Meanwhile, in Cannes… Godard and Belmondo are resurrected, Pedro Pascal challenges Trump, Bono has a big head

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CANNES REVIEW , DAY FIVE. Richard Linklater takes Cannes back sixty years to the era of "Breathless," while Hafsia Herzi impresses with a subtle film. "Eddington," meanwhile, seems like a serious contender for the Palme d'Or.

Three new contenders for the Palme d'Or were presented on Saturday, May 17: "Die, My Love," by British director Lynne Ramsay, starring megastars Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence, "Renoir" by Hayakawa Chie, and "Nouvelle Vague" by Richard Linklater. After four days of the festival, the first favorites are emerging (the name of Nadia Melliti, the actress from "La Petite Dernière," thus keeps coming up for the Best Actress award), but the competition is still long.

“New Wave”: “Motor, Raoul!”

A reconstruction of the filming of "Breathless" and 1960s Paris by a Texan, the prolific and versatile Richard Linklater ("Boyhood"); Jean-Luc Godard, Ray-Bans nailed to his nose, as a folkloric "maverick" and budding herald of a glossy New Wave; a festival of look-alikes and name-dropping, each character (Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, Rossellini, Cocteau, Bresson, etc., etc.) appearing in front of the camera in an iconic pose, with their name displayed on the screen; a dialogue full of quotes and mythical phrases, documented a thousand times, that even a Wikipedia biopic wouldn't dare to string together: nothing should work and yet, "New Wave" charms and enchants.

No irony or distant pastiche, like Michel Hazanavicius's "Redoubtable." Nor is it a deferential homage. But rather, there's passion, energy—from the shoot, from the first attempts—and the pleasure of seeing a revolutionary film being invented, handcrafted, concretely, with panache, a fair amount of unconsciousness, and oh so much reluctance. The squabble full of mutual admiration between Godard and his producer Georges de Beauregard, skillfully maintained by the filmmaker's provocations, the loving camaraderie that develops between the debutant Belmondo and the Hollywood star Jean Seberg, the team – an improbable crew led by first assistant Pierre Rissient and director of photography Raoul Coutard, a big oaf who was not much of a film buff, having returned from the Vietnam front where he shot documentaries –, more or less supportive of their director's whims: "Nouvelle Vague" and its period style in black and white are inhabited by the vivacity of a youth and an artistic emulation that could be from today. The cast has a lot to do with it, entirely made up of new faces: Guillaume Marbeck (Godard), Zoey Deutch (Jean Seberg), Aubry Dullin (Belmondo)… Leaving the film, we want to find them again, to throw ourselves into the cinema and shout in our turn: "Motor, Raoul!" "Breathless" was the invention of bebop in cinema. Jazzy, idolatrous and sparkling, "Nouvelle Vague" (in theaters October 8) dares fetishistic swing.

“The Youngest”: Hafsia Herzi’s Subtle Coming Out

Between Hafsia Herzi's Cannes experience (her first two films as a director were shown on the Croisette), and the notoriety of the book by Fatima Daas that she is adapting, it was a given that the presentation of "La Petite Dernière" would become an important event in the first week of the festival.

As expected, the film describes in detail the discovery of her homosexuality by Fatima (the debutante Nadia Melliti, nominated for the Best Actress award), a post-adolescent from the Parisian suburbs, or at least her difficult acceptance in a context strewn with contradictions, unthoughts and various hostilities (ambient homophobia, incompatibility with her practice of Islam, etc.). Herzi records each stage of her awareness as she surveys a minefield, between meticulousness, worry and vigilance, finding a point of balance between several opposing flows: the perpetual guilt and social anxiety of being unmasked are opposed by the character's curiosity to explore the meanderings of the lesbian community, understood as a stratified New World.

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The strength of "La petite dernière" is largely due to Hafsia Herzi's assertive mannerism. This style recreates the main themes of "La Vie d'Adèle," the famous film by her mentor Abdelatif Kechiche, who gave her her film debut (in "La Graine et le mulet") and supported her acting career. Fatima thus follows in Adèle's footsteps (violent denial, love at first sight, the dizziness of a painful breakup, all milestones that shape the romantic life of a first-time adult), just as Herzi draws on Kechiche's stylistic grammar to make it her own and forge her own path. This form of simultaneous emancipation (Fatima's homosexual affirmation, that of the actress Hafsia Herzi as director) proves to be overwhelming, as the film, while not shying away from any obstacle, accepts its share of doubt and humility from start to finish, establishing questioning as a cardinal value.

