Audrey Diwan‘s Happening (’21) is the second best film I’ve ever seen about the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion. (The best is Cristian Mungiu‘s 4Months, 3Weeksand2Days, released 16 years ago.) Diwan and cowriter Rebecca Zlotowski has been lensing a lesbian Emmanuelle, which may turn up in Cannes next May.
Emmanuelle was a steamy hetero franchise in the ’70s and early ’80s with Sylvia Kristel in the lead role.
French actress NaomieMerlant, who has played heavy-breathing gay characters in PortraitOfAWomanonFire and TAR, is the titular character in Diwan’s newbie. Naomi Watts,,Will Sharpe and Anthony Wong costar.
Jimi Hendrix: “There ain’t no straight stuff nowhere except for that Glenn Powell-Sydney Sweeney romcom, and Sweeney is kinda funny lookin’.”
From HE’s paywalled review, “Do Bears Shit In the Woods?“, posted on 5.22.22: The meaning of the title of R.M.N., the latest film by the great Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu, is never revealed, or it wasn’t to me during last night’s Salle Debussy screening.
The Wiki page says that Mungiu “named the film after an acronym for rezonanța magnetica nucleara ** (‘nuclear magnetic resonance’) as the film is ‘an investigation of the brain, a brain scan trying to detect things below the surface.'”
So the film is basically about scanning the small-town minds of the residents of Recia***, a commune located in Transylvania, which most of us still associate with Dracula.
But the underlying focus isn’t vampires but racist xenophobes who fear Middle Eastern immigrants and more specifically two gentle fellows from Sri Lanka who’ve been hired to work at a local bakery.
It takes a while for the racism to emerge front and center, but a metaphorical representation is the nub of it — a phantom that lurks in the surrounding woods and more particularly within.
The phantom manifests three times — (a) in the opening scene in which the small son of Matthias (Marin Grigore), an unemployed slaughterhouse worker, is spooked by its off-screen presence while walking in the woods, (b) in the third act when a significant characters hangs himself (also in the woods), and (c) at the very end when four or five bears are spotted by Matthias after nightfall (ditto).
R.M.N. is a meditative slow-burn parable that you’ll either get or you won’t, but there’s no missing the brilliance of a one-shot town hall meeting in which the locals are demanding that the Sri Lankans be expelled from the community.
The shot lasts for roughly 17 minutes, and it’s all fast, bickering dialogue, simultaneously burrowing into the ignorance of the townies while building and deepening and man-oh-man…it’s so fucking great that I said to myself “this is it…this is what my Cristian Mungiu fixes are all about, and thank the Lords of Cannes for allowing me, a traveller from the states, to absorb this in my well-cushioned theatre seat.
The build-up narrative is about Matthias and his mute son Rudi (Mark Blenyesi), his resentful ex-wife Ana (Macrina Bârlădeanu) and Csilla, a passionate, kind-hearted bakery manager and cello player (Judith State) whom Matthias has an undefined sexual relationship with. He never says he actually “loves” her although he keeps returning to her home for solace and whatnot.
Secondary characters include the bakery owner, Mrs. Denes (Orsolya Moldován), and the local priest, Papa Otto (Andrei Finți), and a sizable gathering of anxious, agitated citizens who are basically the local reps of the Mississippi Burning club.
Yesterday Nextbestpicture.com‘s Matt Negliaposted what seems to me like a reasonably savvy and comprehensive guess list of what the hot fall festivals may (and probably will to a large extent) be screening. I’ve heard this and that, and Neglia’s guesses seem pretty spot-on. Boldfaced HE = exceptional interest and unseen (and in some cases Cannes-viewed) approval.
Which projected festival are giving me the slight willies? Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, for one. Aronofsky’s The Whale, for another.
Why isn’t Neglia projecting Blonde to play Telluride? Venice and Toronto but not Telluride? Doesn’t figure.
VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
TheBansheesOfInisherin (Dir. Martin McDonagh) – WORLD PREMIERE Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE Blonde (Dir. Andrew Dominik) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE Bones&All (Dir. Luca Guadagnino) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE Don’tWorryDarling (Dir. Olivia Wilde) – WORLD PREMIERE TheMasterGardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE Tár (Dir. Todd Field) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE TheWhale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE
TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL
Aftersun (Dir. Charlotte Wells) Armageddon Time (Dir. James Gray) / HE Bardo (Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) / HE Broker (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda) Close (Dir. LukasDhont) / HE Decision To Leave (Dir. Park Chan-wook) EO (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski) Holy Spider (Dir. Ali Abbasi) The Master Gardener (Dir. Paul Schrader) / HE One Fine Morning (Dir. Mia Hansen-Løve) The Pale Blue Eye (Dir. Scott Cooper) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE See How They Run (Dir. Tom George) – WORLD PREMIERE She Said (Dir. Maria Schrader) – WORLD PREMIERE / HE Showing Up (Dir. KellyReichardt) / HE The Son (Dir. Florian Zeller) – WORLD PREMIERE Tár (Dir. Todd Field) / HE Tori and Lokita (Dir. The Dardenne Brothers) Triangle Of Sadness (Dir. Ruben Östlund) / HE The Whale (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) / HE Women Talking (Dir. Sarah Polley) – WORLD PREMIERE
Last night I finally caught Audrey Diwan’s Happening, which is easily the most sobering, harrowing and artful abortion drama I’ve seen since Cristian Mungiu‘s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which premiered at Cannes almost exactly 15 years ago.
Happening premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival (where it won the Golden Lion), but IFC Films didn’t open it theatrically until last month with streaming set to launch on 6.21. So it’s shooting right to the top of HE’s best of 2022 list.
I wouldn’t call Happening a “horror film,” but in its plain, frank and unfettered way it comes close to that. Honestly? The conservative wing of the Supreme Court should watch it before rendering their final positions on Roe vs. Wade.
Based on Annie Ernaux’s 2011 memoir and set in a small French town in 1963, or 12 years before abortion was finally legalized in that country, it’s about Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), a bright 23 year-old college student who finds herself unwelcomely knocked up. “I’d like a child one day,” she tells one of the doctors she goes to, “but not instead of a life.” She wants agency, to possibly write — a woman at least a decade ahead of her time.
The film is about Anne’s agonizing attempts to terminate, and I’m telling you right now what she and the audience go through together at times is not easy to sit through. Three scenes are especially tough. We’re talking graphic, “God, this is awful”, avert-your-eyes stuff.
But it’s the honest truth, and given the film’s low-key, straight-up directness and uncomfortable naturalism there’s no way to respond except with admiration and awe.
The film lasts 100 minutes, and there’s not a single moment that feels theatrical or manipulative or over-cooked.
Vartolomei, 24, doesn’t “play” Anne as much as submit to the reality of the story — she’s just there, quietly alarmed, trying to figure it out, guarded, persistent and going through hell.
In his 5.12.22 review, Newsday‘s Rafer Guzman wrote something very strange: “Whether you condone this film or condemn it, Happening presents a brutal reality.” Condemn it? Who the hell would condemn an honest account of what a young pregnant woman went through 60 years ago? Pro-life fanatics, I suppose, but God.
HE to critic friendo: “Happening is drop-dead brilliant — the best anguish-of-women film since 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Have you seen it?
Friendo to HE: “Haven’t yet, will check it out.”
HE to friendo: “I can understand a woman who’s been through an abortion not wanting to see this. A friend has never seen 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days for this reason. I said to her that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days “is not an ‘abortion film’ — it’s a Cristian Mungiu film.’”
