The Playlist Cannes Team Gets Personal
Nik
It was my third time at the Cannes rodeo and, save for last year’s overall-stronger Competition line up, this was my favorite. There are those who have been outspoken about the lackluster slate of films in Competition this year, but with the likes of “You Were Never Really Here,” “Loveless,” “The Day After,” “Good Time,” “Happy End,” and “L’Amant Double,” I can only shake my head at those naysayers. Not only have I managed to see 16 out of 19 Competition films, but most of the sidebar stuff I’ve caught ranged from great to fantastic. I also saw most of Alfonso Cuarón’s lovely masterclass; watched a movie under the same roof as Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve and Tilda Swinton; saw the first two episodes of David Lynch’s revival of “Twin Peaks” on the big screen; and managed to take a midday nap (twice!) thanks to the close proximity of my apartment this time around. You’ve no idea how big of a deal that last part is.
Here are some of my scattered, notable observations:
Favorite movie of the festival: “You Were Never Really Here”
Greatest cinematic experience: “Twin Peaks,” episodes 1 & 2
Number of walk-outs: 2 (André Téchiné’s insufferable snoozer “Golden Years” and whatever the hell “Bushwick” was trying to be)
Most bizarre thing I saw at the fest: A walking/talking/dancing robot who creepily groped people on the Boulevard de la Croisette.
Biggest screening regret: Missing my chance to see the eventual Palme d’Or winner, “The Square,” due to scheduling conflicts.
These are minor complaints and quibbles, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t miss the Cannes festival experience for the world, and can’t wait to come back again.
Greg
Considering the strange and turbulent events that have taken place in the world since the 2016 Cannes Film Festival concluded 12 months ago, it probably wasn’t that surprising that this year’s edition felt slightly unnerved. It wasn’t just the increased security, lack of commercial Hollywood fare (aside from the loud ambush marketing on the Croisette) or the frustrating Netflix controversy that never seemed to die. Everything just felt a bit off. Was it because almost all of the Competition films were conceived before and filmed in the middle of such a transitional time period? Possibly. Outside of “Loveless” (and we can debate about how on-the-nose that Russian drama is all night long) and, to an extent, “120 Beats Per Minute,” the selections lacked a political urgency that is now part of our daily lives, and that was slightly disconcerting.
It didn’t help matters that the critical bubble at this year’s festival was more hyperbolic than recent years.* Comparatively, there were only a few films that hinted at being transcendent while, thankfully, there were no flat-out disasters either (in Competition at least; it appears the Un Certain Regard slate wasn’t so lucky). But by the end of the festival, it was hard to remember even many of the highly touted films that had screened (and some I’d written strong reviews in favor of). And, yes, there was a celebratory mood over the 70th-anniversary festivities (hey there, Isabelle Huppert), but there was a lack of true passion over the films in Competition. And that may say much more about this moment in time than the filmmakers or Cannes itself.
*Obviously, every festival exists in a bubble where critics tend to go to eyebrow-raising extremes either praising or trashing certain films, but Cannes is arguably the worst, with Sundance a close second.
Brad
Although this was my sixth time on the Croisette, this was my first edition as an accredited member of the press corps. It was fascinating to be on the other side of the fence (versus attending as a professional), with the journalist experience taking on its own harried rhythm slightly out of step from Cannes’ market-driven element. This also meant being at the vanguard of the festival’s taste-making — a thumbs up or a thumbs down at the evening press screening makes or breaks a film’s reputation. The sidebars on the whole didn’t have a lot to offer this year, with “The Workshop” (in Un Certain Regard), “The Rider” (from the Director’s Fortnight) and “Gabriel And The Mountain” (of the Critic’s Week selection) standing out among the 20-odd films I was able to catch in the other programs (I was lukewarm on “The Florida Project” and sub-zero on “Jeannette”).
The biggest disappointment of this year’s Cannes — which nonetheless featured some excellent films — was the lack of a “Toni Erdmann”-esque smash to electrify the festival. On the flip side, there was nothing awful in the Competition on the scale of Xavier Dolan’s execrable “It’s Only the End of the World” or Sean Penn‘s notoriously derided “The Last Face.” Without mustering too much enthusiasm, I once again find myself coming to the defense of Naomi Kawase and her latest, “Radiance.” Many journalists didn’t bother to turn out, and those that did had no patience for her singular poetics, which are rooted in rural Japanese culture (with no prominent male Japanese filmmaker working with the same ideas). Masatoshi Nagase’s interior performance was a highlight, particularly the fleeting moment in which he loses his last sliver of sight. If Cannes audiences can’t muster some patience for a film like this, imagine if the festival opened its doors to the wider global narratives that its critics seem to clamor for, such as representation for popular Indian cinema.
Jess
Maybe after four years, I’m finally relaxing into the rhythm of Cannes, or maybe I’m just getting too old to fret the way I used to, but 2017’s festival was a delightful one for me, despite my being a little overbooked between The Playlist and Variety commitments (I also made my Sight and Sound debut with a review of Haneke‘s “Happy End,” which I loved). I even went to two — count ’em, two! — parties: the Netflix villa bash, which I’d correctly predicted would be lavish because I’d probably want to make a point if I were a billion-dollar world-conquering streaming service who had just been told they probably wouldn’t ever be welcomed back to Cannes; and the end-of-festival party for my favorite film of the festival (and my favorite film of the year so far), Lynne Ramsay‘s genius “You Were Never Really Here.” At the first, I got to stand near Tilda Swinton as she chatted with Julianne Moore; and at the second I got to stand near Joaquin Phoenix as he left with new girlfriend Rooney Mara, which, for someone like me who is afflicted with terminal reticence around famous people in social situations, represents a high-water mark in my standing-near-people career.
Knowing the lay of the land a little bit more also helped me not get too caught up in the same cycles that I can now recognize from previous years: there is always a midweek day that makes you want to boil your eyeballs (I had a Woeful Wednesday last year, and this year it was a Terrible Tuesday); and there are always, towards the end of the festival, large groups of disgruntled cineastes who insist that this was one of the Worst Years Ever and Not A Patch On 1981’s Fest When Slartibartfast’s Debut Gave Sophia Loren A Nosebleed, and Oh God Oh God The Sky Is Falling, Cinema Is Even Deaderer Than It Was Last Year. I agree that the buzz of last year wasn’t quite there this time out, but we should remember that a lot of that was due to a peculiarly strong lineup then yielding a peculiarly weak set of winners — we took a fair amount of rough with smooth last year, and if 2017 had fewer peaks, it also had fewer troughs. This year, I’m comparatively happy with the films awarded, though I would have had most of them in different slots, with the jaw-dropping Ramsay film taking the Palme (which was probably never going to happen given the genre leanings of “You Were Never Really Here”).
But mostly, despite security snafus (I even witnessed a controlled handbag explosion) and projection foul-ups (the beginning of “Okja” being presented in the wrong aspect ratio; my catchup screening of “120 Beats Per Minute” having a speaker blast crackly white noise all through the pivotal first sex scene), despite wildly disagreeing with some of the consensus takes and being more puzzled than ever by what gets booed, I had an amazing Cannes 2017. It reminded me of how much I love this job and how lucky I am that I get to do it. It’s been over less than 48 hours and I already miss it.
