Kick Out the Cannes

The French love a controversy

Cannes has only just begun, and it’s already controversial.

It began on Tuesday night with Jeanne Du Barry (Maïwenn), starring the Luc Besson-defending-journalist-assaulting director opposite the perenially-faded and legally-compromised Johnny Depp; the very definition of a man reborn in France amidst state-side cancellation. Conventional wisdom — even Tár (Todd Field, 2022) — suggests that someone like Depp should perhaps not open a film festival, but these places love money and love attention, so of course, he’s here, and his weird fans are along for the ride. Cannes doesn’t care. Like, at all.

Exhibit B is the restoration of Emir Kusturica’s Underground (1995). While there were reports of independent Russian journalists being rejected from accreditation last year, it’s totally fine to celebrate a man who is the literal head of the Central Theater of the Russian Army. Make it make sense?

In more fascist-adjacent controversy, Steve McQueen’s latest, the four-hour Occupied City (2023), apparently equates Nazi rule with… getting vaccinated. Whether he actually endorses it or not is probably up for debate, but it’s already making Cannes look a little tragic.

Of course, there is a certain jealousy not to hang around the Croisette, economics be damned, but I couldn’t help but feel a certain schadenfreude at the news that hundreds of ticket holders for Almodovar’s cringy-looking, Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal-starring, made-for-the-memes and for a clothing brand, Western, Strange Way of Life (2023), were turned away after standing for hours in the rain. According to Twitter, there was a “mini-riot”. I’ve yet to see the evidence. Just a lot of sad people waiting hours to see a 28-minute short.

This is all inside baseball, happening-in-real-time; likely to be forgotten after the new Scorsese, or the new Anderson, or the new Todd Haynes or Kaurismäki — people are always gonna forgive Cannes its inadequacies and its rather frank dislike of journalists because, well, its Cannes, and there’s gonna be a ton of great movies there. I’ve been enjoying it massively myself, from the comfort of my own bedroom, esp. the excellent Jordanian Critic’s Week entry Inshallah A Boy (Amjad Al-Rasheed, 2023), which kicks off my coverage.

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