Some saw "Eddington" as the pinnacle of an official competition rich in young talent and respected directors but lacking in announced phenomena. With a thunderous start to his career (no less than "Hereditary," "Midsommar," and "Beau is Afraid") and a strong style, the 39-year-old American Ari Aster was just about the only filmmaker to populate this category. Moreover, this fourth feature film has the trappings of a decisive work likely to further elevate him in the category: a constellation of stars (where Emma Stone and Pedro Pascal surround Joaquin Phoenix, already at the center of "Beau is Afraid"), and this modern western setting that inevitably places him in the great mythology of American cinema.

Eddington is a small town in New Mexico (a state where the filmmaker spent part of his youth) immersed in the atmosphere of confinement linked to the Covid 19 pandemic. Sheriff Joe Cross (Phoenix) crisscrosses it like a poor man's Marlon Brando in "The Chase": as a helpless and clumsy witness to chaos about to occur, or even as an involuntary catalyst.

The film begins with a trivial incident, Cross's unwillingness to wear his surgical mask - he has asthma and, more broadly, is reluctant to comply with this health constraint for a bundle of pathetic reasons that range from simple stubbornness to denial disguised as common sense ( "Covid hasn't reached Eddington" he trumpets). Raising the hackles of the uncompromising leader of the neighboring Indian community and then the town's mayor, Joe Garcia (Pedro Pascal, as an arrogant little marquis), ultimately becomes a way to gain control over a community that openly despises him.

If we recognize here the perverse mechanics of Aster's previous films (an obsession, an anxiety overflows from a brain to recondition an entire environment) they are deployed in a setting of social satire with a more assertive than usual comedy where the major failings of the country are put against, then compacted (spurts of conspiracy theories, atomization of the social body and information channels, creeping specter of an ecological disaster). The humor of this start, its efficiency at all times (crackling rhythm, richness of details, fabulous performance of Phoenix as a pathetic buffoon) even suggests that the film will be content with this strict comedy terrain. Before tipping into a delirious vortex whose scope and content ultimately prove to be more in line with the filmmaker's standards.

The genius of "Eddington" is that it is constructed in a disorderly sequence of outbursts and implosions, of grandstanding and narrative convolutions. It links the anxious ego trip of "Be a u is afraid" to the collective hallucinations of "Midsommar." Joe Cross gradually establishes himself as a sick conscience of Trumpism, a sort of headless duck (basically without any particular ideology) governed by the (bad) moods of the moment, a fragile monster caught up in his reptilian impulses. The film multiplies cathartic scenes, even if it tells the story of a man who collapses and loses himself as he climbs on his spurs. To the film's show of strength (its fable-like side about America, its consistently controlled madness), is added here a part of melodrama that contributes to the grandeur of the performance, as the characters of "Eddington", even the most basic, remain hyper-touching: this aspect is not new to Ari Aster, but here it is undoubtedly even more salient. A Cannes summit, we repeat it, as expected.

The day after the presentation of "Eddington," Pedro Pascal called at a press conference not to be afraid to criticize Donald Trump. "Fuck those who try to scare you!" said the 50-year-old actor, a few days after Robert De Niro's indictment of the President of the United States. "Keep telling stories, keep expressing yourself, and keep fighting to be who you are!" he continued. Pedro Pascal then called for "fighting," particularly by "telling stories." "Don't let them win!" Asked about Donald Trump's immigration policies, the actor also shared the experience of his family, refugees from Chile. "I want people to be safe and protected. I also want to live on the right side of history." "I'm an immigrant, my parents are Chilean refugees, I'm also a refugee," he said. "We fled a dictatorship and I had the privilege of growing up in the United States, after finding asylum in Denmark. And if that hadn't been the case, I don't know what would have become of us. So I will always be in favor of these protections" for asylum seekers, he continued.

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