The well-stocked red carpet has dispersed to the large Lumière amphitheater. “Dear friends, let’s get out of this night together,” launched Tuesday evening Virginie Efira, mistress of ceremonies for this opening night, inviting the cinema to explore new paths. She took advantage of her platform to name glorious Palmes d’Or. It’s a 75and festival anniversary after all, but the past bowed to the present: “Yes, the cinema is alive! she threw to the assembly in evening dress.
The actress of Taste of wonders and of Benedetta offered the palme d’honneur to Forest Whitaker, an African-American actor from bird and of ghost dog. He is also an artist very committed to young people in the French suburbs as in Africa and in the midst of conflict zones by offering them the means to create. “Their lives have changed. Our lives go on. But through cinema, a director shares his dreams. »
As for the president of the jury, Vincent Lindon, he read on stage a poignant speech on the commitment, the war, the acting profession and the culture which is not found on the margins of society, but in its center. “Are we dancing on the Titanic? »
A twist: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on video; evoking the battle of 7and art that began with the arrival of a train. “Cinema appeared in our life and became our life. These terrible images of the documentary chronicles testify to it, and the films too. He recalled that the first Cannes Film Festival had been interrupted by the declaration of the Second World War. But that in 1940, the whole world had discovered The dictator of Chaplin, who parodied Hitler. We listened to him talk about the invasion of Ukraine at length: “War is not hell. War is worse. Hate will eventually disappear, and dictators will die. »
This ceremony was serious and extremely moving, as Cannes has known few. Then, on to the movies! With a comedy, moreover. We are not close to a change of tone here.
tribute comedy
Perhaps some of the elegant people of this evening were not familiar with the codes of zombie films, served as an aperitif on the festival menu. Woe to those who did not drink the bloody milk of the undead at George A. Romero! They risked quivering on their beautiful armchairs. The others enjoyed this wacky parody of B movies. Especially since Cut! offers itself a structure of mise en abyme, at first a little fragile – one raises an eyebrow –, but which grows bolder and bolder.
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) there is a pleasing charge with a lot of hemoglobin. A filmmaker from nowhere (Romain Duris, formidable) is given the task of making a zombie film as a remake of a Japanese hit from 2017, in a single sequence shot and in pure chaos. Suddenly, he sees his board invaded by real undead who attack the team members and drag them into their universe. The Japanese producer, apparently straight out of a manga, is particularly hilarious. Bérénice Bejo, muse and companion of filmmaker Hazanavicius, embodies his actress and make-up artist. Special mentions to Grégory Gadebois, as an alcoholic photo director at the center of very gratinated gags, and to Finnegan Oldfield, as an undrinkable diva made up as a visitor from beyond the grave.
By marrying the two worlds of fake and real zombies that are one, by blurring the benchmarks, by celebrating the odds and ends of cinema whose most delirious tricks and a lot of absurd tricks he shows, Hazanavicius has made himself also fun. Because he enjoys drawing parallels between the zombies and the decerebrate of new technologies, blind capitalism and everything that makes our exploding societies lose their minds. Black humour, blood spurting from heads or arms cut off with an ax do not prevent Cut! to flirt also with the moving family chronicle. Thus, the cinephile daughter of this failed director will begin to estimate her father by diving alongside him in this disaster shoot which falls more or less on her feet. The last hour of the film bounces constantly, and this tribute to all the films made with three pennies speaks of cinema more than many films in the first degree which pontificate without cheering us up.