Cannes Film Festival · 2021
24 films · 21 reviews
As a whole, it appears way too kinetically ostentatious for its own sake, sadly making it less than the sum of its parts, but there are things to appreciate here.
(Country: France, Israel; Year: 2021; Director: Nadav Lapid; Writer: Nadav Lapid; Stars: Nur Fibak, Avshalom Pollak)
I could not have wished for a more perfect first film to wean me back into the in-cinema press screening world I left behind in March 2020.
(Country: France, Mexico, US, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Leos Carax; Writer: Ron Mael, Russell Mael; Stars: Marion Cotillard, Adam Driver, Simon Helberg, Ron Mael, Russel Mael, Devyn McDowell)
The interplay of the spiritual and the sensual is vital here.
(Country: France, Netherlands; Year: 2021; Director: Paul Verhoeven; Writer: David Birke and Paul Verhoeven, based on he book by Judoth C Brown; Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Virginie Efira, Daphne Patakia, Olivier Rabourdin)
The film unfolds at an easy pace, Hansen-Løve making everything matter of fact and yet beguiling, thereby softening viewers up to accept the fantastic or surreal aspects of the narrative as normal.
(Country: France, Sweden, Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Mia Hansen-Løve; Writer: Mia Hansen-Løve; Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth, Vicky Krieps, Anders Danielsen Lie, Joel Spira)
Although the heartfelt nature of the film is evident, it's a shame Ayouch became so wedded to its documentary element when its more stylised moments are where it finds its real energy.
(Year: 2021; Director: Nabil Ayouch; Writer: Nabil Ayouch; Stars: Ismail Adouab, Nouhaila Arif, Samah Baricou)
The everyday feel is acute – you can virtually smell the pickle jar vinegar and raw spirit and imagine a slight stickiness on the seats as Jani-Petteri Passi’s camera captures the scene with a looseness that rocks along with the rhythm of the train.
(Country: Finland, Estonia, Germany, Russia; Year: 2021; Director: Juho Kuosmanen; Writer: Andris Feldmanis, Juho Kuosmanen and Livia Ulman, based on the book by Rosa Liksom; Stars: Yura Borisov, Dinara Drukarova, Seidi Haarla, Vladimir Lysenko, Dmitriy Belenikhin)
Corsini agilely combines elements of cinéma verité and farce.
(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: Catherine Corsini; Writer: Catherine Corsini, Agnès Feuvre, Laurette Polmanss; Stars: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Marina Foïs, Pio Marmaï, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h)
Slow to build and with an assembly of characters who are all more complex than they seem on the surface, Drive My Car exemplifies Japan’s growing body of literary cinema.
(Country: Japan; Year: 2021; Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Writer: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and takamasa Oe, based on the book by Haruki Murakami; Stars: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima, Tôko Miura)
François Ozon makes what could have been an impossibly painful subject more palatable but nonetheless affecting.
(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: François Ozon; Writer: François Ozon, based on the book by Emmanuèle Bernheim; Stars: Sophie Marceau, Charlotte Rampling, Hanna Schygulla, André Dussollier)
As a snapshot of the influence parents bring to bear on their offspring it lacks engagement for the audience and takes the attitude that everyone watching should be enrapt by the self-importance Penn brings to bear.
(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Sean Penn; Writer: Jez Butterworth, based on the book by Jennifer Vogel; Stars: Katheryn Winnick, Miles Teller, Josh Brolin, Eddie Marsan, Sean Penn, Dale Dickey)
France is a supremely sad film, maybe the saddest Dumont has made in its interplay of the true and the fake.
(Country: France, Italy, Germany, Belgium; Year: 2021; Director: Bruno Dumont; Writer: Bruno Dumont; Stars: Léa Seydoux, Blanche Gardin, Benjamin Biolay, Emanuele Arioli, Juliane Köhler, Gaëtan Amiel, Jewad Zemmar, Marc Bettinelli)
It all has a very particular flavour. Even a new one.
