Last night’s buzz was that Jafar Panahi‘s It Was Just an Accident, a gripping situational about rage, revenge and governmental persecution, is the likeliest Palme d’Or winner. Yesterday the Panahi film earned a 3.1 score from critics polled for Screen International’s Cannes grid, placing it in a tied-for-first-place position (Two Prosecutors also has a 3.1). I therefore watched it this morning with my hopes up and yaddah yaddah.

Within 45 minutes I knew Accident had been greatly over-rated. Critics are tumbling over political factors, and more specifically because Panahi’s years-long persecution at the hands of the Iranian government clearly inspired the narrative

“The Panahi is definitely better than okay,” I texted a colleague, “and is certainly a sobering meditation about the after-effects of state terror. But without dismissing or minimizing the traumatic effects of Panahi having been pushed around, threatened, travel-restricted, house-arrested and jailed for seven months, Accident struck me as emotionally overwrought and infuriating in some respects (no investigative specifics, no attempted research or double-checking).

“Yes, catharsis comes at the end but why wasn’t this more of a Costa-Gavras film? Why wasn’t this State of Siege?

“I’m sorry but it’s been WAY over-hyped. No one will protest if the Cannes jury gives Accident the Palme d’Or, but with the exception of a haunting sound effect (a squeaky prosthetic leg) that the film ends with — a peep-peep that sinks in and stays with you — it certainly doesn’t go ring-a-ding-ding in terms of narrative scalpel-wielding or in purely cinematic terms.”

Friendo: “Of course it’s overrated! Panahi is a good, impassioned filmmaker, but not as interesting as his persecuted artist rep would indicate. He’s basically been getting the kid-gloves treatment from those whose admiration is largely about wanting to sympathize with and support his difficult political plight, which has been going on for a quarter-century.”

My Accident problem boils down to this: Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), an unshaven, impulsive schlubbo who endured governmental torture some years ago, is 95% certain that a lean, bearded fellow who hobbles around on a prosthetic limb is Eghbal (aka “Pegleg”), the guy who tortured him. Yahid is so persuaded because Eghbal’s prosthetic makes a slight squeaking sound, which is burned into Vahid like a cattle brand.

The problem is that 5% of doubt which disturbs Vahid — he isn’t entirely sure that he recognizes Eghbal’s face. The anger is all in his eardrums.

Vahid assaults Eghbal, ties him up and throws him into his van. Then he starts digging a hole in some desert region and is about to bury him alive….what?

Friendly with four locals who were also tortured and terrorized around the same time, Vahid drives the captive Eghbal around to ask this quartet — bookseller Salar, pissed-off laborer Hamid, wedding photographer Shiva, a bride and groom named Goli and Ali — to take a look and confirm (or deny) that the dude in the van is the one who brought such terror and misery into their lives.

Should they waste Eghbal, and if they do how will they cope with the karma of it all?

An answer about whether or not Eghbal is guilty arrives near the conclusion, but why don’t Vahid and friends simply conduct a forensic on his background? Why not hold him in a garage or cellar somewhere as they ask around and burrow into his life like the State of Siege revolutionaries knew all about Yves Montand? Why not clarify the situation by assembling some kind of half-assed dossier?

What these five bruised souls mainly do is scream and beat on Eghbal and stamp around and call him a motherfucker, etc. I understand their rage and lust for revenge, but it’s not very interesting to sit through.

I kept saying to myself “is this just going to be about psychic eruptions and spilling-over anger? Is the whole film going to behave on this level?” I was intrigued and absorbed as far as it went, but Accident ain’t no champion of the Croisette. It’s just a pretty good film about the after-effects of state terror. Y’all need to calm down.

He smiled, rather, like some kind of bloodless predator or demonic reptile.

And Jean Arthur never looked this well-tended, this cool and composed…like an elegantly coiffed player from Robert Wise‘s Executive Suite (’54)…like an Eisenhower-era Barbara Stanwyck or Nina Foch.

The Shane 4K Biuray pops on 7.15.

We all know the French are seemingly attached to smoking, but even in Paris there’s a lot less of it than, say, 20 or 30 years ago. It’s nonetheless striking how many festivalgoers this year are lighting up all over the place. Are they chipping because they’re here and it’s community party time so what the hell? Mainly young people because they think themselves bulletproof, but dudes of all ages, it seems.

Posted on 11.30.08: “You have to smoke in movies like you don’t give a damn, like you don’t need it, like you don’t care one way or the other if you have any on you, like your Zen-ness is rooted in your soul and not in the way you look when you light up, you desperate asshole.

“Once an actor looks as if he anxiously wants or needs a smoke to stabilize or enhance his currency with an audience, he’s a dead man. Once an actor pulls out a cigarette in order to have something to do during a scene (and you can always spot actors who do this), the man has permanently surrendered his cool. He’s finished, discredited.”

