A truism of the Cannes Film Festival is that, as alarming as the news regarding the world of American cinema may be, Hollywood – however you understand that word – retains a strong hold on this event. Cannes is a typically French affair, but its love for American cinema is evident everywhere, from the faded images of Hollywood stars strewn about to the honorary awards given out by the event. On Saturday, she will present an honorary Palme d’Or to George Lucas, the 11th American to receive an award that she has only awarded 22 times.
Given the United States’ long dominance in the international film market, it’s no surprise that the country looms large here. The Disney adventure “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” it should be noted, was No. 1 at the box office in France and much of the rest of the world when Cannes opened last week; It’s always like that. That said, the hold that American cinema maintains on this festival goes beyond market share. Americans have also won more awards at Cannes than British, Italian or French filmmakers. This fact reminds me of the moment in “Kings of the Road,” Wim Wenders’ 1976 road movie, where a character says, “The Yankees have colonized our subconscious.”
There are of course always films from around the world here, but the selections that often spark the loudest discussions come from either the United States or Hollywood. Three such titles this year constitute a heat-seeking troika that involves notable Americans who, after a period of relative domestic tranquility, have returned in ostentatious fashion to the international stage. Kevin Costner is here with “Horizon: An American Saga,” a baggy western that’s the first chapter in a multi-part series, and Francis Ford Coppola has a new epic, “Megalopolis.” Then there’s Demi Moore, who is being hailed for her daring role in “The Substance,” an English-language horror film from French director Coralie Fargeat.
A disgusting fantasy that suggests Fargeat has watched his share of David Cronenberg films, “The Substance” centers on a beautiful actress, Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), who is what is often irritatingly referred to as being of a certain age. When her TV show is canceled, the actress does what one might predict given the film’s over-the-top look and tone: she despairs at what she sees in the mirror and seeks an outrageous solution. This turns out to be the title’s mysterious treatment, which allows her to effectively generate (birth) a younger version of herself. This Half 2.0, so to speak, is played by Margaret Qualley, who, like Moore, reveals herself entirely in a 140-minute film that is as simple as it is bloated.
I am (personally!) sympathetic to the arguments about women, beauty and age that Fargeat seems to be trying to make. Yet the film never goes beyond the obvious, and the whole thing quickly becomes terribly repetitive despite its two vigorous lead performances, all the many eye-catching shots of Qualley pumping his butt like a piston and the big tsunamis of blood. Far more successful, both in feminist and cinematic terms, is “Anora,” Sean Baker’s dizzying and ridiculous picaresque about a Brooklyn sex worker, Ani (Mikey Madison), who, more or less impulsively, marries the son absurdly juvenile of a Russian oligarch.
“Anora” has become a critics’ favorite, but critics don’t award the top prize, the Palme d’Or. This task falls to the jury of the main competition, which this year includes three filmmakers: the president of the jury, Greta Gerwig, the Turkish screenwriter Ebru Ceylan and the Lebanese director Nadine Labaki. I would love to hear them talk about Anora. I also wonder how the Motion Picture Association, which provides the ratings for most films released in the United States, will handle this situation. “Anora” isn’t self-explanatory, but when Baker’s film is released (via Neon in the US), its humorous, non-judgmental attitude toward its subject – symbolized by an opening shot of bouncing female buttocks – will continue to inspire cheers as well as a few tsk’s. -tsk thinks the pieces and notes are heartbreaking.
There have been other delights, bouncy and otherwise, and then there is Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest, “Kinds of Kindness.” Once again, he teams up with Emma Stone – they previously united on “The Favorite” and “Poor Things” – to explore the master-slave dynamic. Less visually and narratively ambitious than his recent work, “Kindness” consists of three loosely linked stories in which the same actors (including the invaluable Jesse Plemons) play different characters confronted with extremes. In one story, a man struggles to free himself from his master; in another, a woman works hard to please her own people. Those who find Lanthimos’ plodding eccentricities and mawkish cruelty amusing will probably also like this film.
I much preferred going through Cronenberg’s latest film, “The Shrouds”, where at least there are some ideas to go with the ick. A tight-lipped Vincent Cassel – his gray hair suggestively styled like Cronenberg’s – plays a widowed cemetery owner who has developed surveillance technology that allows mourners to observe, via video screens attached to headstones, the rotting of their dearly departed in their graves. More intellectually provocative than wholly satisfying, the film nonetheless gives you plenty to contemplate amid its sheep, including Cronenberg’s typically perverse take on life, death, and desire. “Share memories, share life,” said an old Kodak slogan. Not so fast, says Cronenberg.
In another American selection in the main competition, “The Apprentice”, Danish director Ali Abbasi dramatizes the relationship between young Donald J. Trump (an almost unrecognizable Sebastian Stan) and his mentor, lawyer Roy Cohn (a great Jeremy Strong), with acidic laughs, broad strokes and two game advances. Cohn turns out to be disgusting, as does some stomach-churning surgical imagery, including a hair loss procedure with a vulva-shaped incision. Trump called the film a “malicious libel” and threatened to sue him; to date it has no American distribution. (The documentary on the same theme “Where is my Roy Cohn?” is available in the United States.)
For “Emilia Pérez,” French director Jacques Audiard tapped two American performers — Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez — for a musical about a Mexican cartel leader who wants to become a woman and a better person. Gomez (as his wife) and especially Saldaña (his lawyer) have fun in a film that jumps around without settling into a coherent rhythm. Audiard, as one of my friends said, wants to believe in people’s capacity to transform themselves. Okay, okay, but much of the film’s power rests with Spanish trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón, who lays bare the contradiction between her character’s desires and her violent past.
One of the pleasures of “Emilia Pérez” is that Audiard not only plays with genres, he also tests the limits of the characters’ likability as well as shifts in tone and mood. We never know where “Emilia Pérez” is going or why, which is true of “Megalopolis” and the equally unclassifiable “Caught by the Tides” by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (“A Touch of Sin”). I couldn’t find a narrative hook during the first hour of this film, which largely features documentary footage of ordinary people living their lives. Instead of worrying about what Jia was doing, I instead followed the visual flow, letting the images wash over me.
However, from the beginning, I also grabbed hold of certain fictional scenes featuring a woman, Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao), and her thoughtless lover, Bin (Zhubin Li). At first, these sections seemed relatively disconnected from nonfiction imagery. Yet as the film progressed, these dramatic fragments began to come together into an organic whole, much like pieces of a puzzle. And as these fragments of fiction came together, they also began to inform the documentary’s visuals by creating connections between the story of a woman and that of a people who – as Jia tenderly shows – sacrificed a lot for his country. The results are deeply moving in a film that, in its form, content and sincerity, seems far removed from Hollywood.