Cannes at Home: Day 7 – Long Live the New Flesh!

by Cláudio Alves

I can't wait to plunge into the enigmas of THE SHROUDS.

Another day, another lackluster reception to a highly anticipated Cannes title. Ali Abbasi's Donald Trump film, The Apprentice, seems neither thrilling nor especially deep, with various comparisons to Wikipedia entries throughout naysayer's reviews. At least, its cast got general praise, with highest honors to Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. Then again, it did receive one of the festival's longest standing ovations yet, so make of that what you will. On a more somber note, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds is being described as the director's most transparent movie, laying bare the grief of an artist dealing with his wife's passing. In a recent interview, the Canadian master described cinema as a cemetery, and it seems his latest work follows that idea to literal ends.

For the Cannes at Home odyssey, let's examine two horrors from the directors' past - Abbasi's Shelley and Cronenberg's Videodrome, where a very different vision of death awaits…

Click to read more ...

Review: "Holy Spider" weaves a web of provocations

by Cláudio Alves

"Holy Spider" | © UtopiaThe world's obsession with true crime is as old as crime itself. With every new format and possible presentation, another wave of such media arises, making us think, each time, that the collective obsession is a new phenomenon. Oh, how wrong we are, for as much as things change, they remain the same. One aspect constant with every iteration of the true-crime craze is the glorification of the killer. False equivalencies manifest, equating human monsters to criminal geniuses. Great purposes are projected unto them, ideas of grandeur and abstract magnetism. From popular podcasts to Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer show, true-crime narratives make celebrities out of murderers and exploit truth into legend.

Ali Abbasi's latest film challenges this state of affairs. Reenacted violence and political commentary are at the center of Holy Spider's controversial reputation, but its demystification of the serial killer figure constitutes the picture's most radical provocation…

Click to read more ...

TIFF Diary #5: Disappointing Oscar bait and a surprise favourite

by Baby Clyde

Hugh Jackman and Florian Zeller on the set of "The Son"

Today I had no mid-film snooze problems. The screenings started at midday with Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own play The Son. I saw the original London production back in 2019: Great performances. Terrible play. Though Zeller has ironed out some of the innate staginess of the source material The Son can’t overcome the fact that this is not a play about the teenage depression epidemic but rather about absurdly inept parenting. The choices made are so ludicrous and the reasoning so shallow I laughed out loud on numerous occasions. They also kept the queasily distasteful, possible twist as a coda which is no less objectionable on film than it was on the stage. Sir Anthony pops up briefly in what is presumably a reprise of his character from The Father. He makes more impact in three minutes than the rest of the cast do in the other two hours of contrived torment. Consider it the first proper clunker of this Oscar season.

Empire of Light was next and has seemingly been genetically engineered in a film lab to garner Oscar noms...

Click to read more ...

Cannes at Home: Day 6 – Trolls, Actresses, and the Whole Shebang

by Cláudio Alves 

Well, folks, it seems we have another strong contender for the Palme d'Or. If Cristian Mungiu's R.M.N had people whispering about awards possibilities, Ali Abbasi's Holy Spider upped the conversation considerably. It isn't the first time the Iranian-Danish filmmaker presented work at Cannes, though Border was relegated to the Un Certain Regard competition – which it won. That same day, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi showed her latest directorial effort, Forever Young. The actress-turned-director already competed for the Palme back in 2013 with A Castle in Italy. Nevertheless, like Abbasi, her first film to be screened at Cannes was slotted for the Un Certain Regard section. In 2007, Tedeschi won a Special Jury Prize for Actresses.

As one ponders these directors' latest accomplishments, let's look back at their first prize-winning Cannes experiences…

Click to read more ...

Cannes Diary #6: Something weird this way comes

by Elisa Giudici

This (unconscious?) cosplay of Jesse Buckley doing Paul Verhoeven’s The 4th Man during the Q&A session for Men made my day!  After the jump some surreal comedy, a horror oddity, a terrifying thriller that might contend for awards, and a directorial debut... 

Click to read more ...