Friendo to HE: “But it’s totally an abortion film. I think 4 Months is an unassailable work of cinema, although I found it painful to watch and, truth to tell, a touch arduous, though I don’t deny that it’s superbly done. If you look at the box office grosses for Happening, you’ll see it’s not a film that even what’s left of the art-house audience has much interest in seeing.”
HE to friendo: “But it’s a forecast of what’s to come after Roe is trashed.”
Friendo to HE: “I think that political issue transcends movies. Frankly, I have not seen a drama about abortion that truly confronts what I think is the most complicated factor in the issue: how much certain women are hauntedbyhavingabortions, and in any number of cases regret it.”
For decades (or at least since the formulaic, high-concept '80s) common Hollywood wisdom has decreed that inciting incidents (i.e., the action or decision that ignites the story tension in a script) need to happen within the first 20 to 25 minutes. What are the most noteworthy films that haven't done this?
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Lukas Dhont‘s Close (which I capsule-reviewed this morning) will most likely win the Palme d’Or. Yes, I understand that Cannes juries have a strange history of not choosing (i.e., defying) journalist favorites, or films, even, that Average Joes might want to celebrate.
In a fair and just world Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N. would win either Best Director or Best Screenplay. It would personally please me if James Gray‘s Armageddon Time wins something or other, as I’m certain that it’s his best film in many years, and because Variety’s Clayton Davis tried to dismiss it because Gray had the temerity to include racist characters in his depiction of  Yeah I’m sure of it1980 Queens.
I am not in favor of Park Chan-wook‘s Decision to Leave and the Dardennes‘ Tori et Lokita winning anything (neither are exceptional enough), although I realize that both, for political reasons, will probably walk away with a significant prize.
Keep in mind that in his Cannes predictions, Davis has Close rated fairly low, allowing only for the possibility of it taking the Jury Prize. This is almost certainly because (a) Variety critic Peter Debruge frowned upon Close‘s second act, and (b) Clayton tends to defer to progressive team-consensus viewpoints. Just hang onto this.
Didn’t like and therefore haven’t mentioned — Arnaud Desplechin’s FrereetSoeur, Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO.
Can’t wait for Sunday afternoon’s screening of Ali Abbasi ‘s HolySpider.
On the Cannes red carpet for George Miller’s new movie, the woman in front of me stripped off all her clothes (covered in body paint) and fell to her knees screaming in front of photographers. Cannes authorities rushed over, covered her in a coat, & blocked my camera from filming pic.twitter.com/JFdWlwVMEw
Tuesday (5.17) 1 pm update: Between 7 and 9 am this morning I was blocked from reserving tickets for almost all screenings on Saturday, 5.21. (The Cannes system purportedly allows journos to reserve screenings four days hence.) But I tried again a few minutes ago and was able to reserve tickets for Riley Keough‘s War Pony, Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness and Cristian Mingiu‘s R.M.N. — progress!
Note of concern: Yesterday I received emailed confirmation of reserved tickets (including a PDF’ed bar-code ticket) within an hour or two. No emailed confirmations of today’s tickets have arrived as of 2:45 pm.
I’m still blocked from booking tickets for George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing and two or three others films of interest. It’s still a fucked system, and for decades to come people will speak of the Great Cannes Online Ticketing Fiasco of 2022.
Earlier: The Cannes Film Festival press office has told attending journalists to log on to the online ticket request site at 7 am to order tickets for films screening four days hence. This is what I did this morning, but despite repeated efforts I couldn’t access the site, presumably because the traffic had overwhelmed the press office server.
It’s now 8:10 am and I still can’t get onto the ticket ordering site. It’s frozen, inert, defeated. How am I supposed to see Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Silence? Or Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N.?
This is completely ridiculous — a calamity. This is a non-functioning festival in terms of one of the most essential services — allowing credentialed journos to see films.
Journalist friendo in Cannes: “It’s insane. A disaster. Totally agreed with your post yesterday — worst situation I’ve ever seen at a festival. The tech ‘revolution’ is going to be the death of all of us.”