Thomas Ngojil‘s Untamable (Quinzaine des Realisateurs / Director’s Fortnight) is aces. Ngojil directs and stars in a solid, tight, straightforward ensemble drama about Billong, a strictly moral, highly intelligent and demanding detective who not only plays it rough, tough and judgmental on the job, but also at home with his wife and five or six kids.  

It’s basically a character study with a murder investigation (a fellow investigator shot in the back) driving the narrative.

Set in relatively poor, unpaved, hand-to-mouth Yaounde, Cameroon, which is fascinating, Untamable is rigorous, well-honed and 100% believable. Ii is unquestionably one of the three best films I’ve seen here so far, and I haven’t yet seen Jafar Panahi‘s It Was Just An Accident (or A Simple Accident), which is currently seen as a likely Palme d’Or winner.

And then there’s Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value, which I’m seeing tonight (Wednesday) at 10:30 pm.

I dropped the ball in attempting to reserve my press seat for Scarlett Johansson‘s Eleanor the Great. Woke up a bit late (7:15 am), jumped in the shower before initiating the process…too late.

My only recourse during this afternoon’s rainstorm was to wait in the last-minute, badge-only line. Better luck next time.

And then, determined to be the mouse who doesn’t quit, I Ubered over to Cannes La Bocca to try and finally see Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest. Shut down again.

Notice how the woman looking for a free ticket does an Auda Abu Tayi at the 13-second mark, and then flashes a look of alarm with a kind of plea. “In this, a festival about world cinema in which everyone is snapping pics and videos of everyone else, I am a private person engaged in a private enterprise of sorts…please.”

I shot the video because I felt moved by her aloneness along with the rain, the umbrella and the red sign, which she was holding upside down at first. She flipped it around when a kindly passerby tipped her.

Timothy Snyder, leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe: “The most obvious winner, of course, is Vladimir Putin and Russia. The Russians started a war that they couldn’t win without American assistance. And then, for the last year or so, they made it very plain that their game plan was to keep the war going in the hope and expectation that Donald Trump would return to power. And now that Trump is in power, he’s conceded on behalf of the Ukranians, so to speak, pretty much every major issue — territory, NATO, Russia’s legitimacy in the international system, trade with Russia. [Trump has] conceded all of these things without asking for any concession from Russia, and meanwhile has pressured Ukranians to take a much worse deal.”

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I’m trying not to feel overly hopeful about Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value, which I’ll be seeing late Wednesday night (10:30 pm). Over-investing + sight unseen often (always?) leads to some degree of disappointment.

But with only two major winners on the HE chart so far (Richard Linklater‘s Nouvelle Vague and Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake) it’s hard to restrain myself.

The central dynamic is an estranged relationship between Renate Reinsve (actress) and Stellan Skarsgård (her celebrated film director dad). Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning and Cory Michael Smith costar.

Highest 2 Lowest star Denzel Washington is a no-show at Tuesday morning’s press conference, but he was certainly present during last night’s red carpet event.

I’m still pissed off that snagging a digital ticket to Spike and Denzel’s film was all but impossible. Besides last night’s gala the only other shot was this morning’s 8:30 am Salle Bunuel screening…smallest room in town, fills up immediately. (I’m not counting today’s Cannes la Bocca screening at 2:30 pm….too unwieldy.)

Highest 2 Lowest will open theatrically on 8.22, and will begin streaming on Apple TV+ on 9.5.

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Gray skies, rainshowers and lightning are the defining elements as we speak. There can be no disputing that the sound of crackling thunder is wonderful.

I should have attended last night’s 10 pm screening of Julia Ducournau‘s Alpha, which has attracted considerable loathing thus far. But I succumbed when a friend asked about sharing a dinner, as I haven’t had a nice sit-down meal anywhere since I arrived seven days ago. We kicked it all around for nearly three hours.

The back-up plan was to catch Alpha at this morning’s 8:30 am screening, but I had to stay up late in order to install measures that will hopefully remedy an HE trauma that I’ve been dealing with for several days (i.e., relentlessly attacked and repeatedly shut down my malicious IPs from China). Didn’t drop off until 2:15 am; too exhausted to get up at 7 am. I hereby apologize to all the HE piss-sprayers who will attack me for not being hardcore enough.

I’ll be catching Scarlett Johansson‘s Eleanor The Great (an Oscar nom for 95-year-old June Squibb is said to be likely) at 2 pm.

No locked-in ticket for Rebecca Zlotowski‘s Vie Prive (Grand Lumiere, 7 pm…Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira) but last-minute access is an option.

I saw Alejandro G. Inarritu, in town for a screening of the restored Amores perros (Salle Agnes Varda, this evening at 7:15 pm), strolling toward the Palais early last evening. A few minutes later I ran into An Education‘s Lone Scherfig. We hadn’t spoken since the debut Sundance screenng in January 2009.

