In this second blog of two, we highlight a few more of our favourite titles from this year’s 75th Cannes Film Festival, including new work by Park Chan-Wook, Agnieszka Smoczynska and Ruben Östlund, as well as several impressive feature debuts.
Mikaela Smith, Film Programmer
The Silent Twins (dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska)
I knew very little about this going in (as was the case with most films in Cannes, where I spent the best part of a week just showing up at cinema doors, ignorant and hopeful). I feel this was the best way to enjoy this film, which tells the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin girls who spent their childhood refusing to speak to anyone but each other. Their silence saw them vilified, and eventually, institutionalised, but the pair were bountifully imaginative.
I enjoyed this because, despite tackling what is ultimately a tragic story, it keeps the youthful, bright spirit of the twins alive. Director Agnieszka Smoczynska (whose previous film The Lure, I would also highly recommend seeking out), lifts you out of some of the films darker moments by letting the twin’s own writing take centre stage – songs, poems, diary entries and short stories are explored through stop motion, animation, and enchanting fantasy sequences. I appreciated that this felt like a celebration of their lives despite what they were put through, rather than a broader story about the failures the UK judicial system. Both are valid stories to tell, but I was much happier spending time with the vivid, fantastical world inside their minds.
Focus Features are handling international sales.
Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-Wook)
I got into Park Chan-Wook when I was first discovering international cinema, locked away in my teenage bedroom, a number of years ago now. His body of work and distinct style is, for me, entwined with a nostalgia for that magical feeling of discovery that is unique to that age. So it’s no shock that I loved this.
That said, even if you don’t have the same sweet nostalgia for this specific brand of South Korean thriller, there’s a lot to love here. In fact, if you’ve not been a fan of Chan-Wook, you might find something to love for the first time, because Decision to Leave feels very restrained, a much more mature foray into familiar themes. It follows a detective, who, whilst investigating a murder, becomes somewhat entangled with the deceased’s wife. A police-procedural-come-romance, this film has everything I’ve come to expect: it’s dark and twisty, moody, and mysterious, but it’s also very romantic. Prepare to be swept off your feet!
Decision to Leave will be released in the UK & Ireland by MUBI on 14 October 2022.
Heather McIntosh, Film Programmer
Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells)
My rudimentary film rating system often boils down to: the more it emotionally devastates me, the better it is. So for that reason Aftersun from Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells was hands down my favourite film of the festival. Playing in Critics Week, this highly assured and competent debut feature – produced by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and starring Paul Mescal (as 30-year-old Calum) and brilliant newcomer Francesca Corio (as 9-year-old Soph) – explores a father-daughter relationship as we look back at the summer holiday they spent together on a Turkish resort.
As well as both performances being amazing in their own right, the rapport between the two actors is phenomenal in its authenticity. The film has plenty of endearing, funny and light-hearted moments, but over the course of the narrative Wells begins to slowly sow seeds of an underlying unhappiness in both characters. Their bond is affectionate and tender, but they’re also facing their own issues as they navigate growing older and coming to terms with life’s complexities and disappointments.
We come to learn that an adult Soph is looking back on mini-DV footage of the holiday 20 years later, as she revisits and re-interprets past events that she couldn’t fully grasp the full weight of as a child. There’s something very powerful about this narrative framing. We only get limited sequences of adult Sophie, but these scenes bring the two characters closer, allowing them to meet as adults, something which feels both heart-warming and melancholic. It’s a simple device but its impact is huge.
This tendency towards restraint and subtlety is something that epitomises the film. It never hits you over the head with overwrought emotions, it gives space for feelings to emerge and for the audience to draw their own conclusions. The narrative is slight, but it communicates so much about the human experience. This is assured, smart and emotionally astute filmmaking that lets the quiet moments speak loudly. It explores what we try to hold back from those we love, what we do to remain unknowable, and the cruel reality that even when you’re in a new and beautiful place, you can’t escape what haunts you internally.
MUBI will distribute this title for the UK and Ireland and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
James Calver, Projects and Events Officer
Rodeo (dir. Lola Quivoron)
Rodeo is a superb film in many ways, but it really came into its own for me this year as the film that kicked off my Cannes, and I couldn’t have asked for much more from it.
This debut feature from Parisian director Lola Quivoron drops you straight into the middle of the motocross culture that has swept through Paris over the last decade. There are several sequences of motocross stunts throughout the film that happily give larger scale films a run for their money in terms of intensity, but at the same time Quivoron directs these moments in the same way she directs the rest of the film – with a sense of serenity amongst the chaos. It’s clear that every character that you spend time with is feeling pressure from something, whether it’s a very terrestrial pressure or something otherworldly, and it’s this spiritual element which ties the whole film together. Whilst there was potential to come away from Rodeo with a pertinent feeling of dread, somehow that’s all turned on its head in the final act.
This short write-up couldn’t have come at a better time, as Curzon have just announced they’ll be distributing Rodeo in the UK & Ireland later this year.
Patrick Stewart, Marketing and Communications Manager
War Pony (dir. Riley Keough and Gina Gammell)
Two excellent lead performances from Ladainian Crazy Thunder and Jojo Bapteise Whiting power Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s Camera d’Or-winning story of two young Oglala Lakota men growing up separately on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Bill (Whiting) has a charm that brims with a level of charisma that can sometimes be a danger to himself as he juggles a highly-dubious new source of work from a white rancher outside the reservation, his complicated love life, a get-rich-quick poodle-breeding scheme and occasional parenting. Matho (Crazy Thunder) is a curious and sensitive 12-year-old with a dash of mischief that helps him try to navigate the deterioration of his own already-precarious home life. It’s an immensely satisfying watch, balancing a great sense of humour and affection for the richly-drawn protagonists but doesn’t shy away from the seriousness of the problems that they face. The final unexpected intertwining of the two narrative threads is a perfectly-judged ending.
A ‘state-of-the-reservation’ film will always sit uneasily with the fact that it was directed two white American debut directors and, given the long and prominent history of harmful racist portrayals of Native American life in cinema, I’m sure the structure of the collaboration will be, rightly, much-discussed. Nevertheless, I was fully won over by the sense of authenticity to the film. Lakota culture sits easily within the frame alongside other cultural influences on Bill and Matho’s lives, neither swerved entirely nor the object of an obsessive gaze. It felt clear that the wider creative team that included local Native American writers, producers and the vast majority of the cast, had had serious creative power within the process. It was a highlight of my first experience at the festival to join the applause for the whole creative team as they soaked up the routine, but in this case very well-deserved, Cannes standing ovation.
War Pony will be released in the UK & Ireland by Picturehouse Entertainment.
Eliza Sealy, Assistant Film Programmer
Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund)
Following on from the success of The Square, Ruben Östlund returns to the screen with his first English-language feature. Triangle of Sadness has so far proven to be just as popular, earning the director his second Palme d’Or. He has once again highlighted his skill at blending film with sociology, producing films that both challenge and amuse.
The feature follows fashion model couple Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean) who find their luxury cruise trip take a turn for the worse. The less you know about the plot the better, but be prepared to be taken on a hilarious, absurdist journey through the toxicity of the elite and influencer culture. This social satire is a fun escapist film that will have you laughing out loud, a much-needed respite.
Triangle of Sadness will be released in the UK & Ireland by Curzon.
Thanks for reading this blog, read Part One here.
Header image: The Silent Twins, dir. Agnieszka Smoczynska