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- [00:16]
Sean Fennese
Je suis Sean Fennese.
- [00:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Je suis Amanda Davins.
- [00:19]
Sean Fennese
And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Cannes. Today. On the show, Amanda and I will recount our first trip to the Cannes International Film Festival. The movies we saw, the energy and controversies of the festival, how it all works and all the titles you'll be hearing about for the next 10 months. It's all coming up right after this. This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book your favorite hotel site your go to airline and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.
- [01:10]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
This episode is brought to you by Paramount Plus Beth and Rip are back at a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser returned and this time they're taking on Texas as Beth and Rip build a future together. Peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dunton Ranch, starring Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, Annette Bening and Ed Harris. Now streaming on Paramount.
- [01:41]
Sean Fennese
Okay, Dobbins, you did it. You did it. How are you feeling?
- [01:43]
Amanda Dobbins
I did it. I feel amazing. I made it to Cannes, you know. It came true. Quote our beloved Anne Hathaway. Day nine for me. Is that right?
- [01:54]
Sean Fennese
Sure, yeah.
- [01:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Seven or six for you.
- [01:58]
Sean Fennese
You make it sound like you've entered an extinction level event. A la 28 years later, it is day seven for me. Yes. How are you feeling? Strong.
- [02:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Amazing. Yeah, I'm good. I would say still moderately jet lagged. Our sleep schedules are interesting at this point, but I've adapted to being a festival creature just in time to leave. You know, this is my last morning and then I'm getting on the train. But it's been fascinating and fun and silly and sometimes frustrating. And I'm so glad that we came.
- [02:32]
Sean Fennese
Me too. So yesterday was, I think, an interesting snapshot of how this experience could work for me after a long night. The night before, I Woke up at 7:30 in the morning to go to an 8:30am Press screening of a movie. We will talk about that movie, which is heartbreaking. And then I met you for an 11:30 movie and then I went to a 2:30 movie and then I Went to a 5:30 movie in between, came back to our apartment, put on some deodorant and then went out and had drinks and met friends. And we're out until 2:00 clock in the morning and we're up here at 9:00am recording a podcast.
- [03:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Closer to 10, but that's okay.
- [03:10]
Sean Fennese
Good point. A little slower going this morning. That is a snapshot of what it's like here that if you want to do it right, if you want to experience everything, you kind of need to hard commit and decide to see everything and also be a social creature at the same time. And I'm certainly feeling the after effects, but I'm glad that we did it. And I'm feeling like the raft of movies that I've now seen. I just feel so powerful. I feel like, like I don't even know, like the Dragon Ball Z meme, you know, like I've just been powered up for the next six months. It's amazing.
- [03:43]
Amanda Dobbins
Most people don't do four movies in a day as you did yesterday. Most people do, as I understand it, one to none. And then take a bunch of meetings and go to parties.
- [03:53]
Sean Fennese
Sure.
- [03:54]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, I mean, so this has been interesting, right? Because in some ways this is just another film festival. Right. Despite the glitz and the glamour and the Europe and the yachts and the, and the black tie galas we have been hoofing it, trying to see. I never did four in a day. I did a lot of three day movies. Three movies a day, a couple twos. Yesterday was a two. It's fine. I've been here a long time and you know, trying to get tickets, trying to get into screenings, trying to find food in between them. Like living by the same schedule that you live at in, in Sundance or Telluride or Venice to a lesser extent. In a lot of ways it is very similar to Venice in that it's another ticketed festival. So the anxiety is in getting the ticket and kind of making the schedule puzzle fit together and making sure that you can see everything and then being heartbroken when you miss something, as I did yesterday. So we are just being festival rats. Right? And then sometimes being a festival rat involves running back to the apartment to put on a tuxedo or an evening gown in like 20 minutes flat. Because to go see the movie and to be there for the big premiere, you have to wear a tuxedo. And as I reminded you, the bow tie is the actual. It's the only remaining strict dress code, as I understand it. I mean, they want evening dress, but the heels thing is gone. There were no heel checkers, as far as I could tell. I mean, I did wear heels, so
- [05:28]
Sean Fennese
maybe is that a full time position with benefits, heel checker here?
- [05:32]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. And in France, you know, everything goes. And you had to wear a gown, but it was more flexible for the women. But the men, you had to have a bow tie.
- [05:44]
Sean Fennese
Let's talk about the vibe more generally. Yeah, I would say I underestimated the hubbub, the intensity of humanity that comes to this place. And in retrospect, that makes a lot of sense because this has become the central film festival in the world. It is one of the longest running film festivals, if not the longest running. It's the one that has launched a thousand ships of cinema history. It's also one that, as we've been talking about for the last five years, has become so central to, frankly, US film and US film award shows. And so there's more attention on it than ever. But also it's a European institution and it's a puddle jumper flight away from many major cities in Europe. So you have not just the film industry that descends, but this kind of mass tourist culture that also descends upon it. So there's just so many fucking people here. That's the one thing that it just differentiates it from other film festivals. Sundance is a crowded film festival, but not like this. Telluride is not a crowded film festival. I know Venice is crowded, but Venice is also. The Lido is small. And so it's like, it feels maybe more conquerable than what happens here.
- [06:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes and no. I again, I think Venice is the closest con because it is also like a European tourist city. And I think what you and I have been taken aback by is not just the crowds. In the French system of crowd control, which you can speak about whenever you'd like, but that there are just. There are a lot of people here just vacationing. Right. This is a beach town. It's the Cote d'. Azur, and so there are like many families and like pushing their strollers down the quazette, like in the middle of a premiere, which is just a choice. Not a choice that I would make, not even as a parrot, but as a person. You know, it's like when. When the circus comes to town, Amanda's leaving. But many people are like, hey, let's go see the circus. And so it is. It is Crowded. And there are a lot of people who also seem to come to, like, gawk at the festival. Right. There is a culture of not just, you know, camping out for the red carpets, but there are lots of people dressed up, holding up signs, being like, one ticket please for whatever movie. There are a lot of programs. I learned about three days in Cannes to kind of get younger people here for a certain amount of time. But then they also got to hustle for tickets. So I do think the festival is encouraging. A lot of hubbub, but, yeah, it's a. Like, we're on the Front Riviera. It's like, you know, there are a lot of people here.
- [08:18]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. And I don't blame them for being here, but they're in my way is what I'll say, at least whenever I'm trying to get to a line so that I can get into a film. The state of this year's festival is interesting. We talked a bit about what the lineup was going in, and maybe there were some films that we expected to be here that turned out to not be here. I think maybe the most significant is the new Ruben Ostland film. The Entertainment System is Down. He's a two time Palme d' or winner, and his next film is with Keanu Reeves and your beloved Kirsten Dunst set on an airplane in which the entertainment system goes down. And everybody assumed that movie would be here and that Ruben would make a bid for his third pun, and it's not here. And so I would say that there was, amongst those who really closely follow world cinema, a little bit of doubting in the nature of the lineup. We'll go through all the films at length after we get through our sort of temperature check. But from the moment that you arrived, was it clear that maybe this was not quite the most elite Cannes week in recent years?
- [09:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, I mean, it is a tradition of grumbling about the lineup whether you're here or not. And it's certainly a tradition among critics. Both the critics who get to go here, who get to come to Cannes every year, which we are now an elite few to, you know, complain. Well, I wanted this or that. Last night at dinner, you had your phone out and you were just going through lists of previous year's lineups with.
- [09:53]
Sean Fennese
It's the most fun thing to do in the world. Yeah, sure.
- [09:55]
Amanda Dobbins
I was actually talking with our friend about human things. But so some of it I knew was just posturing. And also, I arrived here a few days before you and didn't know anyone. So I spent my time trying to see as many movies as possible and posting on Instagram, and I wound up posting on Instagram, like a little more than I needed to, just because I went to see the movies. But it did feel like filler or it didn't feel like anything in the first couple of days was going to be essential. Now, one, I could be wrong. And two, that is the case of any longer festival. Right? That's the other thing that we should communicate about, Ken. This is two weeks long and it is full of. Of movies. And it's not. There is the. The main competition, which is for the Palme d', or, but then there are several other tiers. Then there are special screenings. So just the number of movies that you can see is overwhelming. Even as I was kind of like, well, what's going to be essential here? Because you and I, for the purposes of this show, and as you said, for the purposes of American cinema, like, we're palm hunting a little bit. Because the Palm d' or has been such an Oscars indicator for the last six years, really, I guess, since Parasite 1 in 2019. 2020, and. And has been kind of, you know, it's the top prize. So it opens the door to the rest of what's going on at Cannes and the rest of world cinema to an American audience. But I was slow. Yeah, it was a little slow. It was a little. And I don't think that anything that I saw the first couple days was like, sean, you gotta figure out a
- [11:38]
Sean Fennese
way to go see that was in competition. Because one of the interesting narratives that has emerged out of this week is that while there have now been, I think, maybe three or four titles in competition that are very, very good, and they're like a couple that I find to be like top tier stuff, but many of the most exciting things have been out of competition or in the Uncertain Regard category or. Or in Director's Fortnite or in the special screenings category or even Cannes Classics. And that's kind of fascinating because the competition itself is full of former Palm winners and former Cannes attendees. And it is a very hallowed group of filmmakers that are here. But the sentiment amongst almost everybody that includes both press and your common cinemagoer who has come to this festival, I think through the first five or six days was woof. This is not the best year. I think the tide is turning now as we get into the last third of the festival because of the handful of films that have now premiered. But that was interesting to have four or five days In a row where everyone was kind of rolling their eyes at what they were sitting through, despite the incredible privilege and just kind of general wonder of getting to see some of this stuff. I mean, for me, obviously, I have wanted to be here my entire life and have been almost afraid to come here. And there's been a little bit of myth dispelling that's been going on. And you're right. In some ways, it is exactly like any other film festival. You know, you queue up and you wait and you sit uncomfortably for two and a half hours in a seat with thousands of hundreds of people that smell bad and that, you know, don't care about your.
- [13:08]
Amanda Dobbins
There's never enough leg room. Yes, just absolutely. You know, the Europeans are. Are compact. We are not.
- [13:15]
Sean Fennese
And when you're in. When you're in an unhappy screening, when you're watching a movie you don't care about, that experience is magnified. But when you're in a great film, you don't feel it at all. You never. You don't. I don't. I never thought about leg room during one of the films that we'll talk about. I never thought about who was sitting next to me if it wasn't you. So I'm having a great time and I'm hopeful, actually, for my last two days because you're leaving today and I have a couple more days, so we won't be able to talk about the slate in full here. But I'm relieved that we're recording today and not on Monday morning. If we had recorded on Monday morning our time, I think it would have been a little bit more. A little bit more concerned about the state of the festival.
- [13:57]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes, we've gotten several titles and also our expectations were reset, but positively, because Sunday night at like, what, 3am we had had one idea of how the festival would go, and we had kind of arranged our screenings and our, you know, our tuxedos and our life around that. And then we walked out of the Le Lumiere, which is the largest theater where all the films premiere, and we were like, oh. Or not even. Oh. But we were kind of like, well, we're going to have to redo this episode outline. We're going to have to put some extra work in the next two days. But it worked out. And again, that is the way that all of these things go for all of the. There's always an outside machinery that, you know, both making all of the, like, quote, unquote, glamour, but also the narratives that we participate. And I think you and I always watch this happening from afar and we're like, no, no, I'd like to have an opinion and be able to participate. And I'm glad we are, and I think we can. But at the same time, it's funny how sometimes you don't even have to see the movies to. To watch how the narrative shapes.
