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Cannes Journal: Les Misérables (2019)

Jason Gorber — Fri, 31 May 2019 17:00:32 +0000

Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables is a far cry from the musical that popularized the tale of star-crossed love and political upheaval in revolutionary France. This one is more akin to a Spike Lee joint, full of fury and poignancy, pitting cop against criminal, youth against adult in a twisted tale of revenge and redemption. Set...

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Cannes Journal – Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo

Jason Gorber — Thu, 30 May 2019 15:00:18 +0000

There’s a danger that talking about Abdellatif Kechiche’s new film somehow encourages it, similar to the fears that speaking the names of serial killers glorifies them. If any film at Cannes this year truly verged on the sociopathic, it was Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, an egregious, galling bit nonsense that’s as assaultive as it is...

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Cannes Journal: The Shining in 4k

Jason Gorber — Wed, 29 May 2019 17:00:30 +0000

For three years running, Warner Bros. has promoted a new restoration as part of the “Cannes Classics” series. These screenings take place in the Debussy, the second largest (and preferred) theater of the palais complex. With 900 seats, it’s a true temple to cinema, with particularly exceptional sound reproduction. The screenings are treated as premieres,...

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Cannes Journal: A Brother’s Love

Jason Gorber — Wed, 29 May 2019 15:00:39 +0000

Monia Chokri is a Quebecois actress best known to international audiences for her role in Xavier Dolan’s 2012 film Laurence Anyways, and has followed her fellow Canadian to Cannes with her directorial debut. A Brother’s Love has plenty of Dolanisms, from its energetic editing style to a particular kind of Canuck ennui. The opening scene...

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Cannes Journal: Parasite

Jason Gorber — Tue, 28 May 2019 17:00:35 +0000

Grifter stories are always fun, as they invite audiences to ride along with the con through its twists and turns. Bong Joon-ho has turned the genre on its head with Parasite, another of his films that refuses to adhere to any one specific tone. Parasite tells the story of a family – father, mother, son,...

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Cannes Journal: Matthias & Maxime

Jason Gorber — Tue, 28 May 2019 15:00:30 +0000

Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan returns to Cannes with Matthias & Maxime, the story of two childhood friends who long have harbored a quiet, unresolved affection for one another. Dolan of late is having a bit of an aesthetic crisis. Exploding on the international scene a decade ago with his Cannes debut I Killed My Mother,...

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Cannes Journal: The Lighthouse

Jason Gorber — Fri, 24 May 2019 15:00:46 +0000

Like his 2015 film The Witch, Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse feels more like a lost artifact than something newly produced. Where The Witch explored the darkness of Salem paranoia and demonic possession, the director’s latest dives into waters of a different sort that are no less turbulent. Shot on Kodak black-and-white 35mm and projected in...

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Cannes Journal: Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood

Jason Gorber — Wed, 22 May 2019 16:00:35 +0000

The fable-like title (an obvious allusion to Leone) and Quentin Tarantino’s track record of toying with history should give you a pretty good hint about what’s in store with his latest film. Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood is set in 1969, and broadly speaking the film covers the era of the Manson murders, where...

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Cannes Journal: The Whistlers

Jason Gorber — Tue, 21 May 2019 16:00:35 +0000

For the last few decades, Romanian directors have been at the forefront of what’s been dubbed “slow cinema,” a kind of overtly anti-Hollywood dialing down of editorial pace and narrative precision. Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective) was a leading proponent of this movement. It’s surprising, and for this writer terrific, that Porumboiu has decided with The...

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Cannes Journal: Rocketman

Jason Gorber — Mon, 20 May 2019 16:00:28 +0000

The rise of Elton John to superstardom is indicative of much of the 1970s music industry. Rocketman is a tale of raunchiness and excess, hubris and humiliation, told many times before about many artists. What sets the film apart from, say, last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody (which was completed without credit by the same director, Dexter...

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Cannes Journal: The Dead Don’t Die

Jason Gorber — Thu, 16 May 2019 19:00:27 +0000

Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die has all the parts to make a terrific film – a stellar cast, a smart and resilient indie director, and a cinematically literate tale about the undead that should appease fans of George Romero. Instead, like the corpses that litter the ground, the bits never quite assemble in a...

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Cannes Journal: ‘The Image Book’

Jason Gorber — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 16:00:59 +0000

For a period in the mid-1960s, the name Jean-Luc Godard conveyed a god-like figure in French cinema. A former critic who turned the film world upside down with his wild editing style, crisp dialogue and jazzy plotting, Godard helped power much of the Nouvelle Vague, taking the best of American and European cinema to make...

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