Cannes 2022: My Favorite Films
My favorite films this year were small, female-centered and female-directed movies. I have never been partial to female oriented or directed films before, so perhaps the year of COVID has transformed my own understandings and/ or it has altered the directing choices women make. Or maybe they were just better than the male-made pictures this year, though only three out of 18 films competing are directed by women, four years after the festival pledged to improve gender representation. Five films directed by women — out of 15 films total — will be shown as official selections in the festival’s Un Certain Regard. Selections for the festival are chosen by the selection committee. Maybe it, like the new French Oscar Selection Committee needs to be overhauled.
Moreover, Cannes messed up on its online ordering system and changes in the ticketing protocols, and so I among many missed several films we wanted to see, e.g., Corsage, for which Vicky Krieps won Best Acting Award. Marie Kreutzer’s period piece in which Krieps plays Empress Sisi of Austria, one of Europe’s first celebrity royals was a coproduction of Austria, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. MK2 sold it to IFC for US and Canada. Other rights went to Austria-Panda Lichtspiele; Benelux-The Searchers; France-Ad Vitam; Hungary-Cirko; Ireland, UK-Picturehouse; Italy-Bim; Spain-Adso Films; Poland-M2; Czech Republic-Aerofilm; Ex-Yugoslavia-Demiurg. I will see it in the Berlin cinema where Alamode is releasing it. You can see it along with these favorite films of mine in Toronto!
Paris Memories, One Fine Day, and More Than Ever were all about women finding their own unique path for their own unique well-being which could only be discovered by their listening to their own (rather than society’s) inner promptings.
Alice Winocur wrote and directed Revoir Paris after her brother had been in Bataclan, the night spot in Paris shot to bits by a mass murderer. However, her story is not at Bataclan or about Bataclan. A young tv reporter goes into an upscale brasserie to get out of a rain storm and the shooting occurs. The story starts as she returns to Paris after recovering for three months at her mother’s country home and notices the restaurant. It proceeds as she goes on a quest to recover her lost memory of what exactly happened to her that night. One sees Paris in a new way and the kindness of strangers creates bonds beyond the every day conventional ones we hold dear.
The second, One Fine Day, starring Lea Seydoux, is a simple story of a young widow who falls in love again. Simple, clean, quiet and beautifully depicted, it is a perfect film for Seydoux. Mia Hansen-Løve has created a jewel of a study of a woman recovering from grief and finding a way to love again. Among Seydoux’ 51 films in 18 years of acting are Inglorious Basterds, Farewell, My Queen, last year’s Cannes entry The Story of my Wife whose poor editing doomed it, and the most visible, Blue is the Warmest Color which won 2013 Cannes Palme d’Or as well as Best Actress for both her and her co-star Adele Exarchopoulos and the FIPRESCI Prize. One Fine Day may well be the film for which she will be most remembered by her fans.
The third, More Than Ever, by Berlin director Emily Atef (3 Days in Quiberonabout the last interview of Romy Schneider) captures the pathos of a young woman with a fatal disease and how even her beloved is unable to help. A tear-jerker but not at all melodramatic, one might say this is Krieps’ best role since Phantom Thread. (However, I have yet to see her in Corsage!) She finds her way toward peace which, in the end, is the most precious gift.
The back story of this movie is as dramatic as the film, perhaps more so because in real life, the costar died. Her costar Gaspard Ulliel had a son with his former partner, model and singer Gaëlle Piétri, born in January 2016. They split up in 2020. Filming went from 14 April 2021to 4 June 2021. Gaspard died on 19 January, 2022, in La Tronche, Isère, France, after a skiing accident. Vicky Krieps, who was Gaspard Ulliel’s last companion — a version called into question by Gaëlle Pietri, got a drubbing originally from the popular French press and populace for this dating of events in which she was judged a home breaker.
Speaking to paper jam about More than ever, “Krieps said, ‘I hope that More Than Ever won’t just be anticipated because it’s Gaspard Ulliel’s last film. Above all, it is a very beautiful film (…) The projection can only be a nice moment, since, during this film, Gaspard will be alive on screen. To be present at Cannes, in a last feature film which thus speaks of the love of a couple, and of how this love can survive death, is a beautiful analogy. Strong and deep. I hope we manage to convey some of this truth to the public…’, she confided to paper jam, not without emotion.”
After the Cannes standing ovation for Corsage, the public has forgiven Vicky for her perceived real-life position. We look forward to her next movies now in post: Bachmann & Frisch; The Three Musketeers: Milady and The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan in which she plays Anne d’Autriche, and
The Wall in which she plays a committed and zealous border patrol agent who loses control and kills a harmless migrant in front of three witnesses.
The three films I loved most in Cannes touched my innermost emotional core. They validate my own choices and strengthen my convictions. I am sure they will encourage others to recognize and follow their own promptings as they find new pathways in our quickly changing world.
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