- [15:17]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. And that's the last thing I want to say before we get into the slate is that you pointed this out to me when we were waiting to walk up the red carpet steps at the Palais at the Interview, which was so fun. It was an incredible experience.
- [15:32]
Amanda Dobbins
It was ridiculous. And unlike at other festivals, at least for Paper Tiger, we were sent fully up the carpet and we just walked in the middle of influencers posing for the banks of photographers on either side. And I'm just navigating various trains to make sure I don't trip in my heels. You got scolded for taking some photos because that's not allowed on the red carpet. No selfies, no phones.
- [16:00]
Sean Fennese
It was a broke down palace situation. I had to go away for a couple of days.
- [16:05]
Amanda Dobbins
That sucked. I would have been so mad. But you walk up these stairs, which. And the lights are going and it's absurd and exciting and I'm so glad that we got to do it. I don't know how many more times we need to do it in our
- [16:18]
Sean Fennese
life, but I'm very glad to have done it too. It was an amazing experience. And I actually didn't even know we would be doing that. Even though we had orchestra seating for this premiere, we still did that same experience that all the filmmakers did and that many other people do. It's hordes of attendees go up and enter in that fashion too. But I bring that up because as we were waiting to go up the steps, you were pointing out to me the photographers, many of whom looked like they were in their 70s, some even in their 80s, who had been real can dogs, they'd been doing this for a very long time.
- [16:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Also in tuxes.
- [16:51]
Sean Fennese
Also everyone was in tuxes and gowns. And just the mechanics of this, the orchestration of this, the mechanized quality of the entire thing, engineered quality of the entire festival is really interesting. It's not that perfect image that you see from the red carpet. In order for that to happen, it necessitates thousands of people, millions of dollars, loads and loads of preparation and planning. And so to watch it be happening and to have it kind of deconstructed and demythologized in real time was really interesting. It made Me a little more cynical as these things tend to. And that maybe influences how I see the movies a little bit. A little bit. Because most other film festivals don't have that. And since I have not been to Venice, most other film festivals, certainly the filmmakers will be there and they'll come in and speak for a moment. But this is a level of grandeur. And I don't like social preparation that is unusual relative to those other festivals.
- [17:48]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't know if it makes me more cynical just because I am already cynical. But you know, what I said to you in line was all glamour is manufactured. And there's a lot of. And it is kind of all fake. And you're doing it all for the image. And I just wanted to see how it was done. And I wanted to see what this version and this scale was.
- [18:07]
Sean Fennese
And
- [18:10]
Amanda Dobbins
I thought it was fascinating. You know, I have looked at the photos of the red carpet and also the photo calls we went to. You know, there are a number of different theaters here at Canton where they do screenings. And our favorite theater is behind the Lumiere, and it's called the Agnes Varda. And it sits up some stairs. It has a beautiful view of the harbor, whatever we're calling that the Mediterranean, that's what we're calling it. And as soon as we got up there, I was like, oh, this is where they do the photo calls. Because I have looked at those photos for 20 years. And I instantly recognized, like, the scenery and the backdrop. So I like understanding those things. And I find it sort of comforting that it is all, you know, a lot of people put in a lot of work, a lot of time and money and effort, and it is made up. But it's also something that people create out of nothing. So there are two ways of looking at it.
- [19:09]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, it's both things. This is the absolute power station of world cinema. This is where some of the most important films of all time have essentially been birthed to the world. And this is also a place where Dior looms large with its storefront immediately across from the Lumiere, Dior and Chanel,
- [19:27]
Amanda Dobbins
which is just for my fashion heads. It's really. They're directly across from the red carpet on the Quasit. And they both have their latest wears out, including my dream Chanel dress right there in the window.
- [19:39]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, and you almost broke the window last night at 2 o' clock in the morning to steal that dress and race down the quasi, but you did not. Anything else you want to close off on before we go through everything? We've seen.
- [19:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Do you want to talk about the parties at all and party culture?
- [19:55]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. You've been to more than I have. I've been to a couple, yeah.
- [19:59]
Amanda Dobbins
In some ways yes, and in some ways no. Because that's another funny one where it just turned out to be like every other movie party, which I don't want to, you know, sniff at because we all know I like a party. But they were all at the quote unquote beach clubs. So the quas is a, it's a road and it runs down the water along the Mediterranean and on the other side of the road are, you know, restaurant, beach club type things in the European style. Right. And they get rented out by either a movie studio or like Nespresso, you know, brands. And so then every night after the premieres, there are long lines and people are clamoring to get into these like, frankly glorified beach tents with, you know, the same cocktails, the abundant. I did have someone hand me a Negroni at one of the parties, which was like, you know, when I died and went to heaven. And at one point I am told I was in the same room with Dua Lipa but did not know it, which was my real heartbreak. I've got two heartbreaks of Cannes so far. Number one, missing a movie we're going to talk about. And number two, not knowing that I and Dua Lipa were sharing beach tent space. But at the same time, you know, there are plenty of parties, as you pointed out, that we were not invited to. We didn't get on a yacht and so, you know, it's something to strive for next year. We didn't get to the Cap, which is the famous hotel in Anti, which, you know, I googled many times at like 4am and we almost made a
- [21:38]
Sean Fennese
last minute bid last night and we, we, we, we restrained ourselves.
- [21:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, which, which was the right call because once again we had to podcast at. We were supposed to be here at 9am I don't know if we really hit our call time. Sorry again, Jack and crew. But the, you know, it's the same thing as the carpet and everything else where the parties are the fixture. And you know, Bella Hadid has been photographed like all over Cannes, like, enjoyed, like, she was also on a yacht, like sunbathing and it's been 65 degrees and lovely weather here, but not, you know, yacht sunbathing weather. So what you see on Instagram or, you know, the photos and then the reaction, reality, they are like everything else different and not bad. Just Different.
- [22:24]
Sean Fennese
I wonder, as we talk about the movies, if there will be a similar experience for people when these movies start to come out into the world too. That's something I always think about is how much of the reaction is correct from the outset and not. I pointed a couple of times to the infamous Eddington premiere here last year and reigns. Ari Aster's movie opened here. It received a very negative response and then opened over the summer. And while it didn't make up very much money at the box office, it kind of very quickly accrued a staunch defense system for what it was trying to accomplish. And I think the reputation of that movie has transformed a lot in 12 months. And that's something that maybe will happen to some of the movies that we talk about here, where at first glance or in the room, and how much the room affects your reaction will indicate in one way or another. I'm not sure if there's too many examples. Not as divisive a slate this year, I would say.
- [23:18]
Amanda Dobbins
I can think of a couple of examples where which room you and I saw a film here at Cannes had a real effect on our interpretation of it as opposed to people. And it's really, are you there for the gala premiere in the room with everyone versus a press screening, which
- [23:37]
Sean Fennese
it's
- [23:37]
Amanda Dobbins
not just the audience that's different, but the energy, it's a little more workaday. And what you're willing to buy into depends a little bit in which room you're sitting in, whether it's in a different room in Cannes or at home.
- [23:52]
Sean Fennese
That's right. That's right. And you and I have access to two different press screening rooms in addition to the Varda, in addition to external movie theaters on the Quazette, there are various just general audience movie theaters that are screening films here over this two week period as well. So I feel like I've now really had the gamut. Like I've been in. I think I've been in every single room. I've been in the Bunuel, I've been in the Basin, I've been in the Debussy. I've been in Arcades, I've been in Olympia. There's a lot of places to go see movies.
- [24:22]
Amanda Dobbins
You didn't go to Cinea, but I did. And so, yeah, that's a movie theater like three miles away. And I mean, I saw a movie on the same floor as like a Screen X. It was just a basic movie theater with a lot of people going on a Saturday afternoon to see normal movies. And that was Also cool, because it was clear there was another can culture of seemingly younger or younger than me. People just waiting out at different location to kind of try to see the second and third run movies away from the hubbub. And they were just like sitting on the floor at your local AMC or whatever. I don't think AMC operates in or is allowed to operate in France, but just hanging out and trying to see movies. And so that's an even different kind of room and different reception, which is cool. There are people here who like movies.
- [25:12]
Sean Fennese
In addition to all the crusty dogs that I was talking about, there's just a ton of young people. And I know I'm a clown whenever I say cinema is alive and we're back, but it's impossible to not feel that way when you're here because everyone is just so excited to see things. There's so much enthusiasm for this stuff and I'll use that as an entree into the discussion of the films. The moment in which I felt that the most deeply this week was at an 8:30am screening of Jordan Firstman's Club Kid, which is a movie that I will say candidly, when I saw that it was accepted to the festival, I was surprised. I wouldn't say it was extremely high on my list of two Cs because I arrived a couple of days late. It had already premiered and gotten very warm reception. But I was like, I'll see for myself. And from my perspective, it may end up being my favorite movie at the festival. There have been a couple of movies in the last couple of days that have risen to it, but for three or four days I was like, well, this is not just the surprise, but it is the straight up best movie here. Even though it is in one certain regard and not in the main competition. And as soon as I saw, as soon as it was over, I texted you immediately and I was like, this movie is fucking wonderful. You have to see this. And you did?
- [26:31]
Amanda Dobbins
I did, yeah. Later that afternoon. Yeah. It was, as you said, that moment very early on when you're sitting there in a movie and you're just like, oh, this is happening. It's all clicking and you can tell very quickly. And it, it's such a special movie. It's really classical in a lot of ways. Despite being a movie set in the like club kids, you know, in like queer clubs in 2016, and then now you and I both learned a lot of lingo about some subcultures that we didn't previously know about, this is a
- [27:06]
Sean Fennese
very Drugs forward movie, but also not
- [27:09]
Amanda Dobbins
in an annoying way. I guess that is one thing that every description of it sounds. It's kind of irritating if you're not a subscriber to it. But it is warm hearted, a lot more depth than I think either of us expected and has as much in common with Kramer versus Kramer as it does with Requiem for a Dream or whatever. But there is nothing like not knowing anything and going in or knowing very little, or not having the hype of six months of secondhand, ooh, I saw this and that and just having something work so totally. And that's the other thing. It is completely formed. It works beginning, middle and end. They make several smart choices. Great performances, very funny and funny, even if you don't get all the New York inside jokes, as most of the crowd I was with didn't. But also the New York inside jokes are great.
- [28:12]
Sean Fennese
They are very good. So Firstman, people will know him from I Love la, the HBO Rachel Sennett series, maybe Rotting in the sun, which played Sundance a few years ago, just like a very funny online comic figure. And as you said, I maybe had not expected that he would deliver a movie with this level of depth and craft and sincerity. It very quickly pivots away from being a very in your face comedy to being a much more sincere drama, honestly about parenthood
- [28:44]
Amanda Dobbins
and growing up.
