Cannes Film Festival unveiled, Thursday April 11, 2024, the official selection for its 77th edition. Among more than 2000 feature films viewed, 19 were selected for official competition.
At the end of a selection marked by a majority of films dealing with the duality of suspicion / guilt, the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival went to ‘‘Anatomy of a Fall’’, a French family drama which dissects the mechanisms of suspicion (and the resulting guilt) weighing on a wife after the (accidental?) defenestration of her husband.
Thus, the director Justine Triet enters the annals of the Croisette for having won the tenth French Palme d’Or and the third for women, 30 years after ‘‘The piano’’ by New Zealander Jane Campion, and two years after ‘‘Titane’’ by his compatriot Julia Ducournau, member of the Jury this year.
Many films dedicated to Nazi horror and the Holocaust have been welcomed, celebrated and rewarded by the Cannes Film Festival. There was, in particular, the tragicomic ‘‘Life is Beautiful’’ by Roberto Benigni (Grand Prix – 1997), the moving and masterful ‘‘The Pianist’’ by Roman Polanski (Palme d’Or – 2002 ), the dark and poignant ‘‘White Ribbon’’ by Michael Haneke (Palme d’Or – 2009) and the atypical and dazzling ‘‘The son of Saul’’ by Laszlo Nemes (Grand Prix – 2015).
These major and necessary movies have all faced the same and thorny problem: how to evoke Holocaust without showing its unbearable horror? And of all the approaches adopted or considered, that of ‘‘The Zone of Interest’’ by Jonathan Glazer – which has just won the Grand Prix at the 76th Cannes Film Festival – is by far the most trying: the British filmmaker has the singular and confusing choice to film Auschwitz from the adjacent house of Nazi commander Rudolf Höss, who ran the terrible camp from May 1940 to December 1943, and again from May to September 1944.
Many films dedicated to Nazi horror and the Holocaust have been welcomed, celebrated and rewarded by the Cannes Film Festival. There was, in particular, the tragicomic ‘‘Life is Beautiful’’ by Roberto Benigni (Grand Prix – 1997), the moving and masterful ‘‘The Pianist’’ by Roman Polanski (Palme d’Or – 2002 ), the dark and poignant ‘‘White Ribbon’’ by Michael Haneke (Palme d’Or – 2009) and the atypical and dazzling ‘‘The son of Saul’’ by Laszlo Nemes (Grand Prix – 2015).
At the end of a selection marked by a majority of films dealing with the duality of suspicion / guilt, the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival went to ‘‘Anatomy of a Fall’’, a French family drama which dissects the mechanisms of suspicion (and the resulting guilt) weighing on a wife after the (accidental?) defenestration of her husband.
Inspired by the true story of a family drama that shook Tunisia in 2014: that of Olfa Hamrouni and her 4 daughters, two of whom were indoctrinated by ISIS, director Kaouther Ben Hania dazzled the Croisette with her film ‘‘Olfa and her daughters’’ which brilliantly dissects the process of indoctrination through which the Islamists operate their brainwashing on socially and psychologically fragile people.
Thanks to a thrilling narration, halfway between documentary and fiction, this film, which is competing for the Palme d’Or, has managed the feat of establishing a captivating game of mirrors between the real people of Olfa and his girls and their fictional screen doubles.
Greatly forgotten on the prize list of the 76th Cannes Film Festival, Nanni Moretti has once again conquered the Croisette, with a poignant work tinged with humor and melancholy through which he casts a worried and sarcastic look at today’s cinema.
Greatly forgotten on the prize list of the 76th Cannes Film Festival, Nanni Moretti has once again conquered the Croisette, with a poignant work tinged with humor and melancholy through which he casts a worried and sarcastic look at today’s cinema.
After a six-year absence and seventeen years of sobriety (feigned or real?), the great Finnish master of zany comedy, Aki Kaurismäki, is back in the footsteps of his famous “losers’ trilogy” (“Drifting Clouds” – 1996 , “The Man Without a Past” – 2002 , “Lights in the Dusk” – 2006). Presented in the Official Competition, his latest opus “Fallen Leaves” won the Jury Prize and dazzled the Croisette with its offbeat, minimalist aesthetic.
Based on the true story of a family tragedy that shook Tunisia in 2014: that of Olfa Hamrouni and her 4 daughters, two of whom were indoctrinated by ISIS, Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Olfa’s Daughters” brilliantly and insightfully dissects the indoctrination process through which Islamists brainwash the socially and psychologically fragile.
