\t\u2018All of a Sudden\u2019<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Diaphana Distribution\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAnyone who caught Happy Hour (2015) and the Oscar-winner Drive My Car (2021) will tell you that Ryusuke Hamaguchi\u00a0is one of the most brilliant filmmakers to come out of Japan in recent years. Not even those complex, moving works can prepare you for this three-hour\u2013plus story of the bond between a French healthcare administrator (Virginie Efira) and a Japanese playwright (Tao Okamoto) dying of cancer. It\u2019s both an intimate dual character study about two souls connecting \u2014 not for nothing did Efira and Okamoto jointly win the Best Actress prize \u2014 and an extended plea for a more dignified humane approach to treating the sick and the elderly. Once again, Hamaguchi reminds you that few things are more engaging than watching people communicating on a deep level; you also wouldn\u2019t think that a 20-minute sequence involving a whiteboard and an impromptu lecture on capitalism would be one of the most compelling thing you\u2019d seen in ages, and yet! It\u2019s the type of marathon-length film that you actually wish was longer, and the fact that it didn\u2019t win the Palme d\u2019Or feels like a major slight. (No offense, actual Palme winner Fjord.) Easily the best thing we saw at this year\u2019s fest, hands down.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
\t\u2018The Beloved\u2019<\/p>\n
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\n\tA filmmaker casts his actor daughter in his new period piece, causing tension between the two \u2014 on paper, this Spanish competition entry sounds like a mere variation on last year\u2019s Cannes standout Sentimental Value, right? But Rodrigo Sorogoyen\u2019s follow-up to 2022\u2019s The Beasts takes this scenario and runs with it, creating both a takedown of the idea that creative geniuses get a free pass regarding corrosive behavior and an unsparing look at how the sausage is made on movie sets. From the moment the film kicks off with a long conversation between Javier Bardem\u2019s a-hole auteur and Victoria Luengo\u2019s reluctant star, shot in alternating close-ups that resemble a verbal tennis match, you know you are in the hands of an expert. (A sequence involving the shooting of a lunch sequence that veers from hilarious to borderline terrifying is a three-act play unto itself.) And while both leads are fabulous, you\u2019ll likely walk away from this thinking that\u2019s it the best thing Bardem has ever done that hasn\u2019t involved a bad haircut and a coin toss<\/a>. Spanish cinema had a good showing at Cannes this year, between Pedro Almod\u00f3var\u2019s new film, the epic La Bola Negra, Diego Luna\u2019s directorial effort Ashes (a co-production with Mexico), and this familial drama. We\u2019re praying that some distributor is smart enough to ride that wave and pick this up ASAP.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Ben\u2019imana\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe festival\u2019s Un Certain Regard section has always been a great source of discovery for future world-cinema heavy hitters, and this year delivered both a starry opening night selection (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma) and the buzziest movie of the whole event (Club Kid). But the hidden treasure in its 2026 lineup was Rwandan filmmaker Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo\u2019s scathing tale of truth and reconciliation around the 1994 Tutsi genocide. Our hero, Veneranda (Cl\u00e9mentine U. Nyirinkindi), has faith that justice can now be served in a court of law. Her sister (Isabelle Kabano), however, is frustrated with both the system and the group therapy sessions designed to let their fellow civil-war survivors start the healing process. Things are further complicated when Veneranda\u2019s daughter (Kesia Kelly Nishimwe) becomes pregnant by her Hutu boyfriend. You\u2019d never know that this was Dusabejambo\u2019s debut feature, given the way she uses of close-ups to set up emotional timebombs and her patient sense of pacing. That the film won the Camera d\u2019Or for Best First Film only cements the fact that she\u2019s a bold new talent with a keen sense of humanity and a hell of an eye.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Club Kid\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe big breakout hit of Cannes this year, writer-director-star Jordan Firstman \u2014 a.k.a. the celebrity stylist Charlie from I Love L.A. \u2014 played in the Un Certain Regard section early on in the fest and quickly established its triple-threat creator as the belle of this year\u2019s proverbial ball<\/a>. It was a much-needed breath of fresh air, which was ironic given that its plot wasn\u2019t exactly a fresh one: A party organizer (Firstman) still leading that dusk-to-dawn lifestyle in his thirties is forced to grow TF up when he discovers that a drug-fueled night a decade ago has led to him accidentally being a dad. Surprisingly, the manchild bonds with his son (Reggie Absolom) and discovers he\u2019s actually a good guardian, before legal issues complicate matters. Some compared this to a queer-NYC-club culture take on Kramer vs. Kramer, which isn\u2019t entirely inaccurate. But it\u2019s not where you\u2019re going with this so much as how Firstman gets you there, and it was no surprise that A24 won a massive five-way bidding war to nab this. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018The Devils: The Director\u2019s Cut\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe Cannes Classics section has always been great for cinephiles wanting to catch up with new restorations of older films and\/or rare screenings of vintage obscurities. But this year\u2019s sidebar also gave the festival one of the most sought after tickets on the Croisette \u2014 a single screening of the complete version of Ken Russell\u2019s blasphemous 1971 masterpiece about a 17th century priest (Oliver Reed, at his most mustachioed) who gets the local convent in Loudun hot and bothered. His popularity and influence over the city also ends up in getting the holy man in hot water with the notorious Cardinal Richlieu, and history can attest that things do not end well. To say this movie has attracted controversy is a little like noting that King Kong was a plus-sized simian \u2014 it was heavily edited upon its release and was outright banned in numerous countries. Critic and superfan Mark Kermode managed to track down several key missing scenes, including one involving an orgy and a lifesized model of Jesus, after years of detective work, and presented an official \u201cdirector\u2019s cut\u201d once in the UK in 2002. A new restoration courtesy of the Warners\u2019 offshoot Clockwork will now hit theaters in the fall, and its premiere at the fest proved that Russell\u2019s over-the-top attack on the too-cozy relationship between church and state has only become more pertinent. Bonus points for Vanessa Redgrave at her most unhinged.