The “global” return of the World Film Festival at the end of August-beginning of September surprised more than one. In a long time ago, the FFM kicked off an autumn season rich in discoveries. The recent event reminded us how much the cinephilic landscape has changed.
After two years of pandemic, shouldn’t we be talking about radical transformation? Health fears persist, but if many have not hesitated to face crowded airports to go elsewhere, many spectators are also ready to crowd into cinemas to do the same, otherwise. And there’s no need for the ArriveCan app when leaving the theaters.
Asia Branch
Many have discovered the cultural dynamism of South Korea by wiggling on Gangnam Style or watching with dread the series Squid Game. Just like Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), Park Chan-wook (Old Boy, Stoker) represents his country in a brilliant way on the cinema planet thanks to a succession of hard-hitting films. In Decision to leave (October 21), he interweaves a complex love story with a twisted detective story, all in a visual style all his own.
After his French parenthesis (The truth), Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (A family matter) once again explores the complexity of blood ties and the depth of human baseness.
In The lucky stars (October 7), the sale of a baby by two criminals to a couple with the means for this dubious transaction becomes the pretext for another relentless X-ray of a society that has lost its moral bearings.
Long live France !
Once the dominant power on our screens once the summer is over, French cinema still occupies its place, even if annual production has fallen slightly – as well as the majority of budgets, which French filmmakers complain bitterly.
Claire Dennis, she does not seem to suffer from it. Prolific, inspired and always amazing (A beautiful inner sun, High Life and recently With love and determination), she ventured this time to Nicaragua in the company of actress Margaret Qualley (My Salinger Year) to offer us a truly dangerous liaison in stars at noon (October 14).
Danger, there will also be with Michel Hazanaviciusthe director of The artist, who rediscovers a humor that he had somewhat lost in recent years. Although he also gives in to the fashion of zombies, his people will especially make us laugh in Cut! (October 7), a comedy that illustrates the underside of a shoot where blood will spurt and spirits will heat up.
What would French cinema be without the omnipresence of Gérard Depardieu? Here he is in a posture full of self-mockery in Robust (September 23), from Constance Meyer, who offered him the role of a grumpy, temperamental and low-looking movie star. We bet that he did not draw very far from the psychological motivations of his character…
Health fears persist, but if many have not hesitated to face crowded airports to go elsewhere, many spectators are also ready to crowd into cinemas to do the same, otherwise
Olivier Dahan has hardly struck the imagination since The kidbut with Simone, the trip of the century (December 23), it could not have come at a better time to tell the story of this courageous politician, an exceptional figure, shattered by the Second World War but confident in the face of the construction of Europe. Elsa Zylberstein has the heavy task of embodying Simone Veil, this icon named after a 1975 law on the decriminalization of abortion.
For children who are already dreaming of Christmas, beautiful gifts are announced. We will see the return of Little Nicolas in the Little Nicholas. What are we waiting for to be happy? (December 23),Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubrepreceded byErnest and Celestine. The trip to Charabie (December 16), from Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger.
Film in English
Singer Harry Styles, formerly of One Direction, enjoys cultivating sexual ambiguity, and it should serve him well in My Policeman (October 21), from Michael Grandage.
At a time and within a British society where it was better to get married than to display one’s homosexuality, lies end up having a price, and sometimes pay for long decades.
Tom (the only Timothy Spall), he is at the end of his journey, and he decides to make a final journey after the death of his wife.
Particularity of size: he only uses buses, traveling very light, also dragging the face of a desperate widower, in The Last Bus (December 2), from Gillies MacKinnon.
Elsewhere in Europe
What do a museum of contemporary art and a luxury cruise have in common? The two went through the mill of the Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlundwhich has won the Palme d’Or each time, first for The Square and this year for Triangle of Sadness (October 14).
This other vitriolic portrait this time skins the members of the 1% as well as the race of influencers. Fierce pleasures guaranteed. Being overweight and the schoolyard rarely go hand in hand. The Spanish Carlota Pereda had already explored the subject in a short film. She revisits it in piggy (October 14), the sometimes bloodthirsty trajectory of a teenager at a crossroads, especially in front of her bullies.