Incidentally: Returning to the NYC area after a couple of weeks in Europe always bums me out. Architectural beauty, magnificent food, excellent public transportation — NYC is way, way behind European cities in almost every regard. Welcome back to down-at-the-heels Schitzburgh.
My relatively brief stopover in Oslo began today around 5:30 pm, when my flight from Stockholm touched down. I was on the street in the center of town an hour later, and it felt cold like mid-March, not to mention windy. My teeth weren’t chattering, but they almost were. Thanks, Oslo!
In the wake of the warm Cannes weather (mid 60s) and even Connecticut’s getting-warmer-by-the-day climate, I felt plunged into a misery pit. Thank God I brought a jean jacket and a big scarf on top of the blazer I was wearing. My Airbnb host says it was warm and placid a day or so ago, and then suddenly arctic air just moved in like an advancing army.
Whatever happened to global warming?
Before catching tomorrow’s 1:10 pm flight to JFK I was going to search around for the spacious home that a good portion of Sentimental Value was shot in, but not in this damn weather! Not just cold but a bit dampish. This is sweaters-scarves-and-ski-parka weather, and it’s almost June, for Chrissake.
The good news, first and foremost, is that the Cannes jury tonight handed the Camera d’Or prize to Hasan Hadi ‘s The President’s Cake — an Iraq-set children’s drama that HE went totally nuts for several days ago.
But there’s no way on God’s green earth that Jafar Panahi‘s It Was Just An Accident is a better film than Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value. The Trier is unquestionably the shit — a drill-down serving of intimate, soul-flooding cinema. And yet the Cannes Jury has just given the Palme d’Or to the Panahi regardless.
Out of political motives, obviously. They feel compelled to show support for Panahi in lieu of the poor guy having coped with nearly a quarter-century of pressure and persecution from the Iranian government. That’s all it is — a sympathy vote, “you go, bruh”, “we’ve got your six”, etc.
Trier’s obviously superior family drama won the Grand Prix award — i.e. a second prize that was undoubtedly presented in a guilty frame of mind. Jury: “We loved the film, Joachim, but…well, you weren’t politically persecuted so we hope you understand.”
I didn’t see Hafsia Herzi‘s The Little Sister, but this adaptation of Fatima Daas‘s 2020 novel (“The Last One”) is about a daughter of Algerian immigrants in Paris being afraid to tell them she’s a lesbian. Big surprise — Nadia Melliti‘s performance as the daughter won the Cannes jury’s Best Actress trophy, and in so doing beat out Renata Reinsve‘s deepheart, guns-blazing Sentimental Value performance.
I wouldn’t want to presume anything, but what are the chances that gay-supportive sentiments had something to do with Melliti winning? Is this, like, a remote possibility? Whaddaya think?
Kleber Mendonca Filho‘s The Secret Agent, an admirable but overhyped drama about political terror in 1977 Brazil, won a Best Director prize, and the star, Wagner Moura, won for Best Actor. (Here’s HE’s 5.19.25 review.)
Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling (a.k.a. Sound of Movie Patrons Falling Asleep) shared a jury prize because of its feminist credentials — it’s this year’s Women Talking. (Here’s my review.)
Friendo: “The Cannes Film Festival’s politically progressive praise mechanism is a racket. Which is why the Palme d’Or at Cannes — and all the other Cannes awards — mean less than zero. ‘Hey honey, wanna go see Sound of Falling tonight? I’ve heard it shared a major prize at Cannes!’
“When I finally caught up with Women Talking, I was shocked at how bad it was. It wasn’t even crudely watchable, male-bashing propaganda. It was slow-moving drivel in Amish garb.”
So I wouldn’t be totally gobsmacked if they don’t give the Palme d’Or this evening to Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. They’ll look like stubborn fools if this happens, but juries have been known to argue with consensus opinion. Just to defy it, I mean.
HE arrives in Oslo around 5:40 pm, or an hour before Cannes award ceremony begins.
I was on my train for Nice St. Augustin three hours before power the Cannes power outage.
Why did Kelly Reichardt make a 1970 art heist film?, you’re asking yourself. Or an anti-heist film, which a certain Reichardt cultist is calling it.
