by Helen Barlow

The Director’s Fortnight opening film, Scarlet, Italian Pietro Marcello’s follow-up to his 2019 hit Martin Eden, was one of my favourites. Shot in French, the film is the kind of classic drama that Australian audiences will love. Set in the French countryside, it follows Juliette (played by remarkable newcomer Juliette Jouan) as the daughter of an artisan who stays by her father’s side through thick and thin. She falls for dashing aviator Louis (Louis Garrel).

Even if some critics were muted in their response to Elvis, Baz Luhrmann’s extravaganza played extremely well at its premiere and the excitement was palpable. The audience lapped up the impressively staged musical numbers and Austin Butler’s turn as the King. The film, which was shot on the Gold Coast, releases nationally on June 23.

The romantic comedy drama Three Thousand Years of Longing, George Miller’s adaptation of the 1994 short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt, was as far from Mad Max as you could get. The Australian director stages some of his most beautiful scenes in historical flashbacks as recalled by the Djinn (genie) of the piece (Idris Elba) to a British scholar (Tilda Swinton) as he grants her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Among her wishes is love, but he is unsure if he should grant it to her. Their conversation takes place in an Istanbul hotel room, even if the film was actually shot in Sydney. It releases here on September 1 through Roadshow.

The third Australian film, Thomas M. Wright’s The Stranger met with a mixed response. But the critics who loved it, really loved it. The story, which Wright adapted from Kate Kyriacou’s book The Sting: The Undercover Operation that Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer, follows the unusual police trapping of one of Australia’s most notorious child murderers (he is not named and is played by Sean Harris). It certainly creeps up on you. The payoff comes in discovering what happens, so it’s best not to know too much. The performances by Harris and Joel Edgerton (also a producer) are exceptional. Variety writes that the film “confirms that Wright has arrived, even if his treatment sometimes feels more oblique and self-consciously arty than the material demands.” Transmission will release the film in Australia, but is yet to announce a release date.

The Palme d’Or winner, Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s English-language Triangle of Sadness was a favourite since it screened to an uproarious crowd of critics on the first weekend. Many believed it would not win, as Ostlund had won the hallowed prize for The Square in 2017. That film had been a critique of the art scene and now this son of Swedish communists lends his wry humour to the fashion world, as he follows a couple on a luxury cruise. When the ship sinks, the couple are marooned on an island together with the other wealthy passengers as well as their Marxist captain, played with relish by Woody Harrelson [above with Ostlund]. The film screens in The Sydney Film Festival before releasing at the end of the year.

As always, the tastes of the members of the competition jury decreed which films would win. Headed by French actor Vincent Lindon (who loves socio-political cinema) and with a dominance of filmmakers (Asghar Farhadi, Jeff Nichols, Joachim Trier and actress-director Rebecca Hall as well as actors Noomi Rapace and Deepika Padukone) the jury was always going to award auteurs and films from world cinema, which is what Cannes is all about.

Initially, I’d hoped that Margaret Qualley, the star of Netflix’s Maid would win for best actress for her career-best performance as a beleaguered journalist in Nicaragua in the romantic thriller Stars at Noon. Yet, the film’s French director Claire Denis shared the Jury Prize (second prize) with Belgium’s Lukas Dhont for Close, a latecomer in the programme which many thought would win the Palme d’Or. Ultimately, the best actress prize went to Zar Amir Ebrahimi for Holy Spider [above]; the Iranian refugee to France was deemed a deserved winner. She delivered an emotional acceptance speech which made headlines.

The 13-year-old boys from Close were also contenders for the best actor prize as was Fares Fares from the Swedish film Far From Heaven, where again the director Tarik Saleh won, for best screenplay. The acting award went to Song Kang Ho (pictured below, the star of the Palme d’Or and Oscar winner Parasite) for Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda’s Korea-set Broker, the endearing tale of a group of petty criminals and misfits who form an unconventional family in their quest to obtain a high adoption price for a baby.

All the competition films (plus Elvis) screen in the Sydney Film Festival, so Sydneysiders can decide for themselves if the jury chose wisely.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen David Cronenberg’s body horror thriller Crimes of the Future win something. An acting prize for Viggo Mortensen perhaps? The audacious Cronenberg won a Special Jury Award in Cannes for Crash and Toronto’s People’s Choice award on home turf for Eastern Promises (also with Mortensen), but there should have been more prizes for this true visionary.

Here, he returns to his horror roots for a story set in the near future where humans are capable of growing new organs. Lea Seydoux (also excellent in Mia Hansen-Love’s Director’s Fortnight film One Fine Morning) is sumptuous as a surgeon who performs operations on her partner, played by Mortensen.

This comes in a year when The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius opened the festival with Final Cut, his over-the-top riff on horror movies which went down a blast. It’s very funny. Neither film had been picked up for Australian distribution before the festival and possibly still aren’t. Oh, the horror! (I hear though that a few companies are haggling over buying Crimes of the Future.)

A third horror film, Alex Garland’s Men screened in Director’s Fortnight and the film will release here on June 16. It stars Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear in a story about a woman who, following the death of her husband, goes on a solitary vacation in the English countryside and meets an array of strange men – all played by Kinnear.

The David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream went down very well. Directed by documentary specialist Brett Morgen (Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Kid Stays in the Picture about legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans) includes never-seen concert footage courtesy of the artist’s estate. It releases later in the year and is one not to be missed.

On the other hand, Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, Ethan Coen’s first solo directing effort, was ok but not exceptional. Coen deftly combines clips of old performances and TV interviews, but IndieWire notes that the documentary is slim and “doesn’t dig too deeply into the darker corners of its indelible subject.” But then again, neither does Moonage Daydream. A24 picked up Coen’s film for worldwide release as well as Critics Week favourite Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun for the US. The latter film stars Paul Mescal as a father on holiday with his daughter.

The 25-year-old Irish actor also co-starred with Emily Watson in the intense Directors’ Fortnight drama God’s Creatures, which was picked up by Palace Films for Australia. Set in an Irish fishing village, the film follows Watson’s prodigal son (Mescal) who dropped out of the family for several years to work in Australia and suddenly returns home. He wants to revive his father’s oyster farm but has a charge of sexual misconduct brought against him. His mum provides a false alibi and things go awry.

Before the festival, Palace already had Mia Hansen-Love’s Sydney Film Festival competition entry One Fine Morning, which was awarded the prize for Best European Film in Director’s Fortnight. At the festival, Palace picked up two films: Louis Garrel’s comedy The Innocent [above] where he plays a man who freaks out when he learns his mum is about to marry a man in prison; and Mario Martone’s Nostalgia [below], a latecomer to the Cannes competition that was rather overlooked.

Martone is a big deal in Italy, but less known elsewhere. Adapted from Ermanno Rea’s 2016 novel, Nostalgia is set in his native Naples, and tells of a man (the always impressive Pierfrancesco Favino) who returns to his hometown after a 40-year absence and rediscovers the city as well as a past that haunts him. Look out for the film in the Italian Film Festival in September.

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