Cannes will probably never have welcomed as many American stars on its screens and red carpets as this year. What restore the image of the major studios in search of breath in the face of competition from new platforms, so well established. Since the beginning of the meeting, the clamor has only been for the myriad of stars descended from their Californian hills to parade in extravagant evening dress on the steps of the Palace. Enough to overshadow other films – often more deserving – whose international aura shines less strongly. ” Make America great again proclaims the orange man. The slogan makes sense here.
Tuesday evening, the cameras of the photographers in black coats did not know where to turn. Wes Anderson and his team walked the red carpet to Asteroid City, screened in competition. It looked like a parade in front of the Dolby Theater at the Oscars. The directory of the celebrities was with the poster of its film, some for simple appearances. Several of them, from Scarlett Johansson to Adrien Brody, via Tom Hanks, Matt Dillon, Jason Schwartzman and Bryan Cranston, surrounded the filmmaker before the gala screening, in a cloud of light. TikTok influencers, partners of Cannes since last year in an effort to attract young audiences, are advertising for Anderson, their favorite. Nevertheless…
Under the vivas or the lazzis, the colourful, pop and quirky American filmmaker will have left empty-handed on the Cannes charts with The French Dispatch And The Moonrise Kingdom. Yet he adores the festival, which could not do without his unusual signature or his shimmering performers.
Asteroid City shouldn’t sneak onto the 2023 charts either, despite its 36-star cast. His film with a retro aesthetic has everything of a moving graphic novel. His quirky and ironic process bears his consecrated signature, without the charm of his Grand Budapest Hotel. Here, in color or in black and white, on stage or in their trailers, the performers, prisoners of postcards from the 1950s, move like puppets rather than characters of flesh and blood. The proposal would require a crisp poetry to impose itself. But the American DNA in the mythical West, with silhouettes of cowboys and kitsch restaurants in pastel colors, waves its pennants in music, without dazzling.
In this comedy filmed in Spain, an artificial mini-city in the desert welcomes young astronomers and space cadets, in the shade of mesas, a meteorite crater and mushrooms that have arisen from nuclear tests. These gifted come to show their futuristic projects to the organizers, as to the parents, as frosty as their offspring. Charming half-witch little girls take part in the fools’ ball. Aliens come to the party. Scarlett Johansson as a jaded and lascivious movie star doesn’t have much to get her teeth into, Tom Hanks plays the spoiler grandpa with no sparkle traits. Tilda Swinton plays with her androgynous profile like a coin tossed in the casino. The charm does not operate, alas! But what an exercise in style! And what beautiful people in town!
That same day, demonstrators against the pension reform in France stormed the Cannes train station at the call of the workers’ union. An agricultural bomb exploded and injured a passerby. Gas and electricity cuts reminded hoteliers and restaurateurs in the city that life is not just cinema. Holy Cannes!
Shameful underside of the papacy
Between Wes Anderson and the octogenarian Marco Bellocchio, nothing in common except the hope of a Palme d’or in perpetual breakaway. Eighth attempt from Bellocchio. Hard ! This great academic Italian filmmaker explores the past of his country with the meticulousness of a monk, a rather heavy hand, but images of an admirable perfectionism. With Pick up, on Rembrandt-like lighting, he signs a historical drama based on an exciting plot. Under the highly reactionary papacy of Pius IX, in the middle of the XIXe century, Jewish children were kidnapped by Vatican soldiers to see themselves baptized and educated in the Catholic faith, as future priests reciting the Aves, crosses around their necks.
The true story of six-year-old Edgardo Mortara, torn from the loving arms of his Bolognese parents, soon to be brainwashed, speaks volumes about religious tyranny and the power of resistance. Because his Jewish family fought tooth and nail. Newspapers and caricaturists denounced with vitriolic pen and pencil this scandal that had become political. Between the Vatican and the popular struggles, we see the rag burning, the revolution rumbling and Pius IX moving towards a part without the smell of holiness…
The film is flawless and overwhelming. Bellocchio, in the service of his fresco, hardly manages to penetrate the deep psyche of the protagonists. The emotion lets itself be desired, even through the acting of the actors. Pick up is noble and beautiful, perfectly realized. It lacks silences, innuendos, sidelong glances, an un-Catholic grace at all, subtle enough to touch our hearts. Damage ! Tomorrow, will the breath of the Palme pass?
Odile Tremblay is the guest of the Cannes Film Festival.