- [28:45]
Sean Fennese
And growing certainly. And also maybe arriving at that stage in your life in your early 30s where you're like, oh, maybe I wasn't as prepared for this part of my life as I needed to be. Which is also, I think will be very resonant for a lot of people. And I very quickly noted that the producer of the movie, one of the producers in the movie is Alex Coco, who was Sean Baker's producer on Enora and is widely considered one of the smartest independent film producers around. And you can definitely sense his influence and I'm sure helping Firstman develop this movie and get it to where it is and they make just an incredible combination. And I'm really excited about this movie. And it was acquired by a 24, which I think every living human who was watching it was like, how is this not already an A24 movie? Yes, but it's so far the big pickup of the festival and I expect will be a big thing through the rest of the year. Any. Any other thoughts on Club Kid?
- [29:40]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm just excited to talk about it for the rest of the year and it's gonna, it's gonna be a fun one to have around. Very fun Press tour and like, it's gonna. It's gonna be a great however many months once it comes out. So I'm. I'm really excited.
- [29:55]
Sean Fennese
Okay, let's talk about Fjord.
- [29:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [29:58]
Sean Fennese
Fjord is fascinating film. It was my pre festival pick for the Palm, and I don't know if it's my pick for the Palm quite yet. We'll get to our predictions in a moment.
- [30:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, so you're wavering now?
- [30:10]
Sean Fennese
Well, I don't know. I don't know. My feelings are moving in a lot of directions. But Fjord is Christian Manju's new film, the Romanian filmmaker who previously won the Palm back in 2007 and has been here a couple times before. And this film is, I'm reluctant to say that his most mainstream film, but it does star Sebastian Stan and Renata Reinzva. They play a couple that has immigrated to Norway from Romania. Reinzva's character is Norwegian, but she lives in Romania with her husband, played by Stan. And they come with their five children. And once they arrive in Norway, they learn that the culture of Norway is very different from the country that they have come from. They're a very religious, conservative family. And Norway is, of course, understood to be a very progressive country. And the movie pursues the differentiation in cultures and what can happen to this family and the communities surrounding them. And I absolutely love this. And it is exactly the kind of thorny debate forward movie that I think thrives in this environment here. Can it is the shades of Anatomy of a Fall, I would say, where as soon as the movie is over, you want to be like, well, okay, so what do we really think was going on here? And elicited, I would say, a pretty strong reaction. Not a rapturous response, but very clearly, solidly, this movie is very, very good. What did you think?
- [31:40]
Amanda Dobbins
I think we both walked out and we were like, yes. And Fjord premiered on Monday, which was also essential because we needed it. There was a lot riding on Fjord being good. I think it was probably it's to both of our tastes, both in the actors, Sebastian Stan and Renata Ryan's vers. You know, it's set in a beautiful mountain town in Norway. So you were pretty psyched about that. And I thought it looked beautiful, even though I don't want to visit. And I mean, it is. It's. It's about kids, among other things. So there was a certain, like, pulling, like a very personal pulling or gnawing in my stomach during all of the debates, which you lean in. Right. It's definitely this year's Anatomy of a Fall. To me it was a little. I was thinking of the drama a little bit where you're like arguing with the screen in real time and being like, well, I don't know, who do I think is right and what do I think is right and where am I going? And it does maintain that tension and I think gives you enough information, but to a point you made as we were walking out also withholds enough. It does not spell everything out for you in a way that I think is very smart and disciplined. So, yeah, I was really into it. And once again, the Scandinavian people, a tough break in the filmic space. I guess depending on your.
- [33:08]
Sean Fennese
They take some Ls in this one. Yeah, the Norwegians take some Ls. There's no doubt about it. And that doesn't necessarily mean that the people of Norway are wrong and the issues that are explored in the film. But that's sort of what is so fascinating about it. And we're reluctant to really spoil any of these movies because they may be five, six, nine months away from release. But this one in particular is a unique case where I think in the wrong hands and this movie may get into the wrong hands, who knows, it could be refracted and misrepresented culturally in terms of what its purpose is. I think if you.
- [33:40]
Amanda Dobbins
If it makes a choice in the last third that I think, I do think it worked for me and brings in another dimension. But to your point, can also can start. Be. Be taken down the wrong conversational path.
- [33:57]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. And I think if you're dogmatic in your thinking, then the movie is. It necessitates a nuanced interpretation. Otherwise, I think the movie kind of
- [34:06]
Amanda Dobbins
much like the Norwegians.
- [34:08]
Sean Fennese
Well, yeah, I mean, my takeaway, as I said to you immediately after I walked out of the movie, I was like, it really feels like Christian Monju went on like a terrible two week vacation in Norway.
- [34:19]
Amanda Dobbins
His director's statement about the movie says, this is set in Norway, but it could happen in any Nordic country. Still, we've thought about it so often.
- [34:29]
Sean Fennese
Very entertaining. Stan and Reinzeva are both wonderful. Stan in particular, I thought was terrific as this extremely tightly wound Romanian man. Stan's family, his mother is from Romania, he speaks Romanian, he shaved his head for this role. It's a very unglamorous part. Both actors, I would say, not very showy performances, much more restrained because this is a very kind of tight and religious family that they're portraying. But I was very impressed. I just think it's very cool that he and Reinsville choose to use this moment in their careers to make movies like this, which is really a difficult film, but also very entertaining and kind of educated thriller.
- [35:06]
Amanda Dobbins
It's, it, it's not, it's not fun, it's not club kid, it's not heartwarming, but it is absolutely engaging and watchable. That's the thing. You're not sitting there being lectured about capitalism.
- [35:18]
Sean Fennese
We will get to that.
- [35:19]
Amanda Dobbins
Want to segue?
- [35:21]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. Do you want to go let's talk about all of a sudden?
- [35:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, I was. You know, if you're, if you're ranking them, it's. We're getting close, right?
- [35:26]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I think that this, this is. Well, I, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll hold off on Minotaur for a minute since you haven't seen that. But yeah, we're sort of moving in order here in terms of preference. All of a sudden is Riceguay's Hamaguchi's new film and it is a 196 minute epic about elder care and the French health social services system
- [35:51]
Amanda Dobbins
and also love and humanity.
- [35:54]
Sean Fennese
It truly is that. And it is. It's a ride. It's a ride. I would say roughly halfway through the film, I was genuinely concerned that it was an utter miscalculation. And by the end I was in tears. And it is durational and I think led me to a real moment of kind of this ecstatic realization of what he is pulling together, which is something that more or less happens in all of his movies. But this one, I would say, is also more didactic and even more ideas for it. As I said to you, it's so rare to see a director who takes his theme and just makes it the text in the movie. So this is a movie about the way in which systems degrade humanity, particularly capitalism, and remove this kind of essential human connection that we seek because we are forced to participate in this broader system, and especially by setting the movie in a world of elderly people who are kind of at the end of their life and who have fewer people who are caring for them or looking after them. And there's this very select group of people in these elder care facilities who have to really take care of these people in every aspect of their lives. Taking them to the bathroom, cleaning them, caring for them, making eye contact with them. Every level of detail is portrayed in this movie, but also it has a kind of puckish, sincere, funny spirit to it. It's not a doom and gloom movie, but the movie does spend a lot of time specifically talking through the ideas, including one perhaps soon to be notorious whiteboard sequence in which capitalism is explained at large for 12 minutes.
- [37:41]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, as I was sitting there, I just thought the memes will be amazing. And I have found myself throughout the week as this scene. This is the scene that turns a lot of people or that people have complained about, I guess in the not so warm reviews which it has been. People really admire this movie if they aren't jumping up and down about it. But then you hear about the whiteboard scene and I just have to say that instant classic. I was like, oh, here we go. I know how I will be using this once, Once everyone has seen this, I will be using it for many years to come. And that is cinema in its own way as well. This one, I was really moved by this one, which I did not expect to be about. But you know, I'm not always a patient filmgoer. I also accidentally slept through my first screening of this film.
- [38:36]
Sean Fennese
Meaning you slept in. You didn't sleep during the movie?
- [38:38]
Amanda Dobbins
No, no, I didn't sleep. Yeah, no, I accidentally, I set my alarm for PM inst. AM and I woke up at 2:30 in the afternoon and was like, well, there goes that. And meanwhile you are. You quite literally texted me, are you alive? So this is one where I, you know, met the rest of my commitments and I was there at 8am to see a 3 hour and 15 minute movie about the French healthcare system. And I was like, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know if I'm going to be in the right headspace for this. And it does require you to give yourself over to it and you know, you can almost it. And I think this is like a good thing, like a public service. It, it can be a how to manual at times for how to care for an older person or a disoriented person, but also like how to be a person in the world. But to your point, there is that level of specificity and that level of time. I don't think the truncated version would work because there is something magical that it does. It forces you to either leave or sit through all of this and learn and get into a different headspace and a headspace where I am Anna Dobbins, don't spend a lot of time. I liked the whiteboard scene, but imagine me sitting through a lecture of someone drawing to me on a whiteboard. In real life, even you would never happen.
- [40:04]
Sean Fennese
So we should start doing that though. I should start doing coaching style breakdowns, like Jon Gruden style breakdowns of films while you watch. I mean, coaching class.
- [40:14]
Amanda Dobbins
I need access to a telestrator. I just do. We just need Amanda's telestrator segment.
- [40:20]
Sean Fennese
I've made this request.
- [40:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Just imagine all of the production design breakdowns that I could do this, that, and the other, drawing the arrows. But there is something. There is something like meticulous and kind of exquisite in the construction of the movie where, as you said, in the last hour, it all comes together. And there is kind of a wonder of like, wow, I can't believe we all got here.
- [40:49]
Sean Fennese
And I can't believe 100% that's it.
- [40:51]
Amanda Dobbins
I can't believe that you landed this. And I've never seen it done in quite that way, but it was very, very moving and. And. And cool and again, unique. I thought, like, I. It's an unexpected.
- [41:08]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. So Virginie Efira, the French actress, plays the director of the nursing home and an actress, Tao Okamoto plays a woman named Mari who comes into her life. She's a theater director, and they form a very quick bond, and they create an unusually intense friendship connection. And it's really her performance, I think, that kind of, like, makes the movie work, ultimately. And she's a very empathetic, very open actor. And what happens to her character, I think, is kind of what kind of transforms the community of the story. And I totally agree with you about that last hour where you're almost like. I felt like with like, 30 minutes left, I was like, wow, this actually did come together. I can't believe this came together because I was like. I said, I was very dubious. Halfway through, I was like, this kind of feels like I'm like a bungle. And it wasn't. It's clearly designed to do exactly what
- [42:00]
Amanda Dobbins
it does, but it is also. It's a really big cast because it's set at a care facility. And so. And you spend time with the patients, you spend time with the other nurses and caregivers. And then he nails every single casting, every single performance, and they're all pretty essential. It all has to work together. Like, the puzzle pieces are very small. And so when you see the smaller bit characters also have growth and be resolved, and they each kind of get their moment, but it doesn't feel like, oh, so and so got their moment too. It really. Just. Once you see how it all works together, it's pretty sound. Shake.
