Cannes at Home: Days 5 & 6 – Histories of Violence

by Cláudio Alves

Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE is a body horror shocker.

Half of the Cannes Main Competition has screened, and it seems we're in a year of big swings and even bigger faceplants. Divisive titles aplenty, the most acclaimed films of the festival appear to be located in parallel sections rather than Thierry Frémaux's selection. Even so, Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides has confirmed itself as the critics' favorite, though that only extends to writers already fond of the director's oeuvre. The documentary-fiction hybrid made no new converts. Jacques Audiard dazzled audiences with the trans-themed Mexican musical Emilia Perez, and while some critics are ecstatic, others loathe the thing. Reactions are more pointedly adverse to Kirill Serebrennikov's Limonov biopic, while Coralie Fargeat's The Substance has elicited equal pans and praise. Some folks online are trying to characterize the body horror's critical divide as a battle of the sexes, but that ignores the work of various women who've applauded the picture. Still, it's a controversial one.

Since all these cineastes have filled their filmographies with shocking violence, that felt like a good unifying theme for this Cannes at Home program. So, let's delve into Jia's Ash is Purest White, Audiard's Dheepan, Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu, and Fargeat's bloody Revenge…

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Review: Paris 13th District

by Matt St Clair

Ten years after Rust and Bone comes another rumination on love and sex from director Jacques Audiard. His new black-and-white romance Paris, 13th District has a more unfastened narrative structure as it follows a small quartet of twenty and thirty-somethings finding romance in the city of love and figuring out their overall place in the world...

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Cannes Diary #09: Some unexpected fireworks in Cannes

TFE has been proud to bring you double-sized Cannes coverage this year for the first time, direct from Cannes itself, as well as companion screening suggestions at home. 

by Elisa Giudici

July, 14th: Bastille Day! Let me be honest with you, I totally forgot the holiday was today (time becomes an endless flow/blur during Festivals) but in the morning every hotel, resturant and administrative building was covered by a lot (a lot) of French flags. Happy to report that inbetween two screenings, I was able to see the magnificent fireworks exhibition on the sea with a spectacular view from the press room.

Even happier to report that there were fireworks in the Competition screenings, too...

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Cannes at Home: Day 9

by Cláudio Alves 

Today was a busy one for Spike Lee's jury. Because this year's Main Competition is so extensive, with 24 films vying for the Palme d'Or, some days feature three consecutive screenings. Still, that doesn't seem to abate anyone's enthusiasm. Lee himself was seen giving a standing ovation to Sean Baker's Red Rocket, the American director's first film to compete at Cannes. Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi also premiered The Story of My Wife, while previous Palme d'Or winner Jacques Audiard presented his Paris, 13th District. To celebrate these selected cineastes, we shall recall some of their best efforts to date. Among our program, we even find a drama led by one of Lee's fellow jurors, the recently Golden Globe and BAFTA-nominated Tahar Rahim…

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Almost There: Marion Cotillard in "Rust and Bone"

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the years, the Oscars' most polyglot acting category has been Best Actress, amassing twenty nominations and two victories for performances in non-English languages. Those winners, Sophia Loren (1961, Two Women) and Marion Cotillard (2007, La Vie en Rose), are also the only women to nab more than one nod for acting in their native non-English tongue. That's not the only factor that makes Cotillard's awards history a strange affair. She's also one the very few actors to get attention from the four major precursors (BFCA, HFPA, BAFTA, SAG) for her work in "foreign language" films, a feat she accomplished twice. Strangely enough, it wasn't for the same two productions that got her the Academy's attention!

Marion Cotillard's take on Edith Piaf got nominated for everything and, in the end, conquered her a little golden man. Still, five years later she was royally snubbed, becoming only the second person to get those four precursor nominations and fail to enter the Oscar line-up. The film was Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone and the performance remains one of Cotillard's greatest achievements…

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