It's in the Cannes

The Last Dispatch... probably?

I’m not even at Cannes and somehow I still have festival fatigue. At first, it was rather refreshing. I watched so many Eastern European films (my niche?) at goEast, heading over to Western Europe, etc, seemed to be nice change of pace. But while the slogan “Made In Wallonia” once made me sit up and go “ooh”, it now invites sighs. Groans. Please, please, please, no more Belgian movies.

Over in the big boy cinemas, we’ve had Kaurismäki, Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Victor Erice, Justine Triet, and many more cinematic marvels — I’m sure. Our site, bound by budget, access, etc, only had the wherewithal and willingness to commission exactly one (1) competition review. Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses (2023), excellently reviewed by new contributor Jenny S.Li!

In the other sections, however, there are still plenty of gems, including the new Elene Naveriani — one of the most exciting new directors out there, with only their third film, Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry. In my review, I called it, “a powerful slow-burn drama that has an air of both spontaneity and inevitability; rich with ineffable qualities that straddle the line between social realism and an air of genuine cinema magic.” Is it a good line? Sounds a bit pretentious… a bit Mubi Notebook…

Far more exciting than my purple prose-ish review is Jared Abbott’s excellent interview with them, going deep on romcoms, sexual co-ordinators (who I learn actually help with choreography and stuff) and their surprisingly nuanced take on the response to Wet Sand (2021). Great to check back in after talking with them for Calvert (the glory days of great commissions). Check it Jared’s incisive interview here.

Other previews (click through to read full review):

A Song Sung Blue Is Not The Warmest Colour

Cerulean. Cyan. Turquoise. Midnight blues, sky blues, deep blues, soft blues, light blues. Colourist Yov Moor, working with the tangible and diffused images presented by DOP Hao Jiayue, certainly helps the Chinese film A Song Sung Blue (Zihan Geng, 2023) live up to the name of its title. Excellently utilising digital photography to create a world upon itself, this is a film awash in the most melancholy and suggestive of all colours.

Marguerite’s Theorem Cracks Under Its Own Formula

Goldbach’s Conjecture is one of the most famous of all unsolved mathematical number theories. To put it simply, it states that all even integers over two are the sum of two prime numbers. So 6 = 1+5 and 8 = 1+7. It’s easy to figure out in the early stages. But when you are dealing with an infinite amount of numbers, it becomes increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible, to crack.

Perhaps equally impossible to solve are compelling films about people figuring out complex mathematical formulas without falling into scriptwriting 101. At certain moments, Cannes Special Screening Marguerite’s Theorem (Anna Novion, 2023) appears to momentarily escape self-perpetuating cliché, before horribly falling back on the most basic filmmaking binaries. 

Omen Can Create But it Cannot Destroy

Koffi (Marc Zinga) is shaving his huge afro. A symbol of empowerment for Black people in the Western world, it is viewed with suspicion back in his home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His white Belgian wife Alice (Lucie Debay) might be sad to see it go, but it’s a choice he has to make in order to fit in. 

Omen (Baloji, 2023) follows the young couple as they return to Koffi’s hometown to deliver a dowry, first promising a story of racial prejudice and misunderstanding before burrowing deeper into a mystical, enigmatic exploration of social exclusion, superstition and the difficulties of letting go. Prioritising spectacle and image-making over conventional plotting, and sensitive contemplation over high-handed drama, this promising debut sensitively counts the cost of living outside the norm and the paradoxes inherent in returning home. 

The (Ex)perience of Love Has Music in It

Sprinkling just the tiniest bit of fantasy into an otherwise believable set-up can make for a fun high-concept comedy. When Sandra (Lucie Debay) and Rémy (Lazare Gousseau) are trying for a baby, their doctor — just back from a mysterious conference in Seattle — informs them they have emotional blockage due to “Past Love Syndrome”. The solution: they both have to sleep with all their exes. 

The smartest move in Critics’ Week Special Screening The (Ex)perience of Love (Raphaël Balboni, Ann Sirot, 2023) is to simply treat the doctor’s diagnosis as a given. There’s no long-winded, unnecessary explanation about how this bizarre treatment could possibly work. It’s simply the path that they have to take.