- [42:42]
Sean Fennese
It is. We will be covering it again in the future. Let's talk About Paper Tiger. That was the first premiere that we attended that you mentioned. I was in tux, you were in gown. This is James Gray's new film. It is extremely familiar terrain for Gray. In fact, I think the movie was originally conceived as a kind of sequel to Armageddon Time. And it turns to become much more of a kind of genre crime film than what transpired in Armageddon Time. But it stars Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson. It is perhaps the starriest movie that we have here. Driver and Teller were on the red carpet. And Gray has been to the Cannes Film Festival six times. And this movie is, as I said to you and as I feel with so many of Gray's movies, who's my buddy? So just all objectivity aside here, it's just so eerie how it's so similar to so many aspects of my family's life that when I watch his films, especially Armageddon Time, in this film, and to some extent we own the Night too, that I feel like a little bit of an out of body experience at a certain point. Well, I'll just set up what the movie is about. It's about two brothers living in Queens in 1986. And Teller is an engineer and kind of a working class guy married to Scarlett Johansson. He has two sons. Driver is a retired police officer who's kind of a swashbuckling, endeavoring businessman. And he comes to his brother with an idea for a new business. And that business involves the oil industry in Sheepshead Bay and the Russian mafia. And you can imagine that things don't go well from there, and they get into some serious trouble. And the movie at times, isn't utterly gripping thriller. There are some moments in this movie that I think are as good as any moments in James Cray's entire filmography, but I will. There was a. There's a moment in the film where the camera leans in on a photograph of Adam Driver in a policeman's uniform, and he looks exactly like my father. Like, there's just the home that Teller's family lives in. The brick home is the home that my mom grew up in. Like, there are so many weird details. And this sounds a little bit like, well, you would understand it if you don't have a kid. But he just kind of gets that world, which is his world. The film is extremely autobiographical, you can tell. Gets it so right. And for me, it obviously elevates it. And I'm already lacking a certain objectivity when it comes to James's films, but I really, really Liked this movie. What did you think?
- [45:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, this is a James Gray podcast. We're James Gray Stance. And this was the one where I was like, I need to be at this premiere. And it was a little bit, as you mentioned, because it was the American movie in competition and so kind of like the biggest stars. It had the Saturday night gala premiere, 9:30, and, you know, lots of curtain calls. So I wanted to be there for the fanfare. But also I wanted to see these actors that I really love in a director who I really love. So it's. It is a. It's a James Gray movie. So, you know, two thumbs up for me. It. It has Scarlett Johansson doing the. Well, we all know that I. I'm up and down with Scarlett Johansson, but. And I think she's good in this, but she's doing now what I'm going to call either the song Sung Blue or Mom Drag, which is like a, you know, a modern, glamorous actress putting on a bad wig and frumpy clothing and being like, ah, shucks, like I'm. I'm just a mom. And she's given more to do and there's emotional depths, but I'm starting to become slightly too resistant to this particular type of performance. Unlike everyone else, thinks she's the best thing in the movie. So, again, it's always your mileage will vary.
- [46:33]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. We had some interesting conversations in the aftermath of this movie with other critics and folks who covered films where some said, this is Gray's best film. This is his opportunity to break into the Oscar race after all these years of being such a critical favorite. And some were like, I hated it. And it's an interesting divide. I'm much more leaning towards this is his best film. But to me, it is not his best film. But it is so interesting the way it borrows from so many components of his other movies. I just spent a lot of time rewatching Little Odessa, his debut film, because I interviewed James for the Criterion Collection edition that they're putting out in August. And so I watched that movie maybe two or three times. And it's a movie about two brothers in Brighton beach who get mixed up in a world of crime and who have a complicated relationship with their families. The same is true for the Yards. The same is true for We Own the Night. The same is true for a lot of these. It's kind of a. It's almost like a collage, collusion of a lot of ideas that he's been working on over a 30 plus year period of time. The thing is, I thought the Scarlett Johansson performance worked because very similarly, she just sounded like my mom, that character. I was talking to David Earl, like the Indiewire critic whose family is also from that part of the world. And he was just like, that is what that woman sounds like. That's how she acts. And it can seem a little bit like drag when it's a movie star doing it, but I thought it was at least on point. Adam Driver in the movie is phenomenal. It is among the best things he's ever done. And his character is fascinating. And he's also a very familiar archetype to me of a certain kind of industrious New York guy. And also Miles Teller, who I think has been kind of mailing it in for the last five or six years. You can tell put in a lot of work on this movie. He looks good. And he sold his wonderful alcohol company. I'm happy.
- [48:25]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [48:25]
Sean Fennese
What was the name of it?
- [48:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Tall Drink. Long Drink.
- [48:29]
Sean Fennese
Long Drink. Long Drink. Long Drink. He sold Long Drink, and he's doing very well.
- [48:35]
Amanda Dobbins
Someone DM'd me being like, should I try Long Drink? Why are you DMing me? Just buy the. It's, you know, $5.
- [48:42]
Sean Fennese
We drank it on this podcast on the celebrity liquor. Taste it. It was pretty good. But I like Teller, too, so I think all three of those kind of core performances are good. Driver is. I'm kind of wondering now if Driver's going to win Best Actor here. Like, you know, if the movie does catch the Oscar heat, like, there's a campaign there for him.
- [49:03]
Amanda Dobbins
You think he'd be in Best Actor and not Best Supporting. That, to me, seems like a real supporting.
- [49:07]
Sean Fennese
Good strategy.
- [49:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Launchpad. Yeah. And then. And then he does. He walks away with every scene, but he. It is about the Miles Teller family. So I. He and ScarJo would both run in supporting, were I running it, because I don't care about category fraud.
- [49:24]
Sean Fennese
I think. I think that's really smart, and maybe. Maybe you would actually have a chance.
- [49:28]
Amanda Dobbins
He's dressed like Patrick Bateman most of the time, and it's quite powerful. Or, you know, like Gordon Gekko. It's. It's late mid, late 80s in New York, and he's wearing the suits, and it's powerful stuff.
- [49:41]
Sean Fennese
It's a movie about how if only this family, who is experiencing such turmoil, could have waited three months to watch the New York Mets win the World Series. That's really what it's all about. It's 1986. That's when it's set. We see a Mets banner on one of the Young Sun's walls.
- [49:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Right, but they aren't watching any Mets games.
- [49:58]
Sean Fennese
No, but if only they had let them see, get talked to them.
- [50:01]
Amanda Dobbins
We see Shay in the background, right?
- [50:03]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:04]
Amanda Dobbins
CGI and Shay.
- [50:05]
Sean Fennese
But I mean it's an elite, elite outer borough New York movie.
- [50:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Three minutes in, you turned to me and you were just like, this is where, this is it. This is me once again.
- [50:16]
Sean Fennese
I've been in all those houses. There's something to that. But yeah, so it'll be interesting to see how this is received because it has been divisive and Gray has just not been able to get over those humps. He hasn't won a prize here at Canon before. We'll see if he does this year. He hasn't been nominated for an Academy Award. There's definitely an original screenplay story to be told here. There's a bunch of acting opportunities potentially. This movie is coming from Neon, presumably in the fall, so we'll be talking about it again here soon.
- [50:45]
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- [52:54]
Sean Fennese
I'll talk about Minotaur and you talk about can Miasma. Okay? Okay.
- [52:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [53:01]
Sean Fennese
Minotaur is Andrei Zagistev's new film. It is a kind of not so loose remake of Claude Chabrol's the Unfaithful Wife, which is also probably best known to American audiences as the Adrian Lyon film Unfaithful, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere. And it is his version of that story, which is about a woman who's having an affair with a younger man and what happens when her husband finds out. This is set against the Ukraine, Russia war. And so this filmmaker, this Russian filmmaker who there's been a lot of press about him over the last five years and how he hasn't made a movie in some time and how he was very ill and I guess was perhaps dead for like 40 minutes a few years back, has kind of reemerged, left Russia and has made this new movie which portrays the ways in which kind of individual violence is mirrored and protected by state violence and the way that the kind of Russian oligarchy manages and navigates the way that individuals are allowed or not allowed to live in that country. Extremely interesting movie that plays for about an hour and a half as a pure thriller and then pivots in its final 45 minutes into being a much more clearly socially constructed metaphorical pursuit. I think it's very good. I'm a little reluctant to proclaim it great. Some of our colleagues here are proclaiming it great. You didn't get a chance to see this movie. It does feature very strong performances from a Russian cast that I'm not very familiar with. I found the overarching metaphor to be an inch obvious, but I do think it has incredible social import. And so because of that, I do think that the film is going to draw a lot of attention. And it is a filmmaker who has not won the pollen. Before he made Leviathan, he made Endless. He's made a bunch of movies now that are very, very well liked. And so I don't know if it's my resistance to it, in part, because what happens is you see a movie like Fjord and you're like, oh, well, that's what I want. That. That is. That feels like the best to me.
- [55:14]
Amanda Dobbins
You also want to be right, because you predicted Fjord last week. And so. And there is a bit of this where, you know, people hear critics, people on the street. I mean, we were stopped by a very nice listener, I believe, from the Netherlands, who was just like, minotaur. That's it. That's the one. And I'm fucked because for scheduling reasons, I couldn't get there. Also, I mean, I'm just pissed that I missed. I didn't. I didn't understand the premise and the connection to my beloved unfaithful in quite the way that. It's fine, I'll see the film and then we can.
- [55:47]
Sean Fennese
Part of my issue is I'm like, this is just unfaithful. You know, set in the world of a war in Russia.
- [55:56]
Amanda Dobbins
But let me say that I would watch an unfaithful every single year. I'm very, very pro that movie anyway. But there are people. Everyone is picking their winner, right? Everyone's picking their little bit of ground, being like, no, it's going to be Minotaur. No, it's going to be Fjord. No, it's going to be the Hamaguchi. So you picked your corner and you're defending your corner, and I think that's fine. It's good to believe in yourself.
- [56:25]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I like the movie. Iris Lebedeva, who plays the wife, gives an amazing performance. Anatoly Belly gives an amazing performance as the husband. It's a very good film, but. And maybe it will emerge triumphant. We will see. But talk about teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma.
- [56:45]
Amanda Dobbins
So this is the new Jane Schonbrunn film, and it premiered. It's also in Uncertain Regard and Club Kid, which is kind of like the. I mean, not to be rude, but sort of the JV leak. And it was the big premiere, so they brought the jury up on stage. And it stars Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbender and were both there and dressed up. It's not black tie required at the Uncertain Regard premieres, but people make their best effort. And this is. It will surprise no one to learn a meta slasher movie about a director who is trying to reinvent and kind of resuscitate an old genre like an old franchise, and goes to meet the Gloria Swanson esque star of the original franchise. In order to convince her to star in the new one. And then there are revelations about the self and one's relationship to screens and to life. It is definitely my favorite of the Jane Schoenbrun movies because it's many of the same themes and even some of the same executions. There are many Easter eggs and lots of recreations and homages. And it comes from real love of movies and knowledge of movies. It's like it's, it's playing, it's playing to the crowd, but also playing to personal interests and, but then also the themes of identity and sexual discovery and how hard it is to be in the world and, and what can make that easier? I found it a little more pop, honestly. There are a number of reasons for that, including that there is a. There's a whole plot line about the director's interactions with agents and Hollywood individuals. So they're, they're. It's less academic and more, more accessible, is what I would say. Some great music cues, and it certainly gets involved in the last third of the movie. But I was along for the ride, so I, I, I thought this movie was really interesting and a lot of fun. And yeah, I'm excited for other people to get to see it.
