In cinema, there are associations between filmmakers and performers which almost systematically produce interesting results. Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon, Claude Sautet and Romy Schneider, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro (or Leonardo DiCaprio), Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, the Coen brothers and Frances McDormand… To this non-exhaustive list are certainly added Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, who, after The Favorite (The favorite) And Poor Things (Poor creatures), which earned the star a second Oscar for best actress, offer a third collaboration: Kinds of Kindness (Kinds of kindness), a typically eccentric, intriguing and provocative, if uneven, anthology film.
Filmed in secret immediately after Poor Thingsby far the most ambitious and accomplished work of Yorgos Lanthimos, Kinds of Kindness is divided into three narratively distinct, but thematically related stories.
Indeed, between each autonomous story, subliminal links exist. Which links are strengthened by the fact that the same actresses reappear in different (and often contrasting) roles.
The first chapter, the funniest, features a man (Jesse Plemons, winner of the Cannes Best Actor Prize) ready to do anything, but really anything, to obtain the approval of his boss, a demanding being beyond of understanding (Willem Dafoe).
The second chapter, the most grating, tells the story of the return home of a missing woman (Emma Stone), but whom her policeman husband (Jesse Plemons) suspects of having been “replaced”… This central section, with a small development effort, could have spawned a feature film on its own: the material was there.
Finally, the third chapter, the most messy, relates the quest of the members of a sect (Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons) to find a young woman who, according to their gurus (Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau), possesses divine gifts.
Right of Way Reports
Equal to himself, the iconoclastic Greek filmmaker delights throughout in questioning notions of good taste, propriety and morality. This, with as much conviction as panache. Faced with such boldness in substance and form, a Pier Paolo Pasolini (Teorema) would undoubtedly have been jubilant.
The screenplay by Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou (accomplice since the first film, the strange and stimulating Dogtooth) addresses, among other subjects, those of sexual fluidity, cannibalism, resurrection… Each segment includes, in one way or another, a sadomasochistic or controlling relationship, whether it comes from a managerial or marital authority. or religious. No institution is immune.
The result is a series of unusual, surreal and willingly shocking paintings, permanently infused with this mixture of black and absurd humor specific to Lanthimos. However, as we concluded from Cannes very recently:
“Although expertly produced (the filmmaker’s use of the architecture of a given location, even banal, is always remarkable), the whole thing lacks the rigor of its predecessors. »
After the remarkable feat what was Poor Thingsa true cinematographic feast, Kinds of Kindness gives a bit of the impression of offering “leftovers”. At least they are nice remains.