The 69th Cannes Film Festival opens today with Woody Allen’s Cafe Society, and the world’s most influential film festival will play out its drama until May 22. As the glamour and the art of cinema fill the airwaves, here are some of the talking points worthy of note as more reports from the Croisette will follow over the next 10 days.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
In a rich year for Southeast Asian filmmakers, five films from the region will have their world premiere in Cannes — make it six if you include the restored Thai classic Santi-Vina (see front page).
Singapore has a good picking with two features: Boo Junfeng’s Apprentice, a drama about a young man and an older prison executioner, will play in the festival’s Un Certain Regard, while K. Rajagopal’s A Yellow Bird, about an ex-convict’s redemptive journey, is invited to the sidebar Critics’ Week. In a sign of revival, Cambodia is also in Cannes with two films, one from a respected master and the other from a newcomer: doc-maker Rithy Pahn’s Exile is in the Special Screening, while Davy Chou’s Diamond Island, set in a man-made chunk of land in Phnom Penh, is playing in Critics’ Week.
But the Philippines has the biggest reason to cheer, with former Cannes-winning Brillante Mendoza returning to the main competition with Ma’ Rosa, a story about criminals in the underbelly of Manila. Mendoza won best director back in 2009 for his thriller Kinatay, and the Filipino is now up against the big guns of world cinema again.
COMPETITION
After last year’s weak selection, Cannes is filing heavy arsenal from Europe and the US in the elite competition. On paper, the line-up looks foolproof: Pedro Almodovar arrives with a Spanish female-driven drama Julieta; Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper is reportedly “a ghost story” starring Kristen Stewart; Ken Loach returns to the competition (again) with another British working class study I, Daniel Blake; Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End Of The World continues the 27-year-old’s rise with a heartbreaking tale starring Marion Cotillard, Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel.
Two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne from Belgium will premier The Unknown Girl; Jeff Nichols has an interracial love story Loving, set in 1968 USA; Sean Penn directs Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem in The Last Face, about an international aid agency in political turmoil; also from the US is the indie prince Jim Jarmusch, who will present Paterson, an offbeat drama starring Star Wars‘ Adam Driver as, yes, a bus driver and poet; and Nicolas Winding Refn, after the divisive, Bangkok-set Only God Forgives, is back in the game with the lushly atmospheric The Neon Demon starring Elle Fanning as a fashion model trapped in a “cannibalistic” industry.
Only three Asian films are in the competition: Korean Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, Iranian Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, and Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’ Rosa from the Philippines.
ON THE EDGE
While the focus is always on the main competition — and while the overwrought expectation sometimes brings disappointment — Cannes has potential gems tucked in many corners. In the sidebar Director’s Fortnight, Pablo Larrain (who made the acclaimed No) will screen Neruda, about the Chilean poet hunted by the secret police, meanwhile cult favourite Alejandro Jodorowsky, also a Chilean and now 87, will bring Endless Poverty to the festival.
South Korea has a film in the competition, and it shows how healthy the industry is with two more films in the festival: Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing is a thriller about a mysterious sickness in a village, and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train To Busan is reportedly a zombie flick — appropriately it’s showing in the Midnight Screening.
Meanwhile, Jim Jarmusch has two films in Cannes; besides Paterson in competition, he has the Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Danger in the midnight programme.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.