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Fatherland\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIn 1949, celebrated author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) returned to his native \u2014 and now bifurcated \u2014 Germany to receive a prize and give a lecture on his hero, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He brought along his daughter, Erika (Sandra H\u00fcller), as a traveling companion. The times, they have a-changed for this postwar country, however, and the exiled writer suddenly finds himself a stranger in a strange, highly conflicted land. Polish filmmaker Pawel Palikowski (Cold War) delivers an absolute banger of a B&W road movie that doubles as both a father-daughter drama. It\u2019s also a stark reminder that you can never truly go home again, and that history is capable of rendering null and void the culture you once held near and dear. And it\u2019s yet another Exhibit A that H\u00fcller, fresh off of proving she\u2019s a primo interpreter of Harry Styles catalog<\/a>, is one of the best actors working today. Stunning, from start to finish.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThere\u2019s something to be said for painting a portrait of a film artist in a way that favors both the work and the life \u2014 doing it in a way that is not hagiographic, DVD-extras formulaic or by-the-numbers rote is harder than it looks, people \u2014 and Barnaby Thompson\u2019s doc on David Lean is a great example of how to do it right. His look back at the man behind of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago expertly traces the filmmaker\u2019s arc from in-demand editor to working British director and expert Dickens adapter (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist) to an Oscar-winning maestro of epic moviemaking. It\u2019s also not afraid to get personal, catty (there\u2019s archival footage of Lean telling an anecdote about the National Society of Film Critics that will make you permanently cringe), and show its subject in a highly unflattering light. You walk away with a fine sense of both who he was and why so many of the big-name talking heads testify to his extraordinary influence. Almost importantly: It will make you want to revisit all of his work, even the misses, ASAP.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Minotaur\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tA remake of Claude Chabrol\u2019s La Femme Infidele set in Putin\u2019s Russia, the latest from director Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless) keeps the basics of its source material intact: A businessman (Dmitriy Mazurov) suspects his wife (Iris Lebedeva) is having an affair. A confrontation and a cover-up ensue. But hovering over this potboiler is the specter of the war in Ukraine, which keeps making its presence known in small but telling details: a recruitment billboard in the background here, a quick glimpse of a wounded soldier on the street there. And we eventually begin to understand that in a society that\u2019s been completely corrupted from the top down and has lost its moral compass, a murder is no big existential deal. The backstory alone behind Zvyagintsev\u2019s return to moviemaking<\/a> is a compelling drama on its own, and his tale of crime and (a lack of) punishment deservedly left with the runner-up Grand Prix prize. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Paper Tiger\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tCannes loves James Gray \u2014 five of his previous films had premiered in competition at the festival \u2014 and the Armageddon Time filmmaker once again delivered a tale of crime and the city that doubled as a sociological time capsule. It\u2019s 1986, and Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller) wants more for his wife (Scarlett Johansson) and kids than just a comfortable middle-class life in Queens. Enter his cocky ex-cop brother, Gary (Adam Driver), who thinks he has the solution to his kin\u2019s problems: a lucrative opportunity involving the Russian Mob, the Gowanus Canal, and a loose sense of what constitutes legal business practices. Soon, things fall apart, the center cannot hold, etc. It\u2019s the sort of gritty, moody, character-driven thriller that Gray cut his teeth on back in the 1990s, as well as a highly personal<\/a> look at what happens when you chase the American Dream and instead wake up in a capitalistic nightmare.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \t\u2018Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tJane Schoenbrun made a quantum leap between their debut We\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair (2021) and their dream-like follow-up I Saw the TV Glow (2024); they\u2019ve now leveled up once again with this riff on vintage slasher flicks, as a young filmmaker (Hannah Einbinder) is tasked with reviving a dormant Friday the 13th-style franchise from the 1980s. Her goal is to recruit the reclusive star (Gillian Anderson) of the original movies for her \u201crequel.\u201d From there, the whole shebang turns into a mix of homage to yesteryear\u2019s trash and a celebration of sexual liberation, living your truth and embracing your kinks. Schoenbrun, who identifies as trans and nonbinary, has said<\/a> that the story is a parable for learning to love sex after transitioning, but it also works as an ode to the power that movies, even the questionable and\/or politically incorrect ones, have over us in terms of erotic fixation. Plus its funny as hell, features extraordinary performances from its two leads, and should do for KFC dipping sauces what 9 1\/2 Weeks did for goopy cherries.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a newly restored cult classic to a buzzy dramedy set in NYC’s queer club culture \u2014 these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[27216,10404,11519,18,117,89746,7947,19,17,42054,327,160575,21008],"class_list":["post-500753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-adam-driver","tag-cannes","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-gillian-anderson","tag-hannah-einbinder","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-miles-teller","tag-movies","tag-sandra-hu00fcller","tag-scarlett-johansson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116630835126755797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: A24\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Agata Grzybowska\/Mubi\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Neon\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Ryan Plummer\/MUBI\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n