because he and perennial Cannes favorite Isabelle Huppert are back to play fictionalized versions of themselves in The Valley of Love.
Gerard and Isabelle are famous actors (that’s in the film) whose son has recently died. The last note he was sent came from Death Valley, a desert enclave on the California-Nevada border. Fraught with grief and looking for answers, the two of them hoof it West to find out what happened to their kid.
In real life, Gerard and Isabelle are also famous actors, though without shared offspring. They do share an absolute veneration by this host festival. Both have been Jury President, and between them they share several acting awards. In France, Depardieu is the iconic actor of his generation, beloved by audiences and critics and Russian oligarchs, whose yachts fill Cannes’ bay. Huppert, on the other hand, might as well be Cannes’ official mascot. I don’t think there’s a single actor —male or female, French or otherwise— with Huppert’s incredible 20+ films in Competition track record.
Keep an eye on that image up there. It could well be next year’s festival poster.
Youth dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Gone is the devil-may-care hedonism and glitzy abandon that made Sorrentino's previous, The Great Beauty. so irresistible to some 2013 festival-goers (and Academy Award voters). Replaced here with a more subdued tone befitting the story of men in the winters of their lives wintering in the Alps.
Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel play old friends -- Mike a fully retired composer, Harv’ a director prepping his last film -- who reflect on their lives and loves from the comfort of a mountain resort. Jane Fonda, Rachel Weisz and Paul Dano join for the ride as some of those very partners and protégés.
Youth may not carry Beauty’s raucous energy, but if the trailer is any indication, Sorrentino’s signature style -- that of swooping cameras and ornate compositions -- seems to have acclimated just fine to alpine heights.