By Nell Geraets
Something about this year’s Cannes Film Festival felt particularly thrilling. Perhaps it was because most of the titles due to be released in 2024 aren’t that exciting. Or perhaps it was because the films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or award were particularly bold.
Take, for instance, Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi drama Megalopolis, which took $180 million of his own money to make. Then there was George Miller’s stunt-heavy Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and the controversial film about Donald Trump, The Apprentice.
From Kinds of Kindness to The Substance, here are the Cannes films you should keep an eye on.Credit: Compiled by Bethany Rae.
These films dominated the conversation at Cannes, but plenty of other equally daring films were screened.
From grisly feminist body horrors to a crime musical, here are six films to watch out for now that they’ve called it a wrap on the Croisette.
Emilia Perez
Who says a gangster film can’t also be a musical? Jacques Audiard’s Spanish film transcends genre boundaries, so much so that The Guardian said it plays as, “a thriller by Amat Escalante with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a touch of Almodovar [Strange Way of Life]”.
It follows a Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofia Gascon) who undergoes gender reassignment surgery with the help of a powerful defence lawyer (played by Zoe Saldaña).
The film earned one of the longest standing ovations at Cannes this year, bringing one of its stars, Selena Gomez, close to tears.
The Substance
French writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s film was one of the most controversial to come out of Cannes, experimenting with extreme feminist ideas combined with even more extreme body horror. If you don’t enjoy the likes of David Cronenberg’s The Fly or Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, perhaps steer clear of this one.
An ageing star, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), is ousted from her job as the host of an exercise aerobics show, triggering her decision to accept a mysterious substance that promises her another go at youth. Naturally, everything goes wrong, but in an incredibly graphic way.
Full-frontal nudity, bodies exploding out of other bodies, teeth pulled from cavities – this certainly is not a film for the fainthearted. Vulture called it “disgusting, twisted and instantly divisive”, yet it had those on the Croisette applauding for around nine minutes.
Rumours
After attending Cannes last year for Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy, Cate Blanchett was back this year with the much sillier and satirical Rumours.
A group of world leaders gets lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, finding themselves in all sorts of trouble. Poking fun at politicians and world summits, this film was a welcome interlude between some of the loftier productions at the festival (looking at you, Megalopolis).
If the reviews are anything to go by, the dark comedy – run by Canadian trio Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson – doesn’t hold back on the outrageous, featuring “masturbating bog zombies, a giant brain the size of a hatchback, and an AI chatbot that catfishes paedophiles”.
Kinds of Kindness
It was only a few months ago that Emma Stone won the award for best actress at the Oscars for her role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Now, the dynamic duo are back with the (arguably far riskier) Kinds of Kindness.
The film is separated into three distinct narratives, all of which are linked by its themes and actors (who play different characters in each). The first shows an employee under the overbearing control of his boss, the second follows a cop who believes his marine-biologist wife isn’t who she says she is after returning from a stranded desert island, and the third sees two cult members track down a woman who can potentially raise the dead.
There’s group sex, death and even a little bit of cannibalism. Though already known for his slightly kooky, unconventional approach, Lanthimos appears to be channelling seriously twisted stories of control, co-dependence, absence and loss.
Horizon: An American Saga
“A grandly scaled slice of neoclassical Hollywood”, or a “numbingly long, incoherent disaster”? The first instalment of Kevin Costner’s four-part western epic has divided some critics, with most erring on the side of “disaster”.
Set in 1859, Horizon: An American Saga chronicles the expansion of the American west, including tensions between colonisers and Native Americans, around the time of the Civil War. Despite its flaws – critics have blasted its lack of overall narrative direction – it is an incredibly ambitious feat accomplished by 69-year-old Costner, who made his directorial debut with Dances with Wolves in 1990.
If long, character-heavy westerns are your cup of tea, the second chapter of Horizon will also be released this year.
Bird
Andrea Arnold, who directed American Honey, has taken on an age-old Bildungsroman story – tracking a child’s transition into adulthood – but with a touch of absurdity and a genuine curiosity for winged creatures.
The star of the film is 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams), who is trying to find herself while navigating her parents’ broken relationships, neglect and gang-related crime. Her life takes a turn when she comes across the eccentric Bird (played by Franz Rogowski), who asks for her help. The film also features Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan, who plays none other than Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor (remember that scene?) to a toad in the hopes that it will excrete a powerful hallucinogen and make him rich.
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