The Criterion Collection
May 26, 2017 — “How on earth is she going to keep this up?” asks Little White Lies’ David Jenkins. “That’s the question, posed internally, that sprang to mind while watching the gently delightful debut feature Jeune femme [Montparnasse Bienvenue]. The ‘she’ is ambiguous...
The Daily
May 26, 2017 — Today’s second Competition entry is Fatih Akin’s In the Fade, and we begin with the A.V. Club’s A. A. Dowd: “Diane Kruger stars as Katja, a woman whose husband, a Turkish immigrant, and son, who’s only six, are killed in...
Short Takes
May 25, 2017 — The vast majority of Cannes top-prize recipients have been either European or American, which makes it all the more worthwhile to note those winners that come from historically underrepresented nations. At the 1997 ceremony, Iran’s flourishing film culture enjoyed a...
May 25, 2017 — “The botched bank robbery is a well-worn genre staple, but has ever a heist gone quite so wrong to quite such electric, propulsive effect as in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time?” asks Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. “Bouncing wildly...
Short Takes
May 24, 2017 — Cannes kicked off the 1980s with a Palme d’Or win for a giant of Japanese cinema entering the final stages of his career. Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (the title of which literally translates as “shadow warrior”) follows a small-time thief who...
Short Takes
May 23, 2017 — Continuing my trip through Cannes history, today I’m focusing on one of the most celebrated works of Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni, who became an international sensation partly thanks to the booing and heckling he endured at the Cannes premiere of...
May 22, 2017 — Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer “makes the absurd, amazing The Lobster seem like a warm and cuddly experience by comparison,” declares Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. “A film of clean hands, cold heart, and near-Satanic horror, it...
May 21, 2017 — “Arguably, more question marks hung over the prospect of Redoubtable than over any other film in Cannes this year,” begins Jonathan Romney in Screen. “One reason was the idea of Michel Hazanavicius, director of the world-beating The Artist, seeming too...
May 21, 2017 — “Neo-realism isn’t necessarily a genre built for star turns,” writes Guy Lodge for Variety, “but director Jonas Carpignano happened upon one anyway in his debut Mediterranea: Then-preteen Pio Amato wasn’t the lead in that accomplished, affecting refugee drama, but his...
The Daily
May 20, 2017 — “If he hadn’t already laid claim to the title of king of the cringe-inducing confrontation and nabob of the nervous laugh with the withering Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with The Square, an excoriating razor-burn of a movie...