All got applause, only one got a “Bravo!” – 3 Days in Cannes: Part 1

The Cannes Film Festival launched the 3 Days in Cannes program in 2018, allowing cinephiles ages 18-28 to attend the prestigious festival which is not otherwise open to the public. I was in college then, and between that, law school, and job hunting I never had an opportunity to try until now. I’ll turn 29 this year, shortly after the festival, so this was my last chance (unless Flickchart scores press passes). I applied on a whim not knowing how likely I was to be accepted, and when I received the news that I’d gotten in it took me a while to process it. I’d been following the festival for years and never dreamed I’d be able to attend. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I got in touch with my Flickchart friend Conner and told him he should apply as well, and he was likewise accepted. Despite some travel issues and a city-wide power outage on the last day, we were both able to see a lot of movies. Here are the films I saw and my thoughts on them. Some will likely be awards season contenders, while others may not get a US release for a long time.

Two Prosecutors (dir. Sergei Loznitsa, In Competition)

This was a difficult film to start my Cannes experience. It was early in the morning, the theater was stuffy and I was sweating in my suit, and this is a slow, cold film, although not without a sense of humor. I believe Loznitsa only moves the camera once, following a train from the side. Otherwise the camera is still, and combined with the gray color palette I was reminded of Roy Andersson. Alexander Kuznetsov does a great job as a young prosecutor who gets a secret message written in blood by a prisoner. The prison guards typically have all such letters burned, but this one was able to escape. Kuznetsov then spends much of the film sitting and waiting and slowly working his way through a corrupt system, and it’s not difficult to draw parallels to modern politics in many parts of the world. The ending was bleak but felt inevitable. Overall I prefer the other Loznitsa film I’ve seen, In the Fog, but I did appreciate this one.

Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier, In Competition)

This premiered the night before I saw it and was already getting buzz as a top Palme d’Or contender (it ultimately won the second place award, the Grand Prix), so I think those expectations affected my initial reaction (along with not deciding to ditch the jacket until after this film, so as with Two Prosecutors I was sweating in the stuffy theater). I’m a fan of Trier in general and loved his previous collaboration with Renata Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World. As I sat with this more, it grew on me, and I appreciated the depiction of this dysfunctional and complicated family more. Skarsgård is great as the father, and that character is incredibly well-written. I loved his birthday gift to his grandson; that was maybe the hardest I laughed the entire festival. The thematic depth of a filmmaker using a new screenplay to not only reconnect with his daughters but also grapple with his own mother’s suicide is impressive. Reinsve also deals with a lot of emotions and skillfully manages them. The film cuts to black several times, and I wondered if, like Trier’s previous film, these were meant to be chapter breaks with no names yet, so I’m curious to see if that changes when this gets a wide release. I would like to see this again, because jetlag and lack of sleep caught up to me here. I never fell asleep, but I definitely feel like I missed some things. Still, this was one of my favorites of the festival, and it will likely be an Oscar contender this year.

The Plague (dir. Charlie Polinger, Un Certain Regard)

I’m a horror fan, so I was on the lookout for genre films playing at the festival, and this one caught my eye. It’s produced by Joel Edgerton, who plays a water polo coach in the film, and it’s the directorial debut for Polinger. This was billed as a horror film, and the stylistic choices try to sell it that way, especially with the music and sound. But this is much more of a drama, with the horror coming from being a teenage boy. 12-year-old Ben goes to a summer water polo camp, and despite being an awkward preteen he’s able to fit in with the more popular kids, but at the expense of an outcast boy cruelly nicknamed “The Plague” due to a serious rash. There are a lot of intentionally uncomfortable scenes and interactions, and the boys overall do a good job. The water polo and underwater scenes are filmed well. Polinger is currently developing a new adaptation of the classic Poe tale The Masque of the Red Death for A24, with last year’s Best Actress winner Mikey Madison in talks to star. I see potential in Polinger from this film, so I’m interested to see what he does next.

Eddington (dir. Ari Aster, In Competition)

I was left wanting a bit more from a lot of the films I saw at Cannes. That was certainly not the case here, as it builds from a dispute about a mask mandate to a truly wild finale. Set in May 2020, Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff of the small New Mexico town of Eddington, and he argues with the current mayor, played by Pedro Pascal, who wants to enforce the statewide mask mandate. It’s bold of Aster to tackle a recent topic as big as this head-on, but he does a good job making it feel like an accurate representation of this country even as he exaggerates to highlight some of the absurdities around just how dumb we’ve become. (I loved the campaign sign on Phoenix’s car that said “YOUR BEING MANIPULATED.”) While I prefer Aster’s first two horror films to his last two chaotic epics, I think this was great, and I’m curious to see the reactions when it gets released in theaters.

