As we approach the final days of the Cannes Film festival, a consensus is beginning to build around Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6 and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car as the best films so far. On the whole, Cannes is taking Covid protocols seriously and there are still relatively few cases. On the other hand, the number of spectators at the festival is decreasing day by day. Cannes market is almost closed and those who attended primarily for the market have left. In today’s letter I will discuss The Story of My Wife (Ildikó Enyedi), Red Rocket (Sean Baker), Paris, 13th District (Jacques Audiard) and A here (Asghar Farhadi).
Hungarian director, Ildikó Enyedi, who won best film at the Berlin Film Festival for Body and Soul, for her latest film, The Story of my wife, has turned to a 1942 novel of the same name by Milán Füst. . The story follows a naval captain and his married life. This film is a radical departure from the director’s previous film. Here we are dealing with a relatively more common work in contemporary cinema. The film, though, does contain highly artistic sequences, which make it more prominent than conventional works. In Body and Soul, some information was hidden from the audience and this added to the films’ complexity. In this historical film, the strategy of concealing information is taken too far. We’re never very sure about Lizzy’s, the lead female character, motivations, who seems to be the victim of the demands of the society. And this makes it difficult to identify with her. Enyedi has tried to convey the character’s feelings and dilemma more through the actor’s charisma, through the facial expressions, but it is not enough. Ultimately, our inability to understand the characters prevents it from resonating with the audience.
Red Rocket
Sean Baker, director of the popular and acclaimed film The Florida Project, has participated in the Cannes Film Festival with his latest work, a fascinating work of contemporary American cinema. Red Rocket is the ultra-realistic story of an ex-porn star who returns to his former home in a small Texas town after many years. He contacts his ex-wife and asks for her help. He also looks for work and tries to settle down, but is haunted by his past. This is an honest film that does not try to foist a point of view on the audience. The director seeks to follow the story from the point of view of the character and does not feel that his own thoughts and ideology should dominate. It was one of the best films at the festival, and showed Baker to be a powerful director.
Paris, 13th District
Jacques Audiard in his last film, The sisters brothers, he turned to America and made a Western. This time, though, he has made a film that looks at issues of gender and sex. Each of the characters is driven one way or another by sex and it is through sex that the different parts of the story in the film are connected. Audier’s film has a poetic character. In this viewer’s mind, Paris, 13th District is reminiscent of French New Wave and the work of Philippe Garrel. This is especially so since the film is shot in black and white. This was one of the best films of the festival and features wonderful acting from actors who clearly know their characters.
A Hero
Asghar Farhadi’s film, as always, engages the viewer in a moral context and with the moral issues and questions that have always been seen in Farhadi’s work. This time out, the issue of social media and what it means to be a hero in the contemporary world are the main themes. Farhadi returns to Iran for this film, having made his last one in Spain. A Hero introduces is a highly character-driven film, focusing as it does on its protagonist. The issue of social class is front and centre in A Hero. There are many twists and turns throughout and almost nothing can be accepted as perfectly clear and absolute. Whatever happens and whatever a character does, may lead to the opposite of what he or she expected.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.