During the first day of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Fair the ticket system collapsed. The organizers had originally expected 50,000 people to attend. Around 186,000 advance tickets had been sold just before the festival began. But an avalanche of non-ticketed music fans (roughly 200,000) quickly flattened the fences and the festival was declared free and wide open. Because the producers — Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman and John P. Roberts — thought fast and adapted to the situation.
The Cannes Film Festival needs to terminate the online system right now. Reserved tickets will be honored, of course, but otherwise the festival needs to quickly revert to the traditional line-up system. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be semi-manageable. There’s no question that the online reservation system is a bust, and that journos who’ve travelled many thousands of miles to attend are now faced with the distinct possibility of not being able to see the most in-demand films, or at least not in a timely fashion.
The following nine boldfaced Cannes Competition titles have my interest, but generally speaking I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed this morning. Okay, a little bummed out.
The absence of Ari Aster‘s Disappointment Blvd. is, for me, a painful wound. If this allegedly four-hour epic had been included, Cannes ’22 would have taken on an extra dimension. Without it, it feels diminished.
I look at this rundown and I experience an imperceptible slump in my soul.
And I have to ask myself, “What will Clayton Davis say about these films?” He can wet himself over the non-competitive titles — Baz Luhrman‘s Elvis, Joseph Kosinski‘s Top Gun: Maverick, George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing — but then what? HE will be waiting with bated breath to see what Davis thinks of Cristian Mungiu‘s RMN.
HOLY SPIDER by Ali ABBASI
LES AMANDIERS by Valeria BRUNI TEDESCHI CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (Les crimes du futur) by David CRONENBERG TORI ET LOKITA (Tori and Lokita) by Jean-Pierre et Luc DARDENNE STARS AT NOON by Claire Denis
CLOSE by Lukas DHONT
FRÈRE ET SŒUR by Arnaud DESPLECHIN
ARMAGEDDON TIME by James Gray BROKER by KORE-EDA Hirokazu
NOSTALGIA by Mario MARTONE RMN by Cristian MUNGIU TRIANGLE OF SADNESS by Ruben ÖSTLUND HAEOJIL GYEOLSIM (Decision to leave) by PARK Chan-Wook SHOWING UP by Kelly REICHARDT
LEILA’S BROTHERS by Saeed ROUSTAEE
BOY FROM HEAVEN by Tarik SALEH
ZHENA CHAIKOVSKOGO (Tchaïkovski’s wife) by Kirill SEREBRENNIKOV HI-HAN (Eo) by Jerzy SKOLIMOWSKI
Word around the campfire was that Armageddon Time wouldn’t be showing in Cannes, but a last-minute switcheroo happened, or so it appears. Okay, fine. The “James Gray cabal” has been a powerful force for years so I’m not totally surprised. But I’ve spoken to a guy who saw it recently and…okay, I won’t say anything.
The 2022 Best Picture Oscar choices are still between Killers of the Flower Moon, Babylon, The Fablemans, Bardo, Avatar 2 and (if it manages to open in late ’22) Napoleon. Please advise which films need to be added to or dropped from the preferred list, and which films that I haven’t even mentioned should be added.
THE TOP TEN (one of these will win the Best Picture Oscar in March 2023): “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Martin Scorsese) “Babylon” (Damien Chazelle) “Disappointment Blvd.” (Ari Aster) “The Fablemans” (Steven Spielberg) “Avatar 2” (James Cameron) “White Noise” (Noah Baumbach) “Bardo” (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) ”Napoleon” (Ridley Scott — Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte — butwillitbereadyintime?) “Elvis” (Baz Luhrmann) “Canterbury Glass” (temporary title) (David O’Russell)
THE SECOND GROUPING: “The Killer” (David Fincher) “The Northman” (Robert Eggers) ”Bones and All” (Luca Guadagnino) “Blonde” (Andrew Dominik) “R.M.N” (Cristian Mungiu)
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