(Country: Germany, US; Year: 2021; Director: Wes Anderson; Writer: Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola, Hugh Guinness; Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Frances McDormand, Saoirse Ronan, Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Benicio Del Toro, Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray)
Beautifully photographed as always, with a colour palette whose soft, shifting hues reflect its moral and narrative ambiguity, A Hero is one of Farhadi’s finest works.
(Country: Iran; Year: 2021; Director: Asghar Farhadi; Writer: Asghar Farhadi; Stars: Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy, Sarina Farhadi)
(Country: France, Germany, Belgium; Year: 2021; Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun; Writer: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
For all the talk of hermetical storytelling, this might be his least hermetic and most approachable movie to date.
(Country: Colombia, Mexico, France, UK, Thailand, Germany, China, Switzerland; Year: 2021; Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Stars: Tilda Swinton, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Jeanne Balibar, Juan Pablo Urrego, Daniel Toro)
Jones has been turning in consistently good work for years now and it’s high time he had a role like this. The art of it lies in how he keeps us alert to his character’s dangerous potential without ever letting us lose sight of his humanity.
(Country: Australia; Year: 2021; Director: Justin Kurzel; Writer: Shaun Grant; Stars: Essie Davis, Caleb Landry Jones, Anthony LaPaglia, Judy Davis)
Audiard captures the fluid nature of relationships for a younger generation navigating both on and offline opportunities and, because this is French, it also features plenty of gracefully worked sexual encounters.
(Country: France; Year: 2021; Director: Jacques Audiard; Writer: Jacques Audiard, Léa Mysius, Céline Sciamma; Stars: Noémie Merlant, Stephen Manas, Geneviève Doang, Lumina Wang)
(Country: Switzerland, France, Russia, Germany; Year: 2021; Director: Kirill Serebrennikov; Writer: Kirill Serebrennikov, based on the book by Alexey Salnikov; Stars: Chulpan Khamatova, Semyon Serzin, Elene Mushkaeva, Ivan Ivashkin)
The grooming of Strawberry may have some moments of levity but that, in many ways, makes it all the more uncomfortable.
(Country: US; Year: 2021; Director: Sean Baker; Writer: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch; Stars: Simon Rex, Suzanna Son, Bree Elrod, Brenda Deiss, Ethan Darbone)
Lafosse makes excellent choices with his editor Marie-Hélène Dozo (long-time collaborator of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) in what is shown on screen and what is left out for us to fill in.
(Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg; Year: 2021; Director: Joachim Lafosse; Writer: Lou Du Pontavice, Juliette Goudot, Pablo Guarise, Joachim Lafosse, Chloé Leonil, Anne-Lise Morin, François Pirot; Stars: Damien Bonnard, Leïla Bekhti, Gabriel Merz Chammah Patrick Descamps, Alexandre Gavras)
(Country: Germany, Hungary, Italy; Year: 2021; Director: Ildikó Enyedi; Writer: Ildikó Enyedi, based on the book by Milán Füst; Stars: Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Jasmine Trinca)
The stories might notionally pull together but these feel like a pile of sticks rather than a cohesive nest, a jigsaw that's middling and without edge.
(Country: Italy, France; Year: 2021; Director: Nanni Moretti; Writer: Nanni Moretti, Federica Pontremoli and Valia Santella, based on the book by Eshkol Nevo; Stars: Anna Bonaiuto, Riccardo Scamarcio, Alba Rohrwacher, Margherita Buy, Nanni Moretti, Denise Tantucci)
The audience laughed at times that were not meant to be that kind of funny, a primate exhalation of surprise and relief.
(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2021; Director: Julia Ducournau; Writer: Julia Ducournau; Stars: Vincent Lindon, Nathalie Boyer, Dominique Frot, Anaïs Fabre)
There is a lingering, half blossomed melancholy that lies underneath the often very funny, fast-paced moments of quotidian chaos.
(Country: Norway, France, Sweden; Year: 2021; Director: Joachim Trier; Writer: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt; Stars: Anders Danielsen Lie, Renate Reinsve, Herbert Nordrum)
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
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