Alpha (dir. Julia Ducournau, In Competition)

Of all the films I saw at Cannes, this is the one I’ve struggled most to process. Titane was my favorite film of 2021, and I like Raw as well, but I had a hard time connecting with this. The style is overbearing at times, and some of the big emotional moments don’t really land. People keep calling this an AIDS allegory, but the disease depicted here is just AIDS with different symptoms that allow for a bit of body horror (the scene with Rahim’s back is really effective, and the overall appearance of the patients). The meaning isn’t hidden or symbolic. The film deals with a lot of themes related to AIDS, like stigmatization and drug addiction, but mostly it’s about the effect on a family. Golshifteh Farahani is the unnamed mother, who is a doctor treating patients with this disease. Alpha, her daughter (played well by two different actresses, as her age shifts between 5 and 13 at different points) gets a tattoo of an A at a party, and she’s concerned that a shared needle gave Alpha the disease her brother is also dying from. Tahar Rahim lost a lot of weight to play this role, and his performance as a man wasting away was probably the best in the film. This was oddly the second film I saw at the festival in which kids clear out of a pool after one of them with a potential disease starts bleeding. I appreciate the big swing from Ducournau, and I could see my rating going either direction if I watched this again.

It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi, In Competition)

People applauded after almost every film I saw at Cannes, but this was the only one where people also shouted “Bravo!” I’ve seen two of Panahi’s documentaries filmed while he was banned from filmmaking, and this is the first narrative film I’ve seen from him. Panahi does a great job maintaining the suspense of whether or not this man is who Vahid thinks he is, and I was fascinated by the moral debates and perspectives of the other characters. It’s a revenge film that is consistently surprising, and Panahi also finds humor in the absurdity of the situation. The last shot will likely be one of, if not the, best of the year. It’s cool that I got to see the Palme d’Or winner before the awards were announced, and based on everything I saw I agree with the Jury. It’s also impressive that Panahi became just the fourth director to win the Film Festival Triple Crown of Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, joining Altman, Antonioni, and Clouzot (who kind of cheated by having The Wages of Fear at both Cannes and Berlin). He and Antonioni are now the only ones who have won those three plus Locarno.

Exit 8 (dir. Genki Kawamura, Midnight Screenings)

Is this the first truly good video game film adaptation? I haven’t played the game, but from what I understand it’s light on story and mainly focused on the spot-the-anomaly gameplay. The film adds a simple setup about how the “Lost Man” gets here, all shot in a single-take from his POV. This was the opening of the film, and for a while I thought the whole thing would be POV, but it soon switches to third-person perspective. A lot of long takes follow the man through the endless hallway, as the Lost Man is stuck in a subway tunnel which keeps repeating. The only way to get out is to determine whether there are any “anomalies.” If so, he’s supposed to turn back, and if not, he’s supposed to continue forward until he reaches Exit 8. The anomalies were consistently surprising and occasionally creepy. There are parts of this that I found confusing, but I enjoyed the experience and playing along with the character.

Love on Trial (dir. Koji Fukada, Cannes Premiere)

Of the films I saw at Cannes, I probably knew the least about this one going in. It starts with a performance by the girl group Happy Fanfare, and it repeatedly cuts to an audience of almost entirely men. This obsessive fandom for a group that seems to be on a lower tier of J-Pop idol stardom is interesting to see. That fandom is also why these idols have “no dating” clauses, so that the fans will think they’re attainable. The film seems to be critiquing both aspects of idol culture. While the ideas are there, I found the way Fukada goes about it to be quite dull. There’s one scene in the middle where something actually happens, but it mostly just sets up the reason for Mai to pursue a romantic relationship even if it means leaving the group. There is nothing particularly special about the romance (aside from a one-off fantasy sequence that feels out of place) or the courtroom scenes. The actors are fine, and the music performances are solid.

Young Mothers (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, In Competition)

Two-time Palme d’Or winners the Dardenne brothers have a guaranteed competition slot every time they make a new film, and for this one they won the Best Screenplay award. It follows five young women at a shelter for young mothers, and the film rotates through each of their stories, showing their challenges with pregnancy, babies, parents, boyfriends, and more. Unfortunately, I did not get to finish watching this film, as about an hour in the power in the theater went out. We eventually had to exit the building entirely and learned that there was a city-wide power outage. Power was not restored for several hours, so I missed both the end of this and my screening of Bi Gan’s Resurrection, which was one of my most anticipated films of the festival. I had about a half hour left of this when the power went out. I liked what I saw up to that point, but I can’t rate it or give full thoughts until I can see the entire film.

The Phoenician Scheme (dir. Wes Anderson, In Competition)

This wasn’t a top priority for me to see as it was being released in the US soon after the festival ended, and it’s currently in theaters. Still, tickets were hard to come by on the last day, and after missing movies earlier in the day with the power outage I was happy to get a chance to see a major title in one of the main Palais theaters, the Debussy. Wes Anderson doing an action-adventure film is fun, but I do understand why some are getting Anderson fatigue at this point. Since Grand Budapest Hotel, he’s focused more and more on style, but it’s style in combination with story that makes Grand Budapest his best film. This is an enjoyable romp with a good cast of Anderson regulars and newcomers. I’m waiting to be wowed by him again, though, and so are the Cannes juries, as he went home empty-handed once again.

In total, I was able to see about nine and a half films. It was supposed to be eleven, but I’m still grateful for the experience and would highly recommend anyone in the 18-28 age group apply if they get the chance. In the future, anyone who is accepted is welcome to reach out to me for tips and advice on making the most of the program. Here’s how I would rank the films I saw:

1. It Was Just an Accident
2. Sentimental Value
3. Eddington
4. Exit 8
5. Two Prosecutors
6. The Phoenician Scheme
7. The Plague
8. Alpha
9. Love on Trial