Every day, AlloCiné’s editorial staff tells you about the films seen at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. Today, Quentin Dupieux’s new film, “Smoking makes you cough”, a drama with Virginie Efira and Gaspard Ulliel’s last appearance at the cinema.
The emotion was palpable inside the Palais des festivals where More than ever, a film by Emily Atef, was presented in world premiere this Saturday, May 21. The drama marks the last role of actor Gaspard Ulliel, who died on January 19 after a skiing accident. When his name appears, a torrent of applause makes the walls of the room vibrate. A heartbreaking goodbye.
On the competition side, the screening of films continues with the grating Without Filter, a new feature film by Ruben Östlund, who won the Palme d’or in 2017 with The Square. The return also of another former winner, Cristian Mungiu, who won the supreme prize in 2007 with 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days. This time he presents RMN, still in official competition.
Focus on the parallel sections where Virginie Efira gives the reply to Benoît Magimel in Revoir Paris, a dramatic film by Alice Winocour, which tells the story of a woman who witnesses an attack. Without forgetting the new comedy by Quentin Dupieux, Smoking makes you cough, screened in midnight screenings.
Find the latest episode of our podcast in which we talk about the films seen during the 75th Cannes Film Festival:
More Than Ever (Un Certain Regard)
day2partyThe film follows Hélène (Vicky Krieps) and Mathieu (Gaspard Ulliel), who have been happy together for many years. The bond that unites them is deep. Faced with an existential decision, Hélène leaves alone for Norway to seek peace and experience the strength of their love.
Gaspard Ulliel and Vicky Krieps are both moving in this film, often luminous, despite the harshness of its subject, with very intense scenes. The production is by Emily Atef, who previously directed Three Days in Quiberon, and more recently two episodes of the last season of Killing Eve.
Released: November 9, 2022
Brigitte Baronet
RMN by Cristian Mungiu (In Competition)
The pactGossip, racist clichés, violent attacks… A hatred gradually sets in in the isolated village, which is nevertheless renowned for its tranquility. Cristian Mungiu draws a portrait – not very glorious – of the human being in all its complexity. He tackles the fear of the other head-on and its devastating consequences. The film does not hide its political message and increases in tension in an almost distressing second part.
Thomas Desroches
Smoking Makes You Cough by Quentin Dupieux (Midnight Screening)
Gaumont DistributionFor his tenth feature film, Quentin Dupieux has brought together a handful of cinema regulars (Benoît Poelvoorde, Alain Chabat, Grégoire Ludig, David Marsais, Anaïs Demoustier, Adèle Exarchopoulos, etc.) joined by prestigious newcomers such as Jean -Pascal Zadi, Oulaya Amamra, Vincent Lacoste and Gilles Lellouche. That the filmmaker brings together the Avengers of his cinema for a story that mixes superheroes and Tales from the Crypt is therefore not very surprising. Contrary to the result.
Tight costumes, foam villains, hectoliters of blood… Smoking makes you cough did not fail to ignite the Grand Théâtre Lumière, visibly won over by this funny, bloody, astonishing, delirious opus, capable of changing the mood of a sequence to the other. With a confirmation: when Dupieux is around, there is therefore a good chance that the Croisette will have fun.
Maximilien Pierrette
Chronicle of a temporary affair by Emmanuel Mouret (Cannes Première)
Distribution PyramidThe director does not fail to openly quote Ingmar Bergman’s classic, whose shadow hovers in this story where, as always, words and feelings prevail. And where the chemistry between Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Macaigne sparks. From the first scene, their complicity is eye-catching, their energetic opposition (her sparkling side to her against his clumsiness) seduces, and makes this inevitable end all the more difficult, around which Emmanuel Mouret builds a suspense sentimental.
Lively, fluid and engaging, Chronicle of a Passing Liaison leaves the lives of its main characters off-screen to focus on their interviews, built around a place, an idea. Often very funny, always very fair. Cannes 2021 had Julie (in 12 chapters), another fragmented story of feelings. In view of the laughter, reactions and applause, the 2022 edition may have found its equivalent.
Maximilien Pierrette
War Pony by Riley Keough & Gina Gammell (Un Certain Regard)
Felix CulpaThose who have seen the very beautiful The Rider by Chloé Zhao will perhaps feel on familiar ground, because the Oscar-winning filmmaker had filmed in the same region. We also think of the series Reservation Dogs, which explores the same themes, or American Honey by Andrea Arnold, already with Riley Keough in the cast, which showed an America too often left out of the cinema.
Carried by stunningly natural non-professional actors (many of whom were present for the official screening, and very moved by the applause reserved for them), War Pony impresses with its mastery, which is barely marred by a few lengths in the story. . The two directors offer us a tale that is sometimes serious and light, which slightly flirts with fantasy and does not take long to seduce us. A fine candidate for the Caméra d’Or (prize given to the best first feature, all sections combined)… and for the Palm Dog, which rewards the best dog seen in a film.
Boy From Heaven by Tarik Saleh (Competition)
Atmo CANNESWhat should have been a blessing for him turns into a nightmare when the institution’s Grand Imam dies on the first day of school. Following this tragic event, Adam will find himself in spite of himself plunged into an infernal spiral where he becomes a pawn for the religious and political elites of the country.
Chosen as an infiltrator in the midst of the election of the new Grand Imam, the student will be caught in a vice between the various powers at play which crystallize an entire country and which are the scene of corruption, ideological pressure and psychological violence.
For this powerful new film, the director, now banned from Egypt, calls on his favorite actor Fares Fares, remarkable in a role where he is unrecognizable, and the young talent Tawfeek Barhom, impressive in the skin of Adam. In addition to the performances of the actors, Boy From Heaven is distinguished by its brilliant, fascinating and courageous story, a veritable diatribe of a committed filmmaker who knows how to breathe urgency and a breathless rhythm into his subject of great intelligence.
Megane Choquet
Everyone Loves Jeanne by Céline Devaux (Critics’ Week)
Worso Films – O som ea furiaJeanne is over-indebted after the bankruptcy of her ecological company which made her a superwoman. She then goes to Lisbon to put her mother’s apartment, who died a year earlier, up for sale. As soon as she arrives at the airport, Jeanne finds herself embarked on an ubiquitous series of twists and turns punctuated by encounters and reunions, which will gradually give her a taste for things, and above all a taste for herself.
Céline Devaux offers an original and authentic introspective writing by transposing on the screen the anxieties and questions that go through the head by means of a brilliant little animated character, catalyst of emotions of all kinds and common thread of a journey of resilience. as funny as it is moving served by a Blanche Gardin in great shape. The rest of the cast, Laurent Lafitte in the lead, is just as tasty.
Megane Choquet
Without Filter (Official Competition)
Film TrayBrigitte Baronet
See Paris again (Directors’ Fortnight)
After Proxima, with Eva Green in the costume of an astronaut, the filmmaker Alice Winocourt is interested in the subject of the attacks, in a film distantly inspired by the Bataclan. This fiction takes the strong and fascinating part of showing first and foremost the question of traumatic memory. In other words, how a drama like this can affect memories.
Alice Winocour, originally from Paris, sets up her camera for the first time in Paris, and shows the city as it has rarely been seen in the cinema. She films a bruised Paris, injured by the attacks, like a character in her own right.
The heroine of Revoir Paris remains of course above all Virginie Efira, captivating, almost in all the shots of this feature film which offers her a beautiful, dense and complex new role. His connection with Benoit Magimel looks great and works great on screen.
Released: September 7, 2022