Because The Mastermind, which I sat through several hours ago, is basically about a married, middle-class, not-smart-enough jerkoff — Josh O’Connor‘s James Blaine Mooney, or “JB” — being so inept at organizing a theft of some Arthur Dove paintings from a museum in Framingham that he’s unmistakably in the running for the sloppiest felon in motion picture history, and I mean right up there with Al Pacino‘s Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afernoon.
We know going in, of course, that Reichardt doesn’t do genre stuff and that The Mastermind, which is being praised, of course…we know her film will be exploring something else. It certainly isn’t Rififi, for sure. But what is it?
Reichardt is primarily interested in JB’s life being blown to smithereens when the half-assed robbery goes wrong. But why? Is it about JB’s subconscious attempt to punish himself for marrying Alana Haim‘s Terri and having two boys with her and…I don’t know, feeling trapped by this? Is he looking to thumb his nose at his straightlaced parents (played by Bill Camp and Hope Davis)?
It certainly seems to be about a form of convoluted self-destruction.
JB winds up on the run, penniless, scrounging around, snatching an old lady’s cash-filled handbag and finally being arrested during an anti-war demonstration. But to what end?
The Mastermind asks “how would a born-to-lose guy go about escaping from his life?” Suicide would be the simplest way, of course, but JB seems to lack the necessary character and conviction to put a pistol in his mouth. If he wants to join up with some hippies and run away to Hawaii or Mexico or Central America, why doesn’t he just do that? Why go to the trouble of hiring a pair of young fuck-ups to steal the paintings, knowing that in all likelihood one or both will eventually screw up and get popped and rat him out?
All I know is that The Mastermind has a little story tension going on during the first 75 minutes or so, but once the jig is up and JB goes on the lam, it has nowhere to go. The last shot of JB in a police paddy wagon conveys a little something, but the film basically peters out.
I don’t want to say any more. The film isn’t dull or uninteresting — O’Connor is always good in a grubby, glint-of-madness sort of way — but it’s basically a wash. For me, at least, but then I’m not a cultist.
I sat next to three empty Coke bottles in their early to mid 20s — a foxy girl and two short-haired dudes — at today’s 4K Barry Lyndon screening. Right away I knew they were trouble. Both guys got up to use the facilities right after sitting down, which is what frisky, ants-in-their-pants lowlifes always do.
And then Thierry Fremaux invited Lyndon costar Marisa Berenson to take the stage and share some recollections, which she did. And then the lights finally came down and the film began.
The Coke bottle trio couldn’t handle the unhurried 18th Century pacing along with John Alcott’s exquisitely lighted, old-school compositions. They watched about ten minutes’ worth before bailing. You insects…you miserable know-nothings.
“Rough Draft That Had To Be Tossed,” posted on 7.25.24:
Biden: “There’s no possibility of my being completely candid with you…it’s simply beyond the realm of my own personality and psychological makeup to explain why I did a 180 last weekend by deciding to abandon my presidential campaign…a major pivot after insisting there was no argument or force short of Almighty God that could persuade me to quit.
“How did this happen? Was it my wife, Doctor Jill, whom some of you have compared to Lady Macbeth? Did she keep me in a bubble where I wouldn’t hear more open and honest assessments?
“The truth is that I was determined to tough it out no matter what…I said this over and over in various unyielding, mule-stubborn ways…even if it meant losing and taking the whole Democratic ship and crew with me, all of us swirling down to Davy Jones locker…
“The bottom ine is that I didn’t quit out of selflessness or personal sacrifice or any of that lofty, noble, Patrick Henry stuff…I was finally told there was no path to winning, and was therefore finally persuaded that in the eyes of history my name would be mud if I let that happen…and that was it…in order to save my legacy, to avoid the utter shame of self-ruin I was shoved out, plain and simple…and I fought this like a dying wolverine…snapping and snarling and screaming…I decided to fold my tent only under extreme Irish duress…and I mean I was howling and spitting and punching my refrigerator and baring my fangs and kicking and even shitting my pants. It wasn’t pretty.
On this, my last day of Cannes ‘25, I’m shooting for four screenings.
That’s not counting the 2 pm showing of the 4K Barry Lyndon, which I want to attend because I’ll never again have a chance to see this 1975 classic projected upon a big, bountiful screen in one of finest theatres in the world. I’m figuring I can watch about 75 minutes’ worth.
For those who doubted my 5.16 declaration that Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake is a very good film, consider the fact that it won the Choix du Public (People’s Choice) award earlier this evening.
When I make a call, you can take it to the bank…period.
