Day: May 20, 2022

Edited Twitter reaction: You can’t say George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing isn’t trippy or eye-popping or CG-swamped or…okay, a bit florid. But it also touches bottom with a poignant, imaginative and very adult current of romance, discovery and even transcendence.

Much of Miller’s film is invested in a 21st Century CG-meets-Michael Powell and The Thief of Baghdad aesthetic, but it’s framed by a very unusual and touching love story between Tilda Swinton‘s English writer — whipsmart, spinsterish — and Idris Elba‘s hulking and thoughtful Djinn (i.e., magic genie).

I can’t say that Longing is a supreme G-spot experience — too much is submerged in the Djinn’s fantastical history, which is devoid of story tension — but the film has something of real emotional value while Swinton and Elba are holding the screen.

I was praying that the film wouldn’t stay inside the genie bottle and smother us with CG fantasy mush.

But during the last 15% or 20% it leaves the CG palaver behind and focuses on the grown-up love story, which is one of the gentlest, most other-worldly and spiritually driven I’ve ever experienced.

Elba** and Swinton are wonderful — seasoned, grounded, playing-for-keeps actors at the peak of their game.

I was scared at first, but Longing turned out much better than I expected. A mixed bag with an intriguing beginning and a payoff that feels (or felt in my case) sublime.

** Elba’s gentle and reflective genie reminded me, of course, of Rex Ingram‘s Djinn in The Thief of Baghdad (’40). What a contrast between this exuberant, rip-roaring, loin-clothed giant and Ingram’s quiet, tradition-minded “Tilney” — servant to Ronald Colman‘s Supreme Court nominee in George Stevens‘ The Talk of the Town (’42).

Friday, 5.20 — 6:45 pm: I’m sitting in the rear left section of the Grand Lumière for a 7 pm black-tie screening of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing. I scored a last-minute ticket through friends, and I’m the only guy not wearing a tux. Miller, Idris Elba, Tilda Swinton, producer Doug Mitchell on red carpet as we speak.

I regret reporting that Marie Kreutzer‘s Corsage, which screened at 11 am this morning, didn’t sit well. I found it flat, boring, listless. The Austrian empress Elizabeth (Vicky Krieps) is bored with her royal life, and the director spares no effort in persuading the audience to feel the same way.

Krieps plays up the indifference, irreverence and existential ennui. Somewhere during Act Two a royal physician recommends heroin as a remedy for her spiritual troubles, and of course she develops a habit. I was immediately thinking what a pleasure it would be to snort horse along with her, or at least during the screening.

Corsage is unfortunately akin to Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette — stories of women of title and privilege who feel alienated and unhappy and at a general loss. I’m sorry but this movie suffocates the soul. In actuality Empress Elizabeth was assassinated at in 1898, at age 51. For some reason Kreutzer has chosen to end the life of Krieps’ Elizabeth at a younger point in her life, and due to a different misfortune.

This is one of the most deflating and depressing films I’ve ever seen.

Variety‘s Clayton Davis has posted a torpedo response to James Gray‘s Armageddon Time, at least as far as its awards potential is concerned. Scenes conveying white elitist viewpoints from three or four odious characters have rubbed Clayton’s woke sensibilities the wrong way.

In describing the film as deeply offensive in terms of said attitudes, Davis is half-suggesting that the film’s admirers are either missing something or oblivious to same.

The autobiographical Armageddon Time is a humanist, well-honed, memory-lane film about what Gray experienced as an 11-year-old youth in Queens, and the ugly elements that he encountered after enrolling in a Forest Hills private school. It’s the first really good film I’ve seen at this technically troubled festival.

Davis excerpt #1: “Armageddon Time, a deeply personal look at how the auteur became the auteur we, or at least the French, came to know and love, debuted to warm applause on Thursday. However, the film’s problematic depiction of racial inequalities in the Reagan era may turn off awards voters.”

Davis excerpt #2: “In a one-scene surprise, recent Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain plays U.S. State Attorney Marianne Trump, speaking to a sea of privileged white children at an elite private school, where [lead protagonist] Paul eventually attends, while Fred Trump (yes, Donald’s father) is present.

“[Marianne] channels the entitlement to be superior, oozing the grotesque and vile nature of a class of people in this country who are ‘the chosen ones’ for no other reason than the tint of their skin. While never named, two boys who use the ‘n-word’ when speaking about [a young Black protagonist] when he visits the school, have the narrative DNA of young Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The cringe factor may be too much to bear for more progressive voters.”

Davis excerpt #3: “Respected critics like Justin Chang of the L.A. Times were high on it, while Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian absolutely admonished it. Unfortunately, when this tale unveils itself stateside, a new racial debate will likely ensue regarding the undertones, similar to Licorice Pizza from Paul Thomas Anderson last year in the AAPI community. That may keep many voters at a distance.”

I’ve been Cannes-ing for over 20 years (my maiden visit was in ’92), and I’ve never encountered such persistent difficulty in gaining access to this or that elusive screening. The system works fine, and then it gets all moody and listless and doesn’t work.

Yes, I’ve booked a couple of dozen tickets through the online system, but now there may be another stall-out happening. Yesterday The Hollywood Reporter reported that an internet collapse had occured. Our home wifi system is currently working, but it wasn’t for a long while, and my blood pressure is pounding.

Plus over the last couple of hours the ticket office site won’t let me log in. I’ve been able to log in but I can’t get past the access button. On top of which there may be some kind of new citywide internet happening. Or at least as far as my two and my iPhone computers are concerned. Okay, now it’s working (4:30 pm) but who knows what will happen a couple of hours from now?

I’ve been coming to Cannes as a credentialed journalist since ’92, and steadily for the last 20-odd years. I’ve never had to deal with any level of difficulty in merely obtaining access to this or that screening. It’s kind of awful. In the old days (2019 and before) you could just show up and get in line, and 97 times out of 100 you’d get in, even with a blue pass.

During the random times the system has been functioning (it was working fine yesterday) I’ve been completely unable to book a ticket for George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing. There has never been a doorway of any kind. Miller is a major filmmaker. Yes, the fact that Longing is being screened out of competition may indicate something, but the fact remains that I’ve flown thousands of miles and gone to great expense to be here, and the doors to George’s film are bolted shut.

I’ve written a couple of DDA publicists for last-minute help in getting a ticket to today’s Grand Lumiere screening at 6:30 pm. (Three hours from now.) Yes, I’m aware that there’s a makeup screening tomorrow at the Cineum IMAX, but that’s way the hell over in Cannes La Bocca (13 Av. Maurice Chevalier, 06150 Cannes). The Grand Lumiere screening would so so much more convenient.

I’ve pretty much decided not to attend this festival again unless they abandon the online ticketing system. Life is way too short, and this infernal system is just too much trouble. And I don’t want to hear any reader complaints about this crap. It’s not me — it’s them.