Against all odds, the Cannes Film Festival’s press ticketing system gave me a break this morning, abandoning its curious posture of blocking me from reserving a ticket to Kantemir Balagov‘s Butterfly Jam. I was suddenly allowed to attend this morning’s 10 am screening inside the Theatre Croisette (i.e., the basement forum beneath the JW Marriott)…great. Appreciate the largesse!
But no sooner did this happen when the system changed its mind and screwed HE over in a different way, denying me access to Sunday evening’s screening of Maverick, the David Lean documentary. And this was between 7:02 and 7:03 am this morning…thanks so much! I really hate this festival for pulling this shit.
I was surprised that I liked Butterly Jam as much as I did. That’s because it’s a kind of surreal ethnic fable…an oddly poetic, magical-realism thing about Circassian culture and cuisine…the general Circassian diaspora of northern New Jersey. (The 34 year-old Balagov is himself Circassian.) The film is set in and around Newark, New Jersey and Bergen County…God, what a miserable, environment…coarse, gunky, lower-depth vibes.
The central protagonist is Temir (Talha Akdogan), a 16 year-old wrestler with a heavy-set, bordering-on-fat physique, and who bears not the slightest resemblance to his father, Azik (the 33 year-old, warlock-eyed Barry Keohgan). They certainly don’t have the same kind of nose, and Akdogan’s eyes are dark and totally lacking that warlock quality.
I can’t remember the name of the delicacy that Azik is a genius at preparing and I wasn’t able to find it online so fuck me.
Azik’s pet name for his teenaged son is Pyteh, which means “little one.” Azik is a chef working in a struggling Circassian diner in Newark. 36 year-old Riley Keough plays Zalya, the pregnant owner of the diner.
The inciting incident is Azik being offered a job as top chef at a swanky new restaurant. Better pay, onward and upward, etc. But Azik, being an impulsive ethnic who’s unable to think and act in sensible, practical terms, manages to complicate this situation.
But smart career strategy isn’t the focus here — Jam is a film about all sorts of magical oddball elements by way of Circassian this and that…acne, wrestling, a pink pelican, the lore of Monica Bellucci, etc. Presuming that Butterfly Jam will play commercially in the U.S., I doubt if Joe and Jane Popcorn know who Bellucci is, much less know her face, especially since she now looks 60ish.
I loved the pink pelican metaphor**, as well as the real bird itself. I didn’t get the acne-healing thing between Temir and real-life wrestler Jaliyah Richards. Keogh, for the first time, looks older than hr years — she could easily be 40. Koehgan is playing Temir’s father, as noted, and he looks several years older than 33 with those deeply etched eyebags upon his cheekbones, and yet in Sam Mendes‘ currently filming Beatle quartet he’s playing Ringo Starr in his early to mid 20s. Go figure.
** I’m actually not sure what the metaphor actually amounts to.