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A producer with a shaved head wore these atrocious, tent-sized tuxedo pants prior to this afternoon’s Directors Fortnight screening of Lucky Lu.

I suffered through several mild annoyances while watching Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, although there’s no disputing that it’s a respectably “good” film in its own curious, unhurried, dark-fantasy way…a meandering, almost lethargic dream trip about living through a climate of political terror in 1977 Brazil.

It’s a half-solemn, half-eccentric ensemble drama set in Recife, the state capital of Pernambuco and a sizable beach town, during Brazil’s heinous military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Story-wise it’s about Wagner Moura‘s Marcelo, a university researcher looking to reunite with his son while gradually getting wind that he has reason to fear for his life.

Alas, he doesn’t learn that a pair of assassins are after his ass until just before the two-hour mark, and that, in my view, is not an especially good thing for the audience.

The last half-hour of The Secret Agent (bad guy assassins, dodging bullets, blam blam) certainly qualifies as a Hithcockian suspense thing as well as an action thriller, but for the first 120 minutes we’re basically stuck with Marcelo, whose actual name is eventually revealed to be Armando, as he sniffs and laments and roams around and recalls his past and discusses the general state of things with this and that friend or former colleague.

The first two hours, in short, are basically an absorption and a capturing of Brazil’s unsettled mood during that anxious era, but with an occasional focus on gay sex and blowjobs (including the straight-person kind!) in particular, not to mention sharks and Jaws and a hairy severed leg.

It must be said that David Rooney‘s 5.18 Hollywood Reporter review of The Secret Agent has overpraised the shit out of this film. Rooney got me so pumped last night, only to feel crestfallen as the actual film unspooled.

“Enlivened by a populous, almost Altman-esque gallery of characters — way too many to mention — played without a single false note, and by the strong sense of a community pulling together for safety from the oppressive forces outside, the movie luxuriates in an inebriating sense of time and place that speaks of Mendonça Filho’s intense love for the setting. It’s a major achievement, and for my money, sure to be one of the best films of the year“….calm down, bruh.

Oh, and I hated the color scheme…bleachy-looking in daytime scenes with heavily saturated yellows and oranges and paint splashings of fierce green and teal-blue…I was hating on this all through the 159-minute running time. Mendonça Filho’s mixture of oppressive yellows plus orange-teal splotchitude had me twitching with discomfort.

I have an 11:15 am screening of Kleber Mendonça Filho‘s The Secret Agent (158 minutes) breathing down my neck, but I can at least file brief reactions to films I haven’t yet posted about, etc.

1. It’s not important or even noteworthy, trust me, to explain the plotline of Wes Anderson‘s exactingly composed The Pheonician Scheme. Because it’s just (stop me if you’ve heard this before) another serving of immaculate style mixed with ironic, bone-dry humor — another signature tableau exercise in WesWorld stuff — wit, whimsy, staccato dialogue, a darkly humorous attitude, faintly detectable emotional peek-outs. Plus the usual symmetrical framings, immaculate and super-specific production design and the Anderson troupe reciting their lines just so.

I’ve written repeatedly over the last couple of decades that Wes needs to recover or re-charge that old Bottle Rocket / Rushmore spirit and somehow climb out of that fastidiously maintained Andersonville aesthetic and, you know, open himself up to more of the good old rough and tumble. Maybe there’s no remedy. Maybe we’re all just stuck in our grooves and that’s that. What’s that Jean Anouilh line from Becket? “I’m afraid we can only do, absurdly, what it has been given to us to do. Right to the end.”

2. Dominik Moll‘s Dossier 137 is a sane, sensible, mid-level drama about an internal investigation of an incident in which a young yellowjacket protestor was seriously injured by a Parisian policeman during a back-and-forth. Lea Drucker plays the chief investigator for the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN); she is tasked with figuring out which cops, if any, acted rashly or irresponsibly. I felt a certain degree of satisfaction all through it, and emerged knowing I’d seen something of moderate substance. No harm, no foul.

3. Oliver Laxe‘s Sirat is a serving of raw 16mm realism, and yet deliberately made without attention paid to certain visual or narrative or logistical basics. 56 year-old Sergi López, an excellent Spanish character actor who probably peaked with his performance as the fascistic Cpt. Vidal in Pan’s Labyrinth, is Luis, an overweight, gray-haired dad searching for his missing daughter in the parched wastelands of southern Morocco. Accompanied by his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) and knowing that his daughter was a nomadic raver type, Luis shows her photo to several like-minded souls but learns nothing of substance. Luis then suffers a horrific trauma about halfway through, and his reaction is such that I inwardly quit the film without a second thought. I’ll explain later but what Laxe chose to show (and more particularly not show) struck me as intolerably bad filmmaking. I’ll let it go at that.

I have a couple of other films to get to but not now…