- [59:21]
Sean Fennese
This is the one I'm most jealous to have missed. And because I came a couple of days after you, I wasn't able to see it. Hopefully we'll be able to see it soon. It opens in August. And yeah, Jane was on the show for I Saw the TV Glow, which I thought was utterly fascinating, and frankly, a deep textual analysis of the relationship we have to slashers is like 9% of my personality. So I'm pretty excited about that movie. Let's talk about Fatherland. We're still in the good category right now that these are movies that we liked here at the festival. Fatherland is Pavlikowski's new film, his first film since Cold War. It is yet another black and white, beautifully shot movie with Lucas Zahl, the cinematographer. It stars Sandra Houler and Hans Zisler and August Diehl, three icons of German cinema. And it is about Thomas Mann, the German novelist, writer, philosopher, literary icon, his daughter Erika, and their return to Germany after World War II, after he and his family had fled during the rise in Nazi power. A very brief film. Sub 80 minutes long. Sub 75 minutes long.
- [60:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, 72, I think, was the clock that I checked, which is
- [60:48]
Sean Fennese
very different here from most of the other films, which are roughly two and a half hours each. And this is a very stately Thoughtful examination of cultural and national identity. Individual thought versus the state. Some similar ideas to Minotaur and Fjord here. It is a quiet movie. I did see a couple of people describe it as Melatonin esque. I liked it more than that.
- [61:14]
Amanda Dobbins
That's rude.
- [61:16]
Sean Fennese
I think so too. It was like this third film I saw here. And so I think I was very eager to have a kind of quality auteur effort. I think that's what it is. I think this is a good movie. I think Sandra Houler is amazing in it, as she often is in most things. And I think it had actually a little bit more verve. There's a party sequence that is a lot of fun.
- [61:38]
Amanda Dobbins
A beautiful sequence and an amazing opening sequence. Also very memorable one shot. But as I said to you, in the trilogy of black and white examinations of post war trauma, which is Eda, Cold War and now Fatherland, it's third. But that doesn't mean that it's bad. It just means that the other two are spectacular. And this is really good. And you know, it's variations on a theme, which is cool. We should let filmmakers, you know, try things for the most part. And. And much like the James Gray film, much like Paper Tiger, it is rewarding to be familiar enough with an auteur and their interests and their frame of reference to be able to compare and contrast. The Jane Schoenbrauman is also like that. So I'm. I'm totally with it, but it, you know, it's. It's not Eda, that's all. And when you're making a film in the same visual style and in the same thematic, like neighborhood, you know, you're. You're gonna. You're gonna think about it.
- [62:49]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, you are gonna think about it. Okay, let's talk about two more good movies and then we'll talk about the bad and the. What the fuck, because those are also fascinating. You want to talk about Nagi notes before I go last?
- [63:01]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. This was another early in competition movie. It's directed by Koji Fukada and based on a play. And it is another quiet movie about people discovering things and also with the way that the systems of the world perhaps inhibit them from discovering things. That's set in a small Japanese town, Nagi, where a woman comes home to. Yeah, she comes home or she comes to see like her ex sister in law and to like take a break from Tokyo. And it's about these people's lives and their, you know, their artists and their lost loves and also. And it's all set to the backdrop of a local military base and the training that is going on, which is just kind of like in the background setting the tone and setting the pace of the movie really. But again, it's about self discovery and also it's about making art. One of the characters is a sculptor, so it has a lot of that.
- [64:20]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Cool.
- [64:22]
Amanda Dobbins
I love it when filmmakers really figure out how to communicate the actual. The making, the physical making of the art and a lot of times spent on that. And it is like the Hamaguchi in that people over time hopefully learn something about themselves. But there is no. It's not quite as didactic, which is nice. It's more observed. But I thought it, I thought it, you know, lovely can sound reductive, but it is like a slightly wistful, lovely film.
- [64:58]
Sean Fennese
That's great. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
- [65:00]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, you got to have a couple of those at a film festival.
- [65:02]
Sean Fennese
You do. The last one is that I was able to pre screen this movie which is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's the Samurai and the Prisoner, which just screened last night and seems to be getting borderline rapturous reviews, which is very cool to see. Kurosawa has come up quite a bit on the show over the last two years, I would say. Veteran Japanese filmmaker, probably best known for Cure. Adam Neyman is a super fan and has very eloquently explained what makes him such a special director. He had Cloud last year, he had the short film Chime. He remade one of his own films, Serpent's Path, which was just released this year as well. He's having a moment. Kurosawa and this new movie is his first samurai film and it is a really interesting film. It's basically what if a sort of samurai Lord in 15th century Japan was also Sherlock Holmes and has to solve a series of mysteries while bunker down in a fortress during a time of a war between clans. And he takes a prisoner from the opposing side and that prisoner kind of becomes his Watson. And so Masahiro Motoki plays the Sherlock Holmes esque samurai and Masaaki Suda plays Kande, his kind of his Watson. And even though he's imprisoned in a basement, they kind of confer and they talk about the details of every mystery that keeps coming up. Really interesting movie, beautifully staged, incredible production design. It's missing just an inch of that insidious discomfort that I think comes in a lot of Kurosawa's best movies. It's not quite as funny as Cloud was to me, which I Thought was just a hilarious movie about dumb criminals, but not interesting to see a guy who's in his 60s, who's kind of an icon of Japanese cinema at this point, taking on what is widely considered the most hallowed genre to the culture and making something new and different, something that I've not seen before. And last night at the premiere of the film, there was this cool moment where all of the Japanese filmmakers who are present here, including Hirokazu, Koreda and Hamaguchi and a handful of others, where they're basically just to doff their caps and cite the influence that Kurosawa has had on their careers. So that's cool that that can happen. I kind of wish I had seen it there instead of alone in a screening room now, because it might have felt more of an ecstatic moment of arrival for that movie. But again, that movie is also out of competition, as are a bunch of these good films that we're talking about here that are not really competing for the Palm. And there's something kind of fascinating about. I don't know that I totally understand why this movie isn't in competition. I get the case for why Jane's movie and Jordan Firstman's movie are in certain regard. Jane's movie probably should be in competition, honestly, it's their third film. Their previous two films were huge critical sensations. They're becoming a big deal in indie cinema. Firstman, I get it. It's a debut. This movie, though. I'm like, this is a terrific genre mashup from a Japanese master. Why is this out of competition anyway? Maybe there are reasons that we don't understand, but this is one of those things where there's still, like. There's still unexplained, unexplored stuff even when you come here.
- [68:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, well, I mean, maybe one of the reasons. And again, we don't have access to Thierry's Google Docs to understand.
- [68:46]
Sean Fennese
Oh, but if we did.
- [68:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, yeah. You think Thierry is on Google Docs?
- [68:51]
Sean Fennese
Could be.
- [68:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Is that they had to make room for the great masters of world cinema, even if those films were not really up to par. Which perhaps takes us to the bad, which includes some of the greatest working filmmakers just not making their greatest films this year.
- [69:13]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. The second movie that I saw at the festival is Parallel Tales, Which.
- [69:17]
Amanda Dobbins
This was another 8:30 for you, right?
- [69:19]
Sean Fennese
It was. Yeah, yeah. You had seen this movie before me, because when I arrived, you and I did not immediately connect, even though we're staying in the same apartment. I didn't see you for, like, the first 24 hours. You said, I would have just spared you and said, you don't need to go see this. But this is Asghar Farhadi, Iranian filmmaker who is a Palme d' or winner, has made a great many terrific films over the last 25 years. A very skilled master making a French film with Isabelle Hubert and Benson Cassel and Virginia Fira And Catherine Deneuve shows up in this movie. It is a collection of French luminaries and it is a kind of soft adaptation of a handful of Krzysztof Kieslowski stories from the Decalogue. And I think red. It has some elements of red in it. And it's a snooze, man. It's boring and boring.
- [70:14]
Amanda Dobbins
It's doa.
- [70:15]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. It's just not very compelling. The performances are a little dull. It has a core idea in it that is actually somewhat similar to the idea in the Pedro Almodovar movie that we will talk about around creation and sort of like an author's vision and where those ideas come from. And in some ways they'd be a neat pairing. But what Almodovar does is so much more interesting and entertaining and ultimately resonant. We'll talk about that movie in a second. But this movie is just like, it's two and a half hours and dull.
- [70:49]
Amanda Dobbins
And Cass, Isabel Huppert as the old crone who doesn't get to leave her. It's like Isabelle who pairs Rear Window, except if Jimmy Stewart had no juice and there's no grayscale hate popping at any point, but you can't do that. And then Vincent Casales is cast. He plays a double role, but it's another man with no juice. And you're just kind of like, yes, hello, these are your French stars who have major juice. What are we doing here? And that's kind of the minute that you know, and you keep waiting like, oh, are you going to let Isabel Hubert outside? Is she going to get to do anything? And you know, she does not. And the movie doesn't know what to do with her or misuses her and misuses everyone else. I don't. I don't understand. And that was a real, like, why am I watching this movie? I did feel. The first few days I watched a lot of like, just, okay, wise of. There is absolutely. It's not even that I don't understand the personal connection. It's just. Did anyone. Was anyone here. What was interesting about this to any person and I. The premise sure but no, I mean,
- [71:59]
Sean Fennese
it raises a useful discussion also around the next film, which you didn't get a chance to see, but I saw it, which is Sheep in the Box, which is Correy's new movie. Now, Farhadi and Corrieda are both Palm winners. And so if they have a new film and they're directors with proven track records, it's probably hard to say to them, no, you're not going to be in competition this year. And so both of these movies are in competition. Corieda's film, on paper, sounds very familiar terrain for him as well. It's about a couple who are experiencing tremendous grief after losing a child. And so in order to counteract that grief, pursue a sort of robot AI replacement for their son, who looks, sounds, and mostly acts like their son. And we've seen stories like this before. We've seen Spielberg's AI and it felt like Corieda just did not know what to do with this idea. And the movie is kind of wandering, and at times it feels like it is kind of in defense of this particular conceit, and it wants to try to have empathy for the parents. But I found that the characterization of both of those figures, the mother and the father, was too vague to really get emotionally connected to. Obviously, the movie didn't look that great, and I found that surprising. It had a kind of, like, haloed glow on it. That and Coryda's films usually feel, like, so kind of grungy and in the. In the real world, you know, like, he won for Shoplifters, which is one of the more beautiful evocations of family and, like, what you're forced to do when you're in a family. And this was just a huge mess. Everybody in the room, you could tell, similarly, it just died. Like, it just.
- [73:46]
Amanda Dobbins
This one, you said, I didn't get a chance to see it. And by that you mean you told me, like, you really do not have to go see it. Go see something else. And. And there was. I met no defenders, so I did actually just skip the. Create a movie at can in competition, which felt a little heretical. But I. You know, there's no one saying this was a good idea.
- [74:10]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, it happens, you know, like, in any filmmaker's career. Like, you just. You do one and it doesn't work. And the Faraday didn't work, the creator didn't work. And honestly, John Lennon, the last interview, I don't think worked, but for a very specific reason. And so we should talk about it. This is Steven Soderbergh's. New documentary. As much as this is a James Gray podcast, this is a Steven Soderbergh podcast we love.
