Every day, the hot spot live from the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
Film of the day: Love phew by Gilles Lellouche (in competition)
Fifteen minutes of standing ovation. Gilles Lellouche was able to savor last night his entry into competition which offers him a new status with this adaptation of a novel by Neville Thompson that he had in mind for almost 15 years and that the success of Large bath allowed it to come to fruition. The love story spanning nearly 20 years, from the 80s to the 2000s, between Clotaire and Jackie, an intrepid little thug and a studious high school student, whom nothing can ever completely destroy despite the obstacles and tragedies placed on them. road.
For 2h45, Lellouche films this fresco as romantic as it is violent, where love at first sight rhymes with punches, with overflowing generosity with lots of zooms, camera flights and omnipresent music (from Yves Simon to The Cure in going through the “Nothing compares 2 U” Prince version). A bias which will undoubtedly exhaust many but which ultimately embraces the inexhaustible energy of characters trying to escape a certain social determinism, in this working-class North of France where they grew up. And it is this generosity which ends up winning the piece like the vibrant interpretation of those who have played Clotaire and Jackie over the years, Malik Frikah and Mallory Wanecque on one side, François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos on the other. A shock quartet.
Our review of Love phew
The performance of the day: Charlotte Le Bon in Niki (In some perspective)
When she wanted to delve into the life of Niki de Saint-Phalle after discovering a video of her on Juliette Binoche's Instagram and to dedicate her first feature film to her as a director, Céline Sallette had a single and only name in mind to play her: Charlotte Le Bon. And beyond her rather crazy resemblance to her, the actress delivers the fullest, most exciting, richest composition of her entire acting career over the course of a film which rests entirely on her shoulders. Since Céline Sallette has taken the daring and relevant decision of never showing the works but of showing Niki de Saint-Phalle transform herself by creating them and gradually seeing the traumas of her childhood come to the surface. Cannes 2022 marked the birth of Charlotte Le Bon director with Falcon Lake, discovered at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes. Cannes 2024 marks the rebirth of the actress who, for lack of strong roles, had ended up losing a little taste and desire for them.
Three questions for Pierre Niney
While he is currently a hit in the series Fiascoon Netflix, Pierre Niney changes register with the count of Monte Cristo, presented out of competition at Cannes. In the Special Cannes issue of Première, the actor explains his approach to this French “superhero” role.
Premiere: Before starring in this film, what did the count of Monte Cristo for you ?
Pierre Niney: I read it when I was young. This is one of the first books that really made my heart sink. When I closed it, I told myself that literature could be this extraordinary place of escape. And at the same time, it was more than just an adventure novel because you felt like you were more mature after reading it. For the first time, as a reader, I had touched upon something profound about the human soul, about what is best in man and also what is darkest. But, to be honest, I haven't reread it in a very long time. I did it to prepare the film and then I didn't open it and only worked from the script.
Did Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière write
the scenario thinking of you?
That's what they told me. I will never be able to verify. (Laughs.) Maybe one day, over dinner, an actor will tell me that he had been approached before me… It would be very embarrassing. (Laughs.) But I trust them. Honestly, the novel is already so iconic, so strong that I think the script was especially written with Alexandre Dumas in mind!
There is an obvious link between American cinema and this film. Monte Cristo is basically Batman. Did you have it in mind during the filming?
Yes, we thought about it. There are the masks, the change of identity. Both experienced injustice. Both have colossal means to accomplish what they believe to be justice. And in both cases, there is the question of legitimacy: who has the right to supplement human justice? What I found exciting was to show that, at a time when superheroes continue to be a hit in the United States – even if they are losing steam a little – we also have our own. The difference is that they are European and therefore more battered, closer to the devil, more ambiguous.
Word of the Day : Fotogenico (ACID)
What a beautiful word, Fotogenico. It reminds us of this Dino Risi from 1980, Sono Fotogenico – I am photogenic. This is the title of the film which closed ACID last night, co-directed by Marcia Romano (screenwriter that all French cinema is eager for, from Emmanuelle Bercot to Audrey Diwan) and Benoît Sabatier (great writer of French rock criticism, which can be read in particular in Rock & Folk). Fotogenico recounts the stroll through Marseille of a haggard fifty-something, following in the footsteps of his daughter, who died a year earlier. Between two sips of Côte-Roannaise (his fuel), he will meet some local eccentrics (Roxane Mesquida as a roller-girl, the grandiose John Arnold as a fanciful dealer-writer…) and, above all, discover the truth about life secret from her child. Starting with this group, Fotogenicowhich she had put together with a group of friends… The film, poetic, lit, scruffy, both very funny and super moving, is a marvel of a tightrope rock film, which single-handedly pumped up the soon-to-be-dead batteries of the writing of First in the home stretch of the festival. It is worn by a magical actor, Christophe Paou (The unknown lake), with a lunar presence and unfailing elegance, even when he wanders around the city wearing only red underwear. A wonderfully…um, what’s the word? Cinegenico ?
City of the day: Mumbai in All We Imagine as Light (in competition)
“The city of dreams? No, the city of illusions…“, says one of the two protagonists to her desperate friend. Before adding: “You have to believe it, otherwise you lose your mind…“The two women will ultimately decide to leave Mumbai and its teeming sidewalks. In this monster city, solitude is experienced in the midst of the multitude. They will go to the seaside where perhaps their dreams will finally be able to come true. All We Imagine as Light is the first fiction of a 38-year-old Indian filmmaker, Payal Kapadia, winner in 2021 of L'oeil d'Or (Prize rewarding the best documentary at the Cannes Film Festival) for Une nuit sans savoir. All We Imagine as Light is seen as a portrait of the Indian megacity through the faces of two women, two nurses unhappy in love. The filmmaker first opens her film with documentary views of Mumbai on which she superimposes in voice-over the testimony of some of its inhabitants. This immediately comes from an intimate relationship with space. The sensations of the city are palpable. The remarkable work on the sound is not for nothing. The incarnation will take place in stages, as if the camera had to first look for where to look. All We Imagine as Light is indeed the promise of a spell.
Video of the day: Noémie Merlant
Come to present her second feature film as director, The Women of the Balconyin a special session, Noémie Merlant tells us about her memories of Cannes, starting with her first visit to the Festival when she was still a model and dreamed of becoming an actress…
Today in Cannes
The Most Valuable of Goods by Michel Hazanavicius is the first animated film by the filmmakerOSS 117 – and the first in competition for the Palme since Waltz with Bachir in 2008. We wrote with modesty that the director experienced “various fortunes” at Cannes (The Search, Cut!). Will this tale where loggers rescue a baby thrown from a train to the death camps turn things around?
The first event of the day is the masterclass by George Lucas, the day before he was awarded his Honorary Palme d’Or. The director, present at Cannes with his first feature THX1138had not been to the Croisette since Revenge of the Sith in 2005. Will his old friend Coppola be in the room? We'll keep you posted…
The second event is the screening of Seeds of the sacred fig treethe new film from Mohammad Rasoulof which recounts the dynamiting of the interior of an Iranian family during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” demonstrations. Huge expectation in itself following his last two bangers (A man of integrity And The Devil does not exist), but above all because of the news of the filmmaker, sentenced to prison and whipping in Iran and who went into exile to come to Cannes to present his film. Huge anticipation – from the film as well as from the artist.