At a festival where directors are venerated, theres no one with more auteur cred this year than Michael Haneke, two-time winner of the Palme dOr. Nobody has ever won three, so the possibility that he might is exciting. Haneke began his distinguished career by terrorizing the bourgeoisie in a series of films that culminated in Funny Games, before changing course and winning his first Palme with the enigmatic and gripping The White Ribbon (2009), set in a German village on the cusp of World War I. His next film, Amour (2012), a humanistic love story about two retired piano teachers in their 80s, won him his second. For his new film, Happy End, hes apparently back in his comfort zone, focusing on a middle-class family living in the midst of the current European refugee crisis.
Bong Joon Ho, the director of such twisted joys as The Host, Mother and Snowpiercer, is always full of surprises and artistry. What will he do with Okja, a film about a young girl whose best friend, a giant creature, is kidnapped and taken to the USA? Its a tantalizing prospect that Hong Sangsoo has two films in the festival, The Day After (in competition) and Claires Camera (a special presentation). The spiritual heir to Eric Rohmer, Hong weaves his tales of missed opportunities and will-o-the-wisp love affairs with matter-of-fact naturalism.
With The Return, Elena and Leviathan, Andrey Zvyagintsev showed himself to be an acute observer and suspenseful chronicler of the subtleties of human relationships. In his new film, Loveless, inspired by Ingmar Bergmans Scenes From A Marriage, a husband and wife in the midst of a divorce deal with their childs disappearance. Master documentarian Sergei Loznitsa, meanwhile, is in competition with his third fiction film, A Gentle Creature, about a woman who tries to find out the fate of her imprisoned husband after a package she sent him is returned. Loznitsa calls it a drama, phantasmagoria, grotesque, tragedy and comedy.
Swedish director Ruben Ostlund follows up his acclaimed dark comedy Force Majeure with this satire on the art world, again using situational comedy to examine human behaviour. Dominic West and Elisabeth Moss raise the star quotient.
Lynne Ramsays first film in six years, which the Scottish director adapted from Jonathan Amess novel, follows a war veteran charged with rescuing a teenage girl from a Manhattan brothel. Cant wait to see how Ramsays outsider point of view and searing cinematic energy mesh with her leading man, the quixotic Joaquin Phoenix.
The director of The Artist depicts Jean-Luc Godards romance with, and subsequent marriage to, 17-year-old Anne Wiazemsky, his star in La Chinoise (1967). French heartthrob Louis Garrel plays Godard Stacy Martin, famous for Lars von Triers Nymphomaniac, is Wiazemsky. Godard has already dismissed the film as a stupid idea. Still, its a no-brainer for Cannes. Will we see Godard and Claude Lelouch calling for a boycott of the 1968 festival?
Roman Polanskis classicist directorial style never gets old. Based On A True Story, a thriller set in the literary world, promises a return to Repulsion, The Tenant and Frenzy. The premise of 24 Frames by Abbas Kiarostami, the cinematic poet who died last year, is intriguing: using old photographs hed taken, Kiarostami imagined what would have preceded or followed each one. And Im curious to see what John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig And The Angry Inch the underrated Shortbus) and his finely tuned sexual radar will bring to How To Talk To Girls At Parties, a film that dovetails the exuberance of first love with the birth of punk in 1970s London.
The Directors Fortnights cup overflows: it opens with Let The Sunshine In by Claire Denis (her first comedy) includes Jeannette: The Childhood Of Joan Of Arc, a musical about Joan of Arc by the quirky Bruno Dumont and The Florida Project, Sean Bakers first film since his breakthrough, Tangerine plus there’s an onstage conversation with the fabled Werner Herzog. And theres also a Toronto connection. Lithium Studios Mike MacMillan is the Canadian producer of Mobile Homes, a French co-production shot in Niagara Falls that follows a mother, her young son and her dangerous boyfriend as they face a turning point in their lives.
It will be a rare treat to watch the iconic actor/director in a two-hour sit-down interview covering his more-than-five decades in the cinematic firmament. His commentary on the film clips being shown should be revelatory.
With 19 films in competition and more than 80 other officially sanctioned new titles, the immersive experience at this cinematic shrine is a powerful draw. And there will be added hoopla for the festivals 70th anniversary this year. One event Im eyeing is the premiere of Tony Gatlifs Djam, screening on the beach and preceded by a live music concert. Gatlifs films are known for their musical content, and this one reportedly overflows with the sounds of rebetiko, melancholy Greek songs of exile that Gatlif calls music of the unloved.