- [74:31]
Amanda Dobbins
And a Beatles podcast.
- [74:32]
Sean Fennese
And a Beatles podcast until the four
- [74:36]
Amanda Dobbins
movies, in which case it's over.
- [74:38]
Sean Fennese
Then it's not a podcast anymore. So the Last Interview is a chronicle of the last interview interview that John Lennon gave to three San Francisco radio hosts in. Is it 1980, when he passed?
- [74:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [74:55]
Sean Fennese
In the year that he passed.
- [74:58]
Amanda Dobbins
On the day.
- [74:59]
Sean Fennese
Yes. Well, I didn't want to spoil that. I don't know. That was actually a revelation to me that he did. It doesn't matter. It's a known fact in the world. But upon the release of Double Fantasy, his album with Yoko. Oh, no, no. They both sat for this extended interview with these radio hosts. And so the movie is a kind of chronicle of how they got the interview, how the host pursued it. And there is interviews with all three hosts. And then much of the film is the audio of the conversation between Yoko, Lennon and these hosts. And it uses a lot of your kind of standard archival music documentary and a lot of photographs, a lot of, you know, speaking over images that we would recall from the period of Lenin and Ono's lives. And it's an amazing interview. And both Lenin and Ono speak insightfully. I think they have a ton of prescience about where culture's going. It's interesting to watch them talk about their pasts, their love lives. His notions of fatherhood I found to be super interesting. I don't know that I had ever read this interview or heard it before. And so in that way, even though there's just, frankly, too many John Lennon documentaries, the text I thought was interesting. And we knew this going into the festival. Soderbergh makes this choice to solve a problem that I have thought about and that I have worked with filmmakers on in making music documentaries, which is, what do you do when you don't have enough archival footage to help tell the entirety of a music story? Because music, of course, is an audio art form. And Soderbergh chose to use AI to animate some of the themes and literal ideas that Lenin is talking about. And it's just a fiasco. It's just a disaster. It looks like grok AI images of, you know, very obviously not very elegant constructions of these ideas. And it's distracting and weird and feels way out of place and kind of
- [77:09]
Amanda Dobbins
torpedoed the movie for me a thousand percent. Listen, Steven Soderbergh is my guy, and he likes to try things, and, you know, everyone can Try things once. So if this is the experiment and then it's done, we tried it, it didn't work, we move on, then I'm okay. But this categorically does not work. And it's not just an ethical AI, you know, don't use AI, you know, replacing like actual filmmakers and humans. All of which I believe, by the way. But it's actually in the execution. All of the AI descriptions look like what your mom or grandma would produce when typing into, like Sora or whatever. I don't even know what exists anymore because I've never done it. But they are so literal and it looks so bad. It's a useful case for, hey, actually, AI is not a helpful tool in filmmaking because there are many bad sequences, but there's one with some cavemen and also some imagined Napoleon battlefield shots where you're just like, well, how did this get past you, Steven Soderbergh? I mean, I guess you were just committed at this point and were.
- [78:32]
Sean Fennese
All the other components are just so normal and well handled. So it really sticks out. And I agree that it is clearly an experiment. And let's see what this can manifest. And frankly, maybe made by a movie who doesn't spend all of his time online. And if you are online and you see these images, they represent something different. They represent. There's kind of a cheapening of art. And if you're not living in that world, and frankly, if you're not living in that world, congratulations. That sounds amazing. But it still looks.
- [79:04]
Amanda Dobbins
If he's not online, he's got a screensaver and he's seeing what those look like. And this is worse. So I just very, very confusing. I guess we've all learned together that this is not an option.
- [79:18]
Sean Fennese
So.
- [79:18]
Amanda Dobbins
And maybe that's good. So now we know the technology is not ready. This doesn't work. It's not a good idea. We'll all move on
- [79:26]
Sean Fennese
briefly.
- [79:27]
Amanda Dobbins
That's going to happen.
- [79:29]
Sean Fennese
No, no, I think it's going to take over and we're going to be out of jobs. And then soon there'll be Skynet and we'll all be dead. That's what I think is going to happen.
- [79:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Great.
- [79:37]
Sean Fennese
Briefly, speaking of our imminent demise, I saw a colony, which I was pretty excited about and disappointed me. It's Yeon Sang Ho's new movie who directed Train of Busan, which is one of the best zombie movies of all time, about a train full of zombies. And he is like George Romero returns over and over again to zombie storytelling. This new one has a really cool idea. Really cool idea, which is that the zombies in this film, which there's an outbreak after a scientist develops a kind of concoction that infects people and makes them craze zombies, but they operate as like a hive mind. And he uses the technology after studying ant colonies. And so they operate like ants. And so the actual zombie core ideas are very cool in this movie. But the movie features no real characters of interest and totally fine performances and leaden storytelling. And it has like one or two cool action set pieces. But it was a big disappointment because I like Yeon Sang Ho's movies quite a bit. It did remind me a little bit of another Asian action film that we will talk. A South Korean action film that we will talk about momentarily. I don't know. Did you want to talk about Butterfly Jam at all?
- [80:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. So this opened Director's Fortnite, which is another category here at Cannes. And it's directed by Kantamir Baligoff, who was here at Cannes with Beanpole. And it stars a lot of actors, you know, Barry Keoghan, Harry Melling, Riley Keough. And is. It explores masculinity in like, in New Jersey, in a particular Circassian, I think. Yeah, Immigrant community. And so I thought that everyone was being a little mean about it because it got really panned really, really very early on in the festival. But it's quite uneven. There is an entire subplot about a teenage wrestler and. And the. I didn't. There's a lot going on that just doesn't make sense. It looks very nice. The. The good actors aren't bad. But you know, this is another one where this is a director who's been to Cannes before, who's gotten some acclaim. And so the film's here, but it's not in competition. It's not even an uncertain regard. So you kind of know going in, I doubt anyone's super happy. But yeah, it doesn't work.
- [82:11]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I probably will end up seeing this, but not a very strong reception for that one. Let's talk about the WTF a little bit. And there are different ways to define the WTF films this year. We'll first talk about Hope, which is Na Hong Jin's new film, his first film in 10 years that is in competition. And you and I attended the Sunday night black tie gala premiere of yes at 9:30.
- [82:38]
Amanda Dobbins
And the. And the reason we did that is because there was. There was chatter and there was discussion that this could be a Palm contender. And so I said to you, if it is we want to be there in the room for it. You know, we don't want to be next door, 30 minutes later in the press.
- [83:01]
Sean Fennese
Yes, you want to see the standing ovation. You want to see how it's received by the people. We haven't really talked about the ovations, but that is very much a thing and we can talk about that.
- [83:09]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, they're really fake. They're like faker than everything else. And usually just people clapping politely while looking at their phones, led on by the very hardworking movie teams who are trying to keep the ovation going for as long as possible. And listen, those people deserve our respect. They, they do a lot to make this happen.
- [83:28]
Sean Fennese
They are artists.
- [83:31]
Amanda Dobbins
But you know, we knew that it was going to be like a high energy action creature movie because we saw a little bit of the footage at Cinemacon and it came after many days of, you know, the inner lives of Europeans and which is the theme of this festival and every festival. And we were like, we need, we like, we need something different. Like we need a vibe shift. You know, we just, we need some oomph. And we want to see it on the biggest screen possible. And if it is going to be that exciting thing, we want to be there with people cheering or see if people cheer or see how it plays. And isn't it funny that they're going to do this for all of these fusty people in Texas? And I will say it was funny that they did this for all these fusty people in Texas.
- [84:19]
Sean Fennese
And it was exactly what you just described. It was an incredible change of pace. And if I liked it, it's in part because of that. It was so different from anything else that we had experienced. It is hilarious that they put this in competition because it could not be further from a competition movie as we historically understand it. Na is a very respected filmmaker. The Wailing is a beloved horror movie from 2016, but he's not exactly classy. He makes really nasty, violent movies. And Hope is a massive Michael Bay esque alien invasion thriller and features frankly some of the most exhilarating action sequences that you'll see this year or really probably this decade. But also features really bad monster CGI and very little characterization of any human people. And it maybe aspires to a couple of social ideas about kind of closed off communities and how we don't understand each other. But like, it's not really working too hard to do. Yeah, I mean, apparently in all the directors, in the director's statement, there's like pans to that, you know, like when two communities that don't understand each other could be like, have conflict, here's what happens. But like that's not what the movie is. The movie is a big. It's a. It's a bug hunt movie. You know, it's a chase movie.
- [85:39]
Amanda Dobbins
What's the other community? The aliens.
- [85:41]
Sean Fennese
The aliens, yeah.
- [85:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. I mean, sure. They definitely don't understand each other well
- [85:47]
Sean Fennese
because something critical happens to one of the families in the film and that leads to like a series of destructive moments.
- [85:56]
Amanda Dobbins
That is true. A couple things about this movie. Number one, it starts with what a 45 minute opening set piece hunt that is exhilarating and amazing to watch and so exciting. And crucially, pre cgi it is before you see any of the bugs. So it builds both on the dread and the fear, but is also just chasing all around this town. Like amazing choreography. Really, really exciting. And that got full applause when it was done as if someone were singing an aria in an opera. It was awesome. Second thing is that there's a moment
- [86:39]
Sean Fennese
where Hoyeon from Squid Game shows up that is like the room burst into applause. It was just like rock and roll James Cameron action movie moment.
- [86:50]
Amanda Dobbins
And again. So that's why I'm glad that we made the decision to get dressed up and go see it with all the other people. The other thing that I knew about this movie going in and that has been billed and they were there on the red carpet was that Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russer, Taylor Russell are in this movie. How they're used in this movie is not something I knew going in. And I don't want to spoil anything other than to say that it wasn't what I expected. And the moment when I realized that that was what was happening, I was like, oh, okay. So this is the kind of movie that this is going to be. Also you realize that about an hour and a half in, you kind of keep waiting and keep waiting. This is a long movie.
- [87:35]
Sean Fennese
It is 2 hours and 40 minutes.
- [87:37]
Amanda Dobbins
It is really, really long. I don't know if it needs to be that long.
- [87:42]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, here's what I'll say. One, I had a really good time.
- [87:46]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, it was fun.
- [87:47]
Sean Fennese
I really enjoyed it. I think it is very flawed and that's okay. Most movies like this are. I'm a Michael Bay fan. I'm a fan of the erector set filmmaking and there's some extraordinary production design in this movie in terms of creating the chaos. The only thing that really feels like cgi, all the time are the aliens. Everything else feels deeply real in this kind of burned out, post apocalyptic, presumably Korean setting. But actually, NA was sort of being playful and saying, is this movie even set on Earth? I didn't say it was. So something kind of funny about that too.
- [88:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. I mean, yeah, some incredible science corners for everyone once the movie is widely seen.
- [88:25]
Sean Fennese
Yes. And I think it's coming out this summer and so we'll talk about it again. But it looks like it's unfinished, effectively. The CGI is not clean. And click. Yeah, there are moments where it's very bad and then also, as you said, it's just too long. And I'm a little reluctant to levy that criticism too often on the show because I like long movies and I want filmmakers to be able to stretch out. But this is a rollicking action movie. It's not a personal drama. And unlike, say, the Hamaguchi movie, you don't get to the third hour of the film and feel like, oh, wow, this patience really paid off. It's just a series of action sequences over and over and over again. So I actually think they would do really well to cut about 20 minutes out of the movie, and it would really help the movie. But I still had a great time. Fascinating to watch the stuffy Euros in the room be utterly baffled by it.
- [89:15]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, and that is a little bit of the genius of the Cannes Film Festival, to your point. It's really, really funny that this was in competition and got a gala premiere. And it's maybe coloring, like the reception of. From those stuffy people and from everyone saying, oh, this shouldn't be in competition. But also brings a lot of attention to the festival and the movie and its own way. It's very savvy. Like, you got to make moments, and there are many different ways to make moments. And this was a really funny moment.
- [89:45]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I felt this immediately after this good screen. I woke up the next morning, I was like, I'm so glad we came for this. Like, that was just. It was just really a lot of fun. Also in wtf, one of the highlights of the festival for me was getting a chance to see the Devils, which is Ken Russell's long simmering, but difficult to watch Masterpiece, starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave about a real life French city. Loudun in the. I don't want to get their century wrong. I'll say 16th century, but I think that's wrong. That goes absolutely ape shit. And the movie, which was released by Warner Brothers, was considered an Absolute scandal at the time. Features some wildly aggressive and some considered anti Christian imagery. Extremely violent and sexual, and it's like one of the masterpieces of the 1970s. I'd seen the movie before, but I'd never seen this director's cut, which Russell helped to oversee before he passed away. The screening itself was amazing. It was one of the absolute toughest tickets at Cannes. I was very lucky to score a ticket, thanks to a friend. And it's the first project from Clockwork, which is this new imprint that Warner Brothers has just launched. They're producing the new Sean Baker film. They also announced some other news that they're producing the next park Chain Wook film, which apparently they picked up here at market during Cannes. And they're also distributing through Warner Brothers this 1973 All Time Classic that has just very rarely been seen. And even in the screening, I would say 90% of the people who were there had never seen it before. They raised their hands beforehand during an introduction with Mark Kermode, the incredible British critic who I got to spend a little bit of time with, which was also a real highlight for me because he's such an icon. And yeah, the movie was extraordinary. I'd only seen it on a shitty dvd and it just took my breath away and was hilarious in many ways. And the sequence that was missing from the original cut of the movie has been put back in at least one sequence that I could tell that was shocking and fun. And I hope people get a chance to watch it when it comes to movie theaters in October in the United States, which is a very cool thing. The Clockwork is doing. Okay, let's talk about the unknown. Arthur Harari is the co writer of Anatomy of a Fall and Justine Tree, his life partner. And he has made quite a hilarious new film about transubstantiation, a Kafkaesque story of what happens when you fuck a stranger. Not when you.
- [92:19]
Amanda Dobbins
In a club basement.
- [92:20]
Sean Fennese
Yes, in a club basement. Not fuck a stranger in the ass as announced in the Big Lebowski, but literally have sexual intercourse with a person you don't know, who is perhaps haunted by some sort of demon force and allows that sexual act to then transpose your soul and brain into another person.
- [92:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, well, I guess it's not. It's not very specific about what. What is being transferred and. Right. And that's the exploration is what is. What is the self, and what part of the self remains? And what part of the self is trapped in Lea Sedu's body?
- [92:58]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, real head scratcher of A movie kind. Pretty effective, I thought. I thought very unnerving and upsetting. A real downbeat, difficult European film. Shades of David lynch, shades of Bunuel. Not a fun hang of a movie. Lesey du has 25 lines of dialogue over a two and a half hour film. She's the star, she's always good, but she is not given too much to play here. I found myself enjoying kind of unpacking the idea, but also, this is a movie that people are like, this is a one star disaster. So your mileage may vary on the unknown.
- [93:37]
Amanda Dobbins
I thought it was silly. Good premise. Right? And you and I have had a lot of fun, you know, arguing the. The specifics of it and its repercussions and what it's even trying to say about the morals or ethics of having sex with a stranger in a club basement. But I. I'm not sure what I learned, you know, which is maybe that's a little on me for not fully emotionally investing. I will say it didn't really capture my. You kind of almost warned me off it because you're like, it's not an Amanda movie. And it's really grim and a tough hang. And I guess maybe I was just tired, but I didn't find it that difficult to watch. Like, again, I thought we were setting up for something really messed up, and instead it was just kind of, you know, what if. What if you could fuck your way into someone else's body?
- [94:29]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, it's unpleasant, for sure. Okay, let's ping through some European excursions. We briefly mentioned Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodovar's new film, which is already open here in Europe, but has not come to the United States yet. And another movie that through an hour and a half, I was like, wow, what a fiasco. And then in the last 15 minutes, I was like, delightful. Absolutely terrific, terrific. And I kind of don't want to say anything else about it because it would almost ruin what I think. I think was in part, the design of the film, which is all about inspiration and where Almodovar takes his ideas from and the experiences he witnesses in real life and the way that that continues to become a part of his art. But just an absolutely hysterical final 15 minutes of this movie that I really enjoyed.
- [95:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. And also has, once again, like, a perfect apartment. And I'm wondering now whether I should cut my hair to the length of the main character. You know, it has all of the Almodovar style and a lot of wit and knowingness as well, which I appreciated. But, yeah, we Won't spoil the ending. I was pro.
- [95:42]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I was, too. And, you know, back working in his native Spain after making an American feature and some shorts in the English language. And it's just very comfortable, clearly, working with these actors, a bunch of actors that he's worked with before, Barbara Linney. And so I would definitely recommend that one. Yeah. I didn't see the Beloved, though. You did.
- [95:59]
Amanda Dobbins
I did. And I paired it here with Bitter Christmas for a couple reasons. It is also a Spanish film directed by Rodrigo Sorgoyan and stars Javier Bardem. And I can best describe it as Normie Spanish Sentimental Value. Javier Bardem plays a filmmaker who is making a film set on the Canary Islands, which is also where part of Bitter Christmas is filmed. We see the tourism jeep in both, and he casts his daughter, his adult daughter, who he doesn't have much relationship with in this film that he is making. And so then it is about the exploration of their relationship and. And making a film and art and what you can mean to each other as parents or as directors. And she's an actress. I mean, it opens with a scene in a restaurant, just like the scene in Sentimental Value when Stellan Skarsgrd gives her Renata Rensvie the script and is like, I want you to star in this. It's much longer. I found that cinematography is very obnoxious, but there's one really great set piece, like a making of a movie set piece, that you're a movie. If you're a movie nerd, you get really into it and it's funny, and then it becomes, like, very emotional. And it's like. I mean, it's not the silent film scene from Babylon, but it kind of. It encapsulates it all. And I was really excited by that scene and that performance. I always like Javier Bardem, so I was not uncharmed by this, you know.
- [97:42]
Sean Fennese
Okay, I'm going to check it out.
- [97:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Unfortunately, again, it's normie sentimental value, but, you know, I'm a normie, I guess.
- [97:52]
Sean Fennese
Okay, tell us about a woman's life in Gentle Monster.
- [97:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. Speaking of the inner lives of Europeans and. Or women who cannot have it all. So A Woman's Life is directed by Charlene Bourgeois Teke. And it is about a woman of a certain age who is a surgeon, and she's working and she's living, and she's trying to figure out how much she wants to work and how much she wants to live. And then she meets someone else and explores love. And then that also kind of recombobulates how much she wants to work and how much she wants to live. It was fine. It wasn't bad. There were a few things that made me chuckle, including at one moment when, you know, because she's a surgeon and so they're moving. There's a lot of administrative headache, which I thought was portrayed well. It can be annoying when people. When you're managing stuff and people aren't doing whatever, but she just yells, the dentists are stealing our supplies. And I have thought about that a lot, just out of context.
- [99:02]
Sean Fennese
It's funny, you're an anti otherwise, as always.
- [99:05]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, sure, but the dentists come in and they're stealing her supplies. It's not nice. I met a lovely listener here who said that the movie is divided into chapters and one of the subtitles was essentially having it all. And this lovely listener was like, I thought of you, Amanda, as soon as it said having it all. So I guess that is my influence. But, you know, this. This to me is representative of the. The canon really, in any film festival trend of. This is a festival set in France. And so we're going to have a certain number of movies starring French actors, about French, about, like, the lives inner or outer of Europeans. And that's fine, you know, everybody's got to do what they're going to do. The Other Gentle Monster is written and directed by Marie Kreutzer, who made Corsage, which we both really liked. And this one stars Lea Seydoux. And I thought that. And it's another movie about the lives of French people. In this case, Lea Seydoux plays a French mom who husband is arrested within the first 15 minutes on charges of child pornography sales or, you know, whatever is going on in that world that I don't really want to know anything about. So it is really grim and tough because it's. What is this mom going to do as her husband is accused of and goes through the system for these absolutely heinous charges? And it doesn't. I mean, it obviously doesn't show anything, but it's like. It is like, grim. It uses. It doesn't shy away from the subject matter. It makes you feel really bad. It also does the thing of that fjord. It's the opposite of fjord, where it, like, really kind of makes things very clear to you. You don't wonder what's going on. Everyone but Lea Seydoux seems to have figured out what's going on. So you just feel real bad. There's a harebrained plot involving the investigator that is Maybe trying to teach us something again about how, you know, women have to deal with men's imperfections and are always at a disadvantage. But that doesn't work at all. And I thought it was kind of trashy, honestly. I think it tries to get to some sort of revelation beyond the Hallmark movie of it all, but it doesn't. And once again, Lea Seydoux doesn't really get that much to do except to, oh, I guess she's kind of Bjork. She's like a Bjork as pop star artist. So that's cool. Again, there's a lot going on in this movie. None of it adds up to anything. Catherine Dene, Bingo. Once again, she's the. She's the mom. A concert pianist of her own. It's like. It's messy. It is. It's provocative, but doesn't deliver. And. And as also feel bad because it's about pedophilia. So good luck to everyone.
- [102:30]
Sean Fennese
But, no, I skipped this one. Yeah. There's a couple of other movies that we haven't seen yet or haven't seen at all. We both missed Mulan, which is Lazlo Nemesis new film. We missed Garance, which is a new Adele Xar Chopolis movie, which I'm actually kind of interested in. And I read some reviews of it that sounded intriguing to me. I'm still here for a couple more days, so I'll be seeing Lucas Daunt's Coward film, La Bola Negra, which is Spanish movie that is generating some buzz that premieres tomorrow. And the Man I Love, which is Iris Sachs new film and one of the only other American films here at the festival. We did see Avedon, which I thought was a very good portrait of Richard Avedon, the famed fashion photographer. And Ron Howard directed it, and he was here at camp and presented the movie at our screening. And pretty standard, but comprehensive. And this is now the third consecutive documentary that Howard has made after Pavarotti and Jim Henson Idea man, where I'm like, I'm glad I watched that. Learned a lot, went down easy. Thoughtful, really good interviews. He kind of got everyone that you would want to hear from, I would say, maybe with the exception of Adam Wintour. And, yeah, I thought it was effective.
- [103:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Also, that's one where you have enough archival to work with. I mean, there are a lot of
- [103:53]
Sean Fennese
interviews, tons of Abaddon. Yeah.
- [103:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes, exactly. Which is really helpful. But you could just. Just you can and do look at the photographs for a long time. And there are no AI Cavemen, so thumbs Up.
- [104:04]
Sean Fennese
That was a relief. Okay, let's do some brief predictions here. Okay, gut check. Based on everything you've seen and heard, what do you think is winning the Palme Door?
- [104:14]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm going to zag because I think the. The jury might sag, and I think it's going to be the. The Hamaguchi.
- [104:20]
Sean Fennese
Okay, that's interesting. Hamaguchi did not win for Drive my car in 2021, and that was considered a bit of a snub at the time. And the film went on to have this incredible run where it got nominated for best Picture at the Academy Award. It's still one of the wildest best picture noms in the history of the Oscars. Park Shin Wook is the jury president, and so I am certainly wondering if we are all playing the game wrong somehow. One of the reasons why people thought Hope had a chance to potentially win the Palm before anyone saw it is because, you know, Na is also a South Korean filmmaker. It's a genre movie. I think I'm gonna. I am gonna pivot my prediction to Minotaur now because of.
- [105:05]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay, you think that's where the.
- [105:08]
Sean Fennese
Just the murder plot quality of it, you know, that comes from that story that, you know, it's a movie that has, like, some stuff in common with decision to leave. And so I don't know how aggressive park is gonna be. To me, it really does feel like it's between Fjord and this movie. Maybe the Bolo Negra, like, breaks through near the end of the festival, too. That's all. There's. That's also a possibility. But I like that you're predicting all of a sudden, and I'll go officially with Minotaur, but frankly, I'm rooting for Fjord.
- [105:40]
Amanda Dobbins
This is like F1 in best picture all over again. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?
- [105:47]
Sean Fennese
Well, because I just can't help but overthink these things, you know? Okay, so then the Grand Prix, what do you think is going to win the second place prize?
- [105:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Let's see. I'll go with Fjord.
- [106:02]
Sean Fennese
Okay. All of a sudden.
- [106:04]
Amanda Dobbins
And. And Fjord, Sentimental value won the Grand Prix last year, Right? Did so. Different movies. I guess I'm just being, you know, too Scandinavian here, but they. They could occupy a similar spot for me. Okay.
- [106:21]
Sean Fennese
Jerry Price.
- [106:24]
Amanda Dobbins
And that's just for the one. You could see that going to Hope. Right? Have a little fun.
- [106:29]
Sean Fennese
Oh, that would be fun. That would be fun.
- [106:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [106:32]
Sean Fennese
Okay. I'll get on board with you on that.
- [106:34]
Amanda Dobbins
You don't have to throw something else Out.
- [106:37]
Sean Fennese
Best.
- [106:37]
Amanda Dobbins
Best.
- [106:38]
Sean Fennese
No, no, I think that's. I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know what else could possibly be contending. That's the thing is when you've got this situation where you've got Club Kid and you've got teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma, like, those movies are not up for these prizes. Samurai and the Prisoner is not up for those prizes. I think I'll stick with Hope on the jury prize. That would just be really funny if that happens. Best director. Pavlikowski.
- [107:07]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Could see it, right? Yeah, it's currently. I checked this morning, and it's still leading the Fatherland is still leading the Cannes critics, which is very unscientific for a number of reasons.
- [107:20]
Sean Fennese
It is, but it is indicative typically of prize winners. And he's very admired as a filmmaker, so that feels like where it's going. Okay, actor and actress thoughts?
- [107:36]
Amanda Dobbins
You throw some out.
- [107:39]
Sean Fennese
Here's my gut right now. It'll be driver and actor for Paper Tiger.
- [107:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, interesting.
- [107:47]
Sean Fennese
And maybe Leah say do for the Unknown as an acknowledgment of her contributions here.
- [107:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [107:54]
Sean Fennese
You know, that feels like something that could happen.
- [107:59]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [108:00]
Sean Fennese
I can see Chandra Hooler is also possible for Fatherland. See that as well.
- [108:05]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. But no, I think director and then, you know, this festival is proud of its. It's French actors and actresses. And I know that the. The jury is separate. There are a lot of Americans on the jury. Have you been following the jury fashion competition at all?
- [108:21]
Sean Fennese
I haven't.
- [108:22]
Amanda Dobbins
They're. They're really using this to debut their looks. They're spending a lot of time and money. The women, at least. Okay, that's good. I like it. I. You know, Leah said you put in the work even if it didn't deliver. She's. She's doing her best.
- [108:39]
Sean Fennese
Has she ever won? I know she's won best up and coming actress. I don't know if she's ever won best Actress at Cannes. I don't think so. Something to keep in mind. I could be wrong about that. Okay, Last prize is best Screenplay.
- [108:56]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, I'd really like for it to be James Gray for Paper Tiger. It's a wish casting thing.
- [109:05]
Sean Fennese
Definitely could happen.
- [109:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [109:06]
Sean Fennese
Happen. Best scene. I think he should get. There's a scene at the end of the movie that is.
- [109:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [109:11]
Sean Fennese
Unreal. That is. It is. I don't want to spoil it, but it's amazing. Who's winning? Uncertain Regard. Teenage Sex and Death or Club Kid.
- [109:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Club Kid. You Think I'm wrong?
- [109:25]
Sean Fennese
I don't know. I don't know. Club Kid's very American.
- [109:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. And it's not been an American festival, but we were remarking after Paper Tiger and this was the first week. The end of the first week was Paper Tiger. But the three titles that people were most excited about were Can Miasma, Club Kid and Paper Tiger, the American films in a very un American film festival. So things have loosened up a bit. But it's a different jury for Uncertain Regard. And it's, you know, Miasma is definitely more. More mainstream than any of the other films. But there's just kind of something irresistible. Club Kid, you just settle right in and it's irresistible.
- [110:21]
Sean Fennese
Any thoughts on the Camera Door, the best first film prize? See that? See, to me, you could go cam. Miasma for Uncertain regarding the Camera Door could go to Firstman. That feels like a way to kind of split the baby.
- [110:33]
Amanda Dobbins
Do the juries collaborate in that way? Is there, like, backroom dealing? Because it can go from any.
- [110:41]
Sean Fennese
Okay, I'm but a naive first timer here at camp, so I haven't dug into the rules.
- [110:50]
Amanda Dobbins
What do you think? You think it's going to. You think it's going to split?
- [110:55]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, I mean, maybe it'll be something completely different. You know, it could be a movie that we're not. It could be La Bolo Negra. It could be something completely different. You know, like we didn't mention, like Rami Malek, people seem to think has a chance for best Actor here. We haven't. I haven't seen that Iris X film yet. But he's in. He's the star of the Man I Love. So there's still some. Some things to be played out. But I think by. At this time two years ago and Nora had not yet premiered at the festival. So it's like we feel like we're recording late, but there's still a lot of festival to go. So it's a little. It's impossible to be accurate with these predictions. Also, who knows? It's all based on the jury. It's not. It's not a point scoring system. It's what is. How do Demi Moore and Park Chan Wook speak to each other on this jury? I genuinely don't know.
- [111:39]
Amanda Dobbins
I hope, but I hope I would like to know. Yeah.
- [111:42]
Sean Fennese
Yes, I would, too. Oscar implications. We should at least briefly mention this because coming out of last year, I think north of 10 films that premiered or north of 10 nominations from films that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival hit last year including the bulk of the international feature slate. Two movies in best Picture, multiple acting categories, multiple screenplay nominations that included. It was just that accident. Sentimental Value, the Secret Agent Seurat. There were a number of movies here last year that really made their way into the awards season. I'm kind of interested to see if that's the case this year. There is a part of me that thinks that maybe not a lot of these movies make it in and maybe only one or two based on what I've seen so far. What do you think?
- [112:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, they've revamped international a bit this year. Not as much as we would like, but that there can be multiple submissions from a single country.
- [112:41]
Sean Fennese
If they win a prize at a festival.
- [112:43]
Amanda Dobbins
If they won a prize. Oh, right. So who did we, who did we predict in this? We predicted Fjord or Minotaur. Yeah, I don't know.
- [112:53]
Sean Fennese
Like, if Hamaguchi wins a prize here, you could. Japan could. Could. Or maybe, I don't know, maybe France would. I maybe is all of a sudden it's considered a French film. And, and so France could have two submissions based on this film, potentially winning a prize here.
- [113:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, but see, but it is also that this is a year where aside from the French films, we're seeing like, you know, one from each country. So it's. It's like it's maybe moot, at least in the Cannes lineup. I don't know. I think you know Fjord for sure because it has those recognizable Hollywood or Hollywood crossover stars. You've. I, I am so mad about Minotaur, but it does seem like it will break through. And it has enough common with movies that people are familiar with to be like, oh, sure, I'll check out this version.
- [113:46]
Sean Fennese
It's been a while since there's been a big Russian breakthrough that hasn't been super strong in recent years.
- [113:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, I mean, it does feel like all of the. All of the auteurs who made like, decent to good movies, so Pavlikowski for Fatherland and James Gray for Paper Tiger and you know, Hamaguchi for all of a sudden will be in the conversation because they have name recognition from previous films. And it's almost like it's the ghosts of Cannes past doing the work in order to let these through. I don't. I can't tell what any surprises would be yet, but again, there's more Cannes to go and there are more movies to go.
- [114:27]
Sean Fennese
Yeah. And you gotta go. You gotta go to. You gotta go to your train.
- [114:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, you gotta come with me, actually.
- [114:32]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, we're gonna carry some bags. You're going to Paris. I'm going to see more movies. You happy that we made this happen?
- [114:41]
Amanda Dobbins
I really am. Thank you for. Thank you for doing this with me. I'll say that off mic, too, but I'm very grateful and it was really fun, and I want to come back. Also, thanks to everyone we met who listens and who said hello is really nice. You guys are all very cool and international, and I'm not sure why you need to hear from two people podcasting from their apartment, but we appreciate it. It was wonderful to meet everybody.
- [115:07]
Sean Fennese
It was so sweet how everyone was like, this is your first can. They were like, they were excited for us. They seemed to know that. I know it was really nice. It's been very special to just wait in line and hang out and talk to people. And that's one thing I do love about going to film festivals, is just kind of making new friends every day and connecting with people and just talking movies all day. It's a really, really lucky thing for us. And as always, me and you, we always travel well together. We had a lot of fun.
- [115:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, it was good. It was great. So see you next year.
- [115:34]
Sean Fennese
Yeah, we'll see. Mom. I want to say thank you to Jack Sanders, our producer, and Lucas Kavanaugh and Sarah Reddy for being up at ungodly hours to record this episode because we are in Europe. Thank you to all three of them for helping us arrange this. If this episode doesn't look that good, I'm sorry. This is the best that we could do. That's really all I have to say about it. We will be back next week. You will return from Europe, as will I, and we will go see the Mandalorian and Grogu with our children, and
- [116:05]
Amanda Dobbins
we'll take our not together.
- [116:07]
Sean Fennese
And, you know, early word, not strong. I'll say. But, you know, you never know. Star wars could be back, could not be back. We'll talk about it all next week on the Big Picture. Thank you for spending this time with us at Cannes. We'll see you very soon.