Even without a major American presence, the 79th Festival de Cannes was a spectacular event. If one regards the festival as a seismograph for international trends, it is striking that the global cinema landscape is clearly shifting towards Asia. Among the award winners was “Soudain” by Rysuke Hamaguchi, a hybrid Japanese-French production; the director comes from Japan, and the film is set in Paris. In any case, three Japanese directors and one production from Korea (“Hope” by Na Hong-jin) were in competition. But Southern Europe was also strongly represented. Three films came from Spain, and the winner of the Palme d’Or, Cristian Mungiu, was from Romania.
A notable feature this year was the expansion of the Cannes Classics series, with significantly more screenings than in the previous year. The series kicked off with Guillermo del Toro, who had come to Cannes to present the restored version of his classic "Pan’s Labyrinth" (El laberinto del fauno, 2006). The late American film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the greatest of all fantasy films, even though it is anchored so firmly in the reality of war”. Set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, del Toro delves into the fantasy world of an eleven-year-old girl, in which a mythical creature embodies dreams and nightmares. Sergi López, who impressed last year as a desperate father in the Spanish entry “Sirāt” (directed by Óliver Laxe), plays the brutal stepfather, a Franco officer.
Another spectacular event was the re-screening of Chen Kaige’s "Farewell, My Concubine" (original title: Bawang bieji), which won the Palme d’Or in 1993 alongside Jane Campion’s "The Piano". Gong Li, the film’s female star, who later went on to an international career and became an advertising icon for L’Oréal, had come to Cannes to present the restored version. The evening before, she had already officially opened the festival. I remember how deeply the film impressed me in the early 1990s. It was the time when the Chinese films of the so-called 5th Generation began to take international festivals by storm.
Through the story of two Peking Opera performers, Chen Kaige recounts the upheavals of 20th-century Chinese history. The plot begins in 1977, shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The two star actors, Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Xialou (Zhang Fengyi), are allowed to perform their play ‘Farewell My Concubine’ once again. Flashback to the 1920s: the orphans Douzi and Shitou are trained in the opera troupe of the sadistic Master Guan, Douzi for female roles and Shitou for male roles.
A homoerotic attraction develops between the two, but it is never fulfilled. Instead, Shitou marries the beautiful Juxian (Gong Li). We follow them on their journey to becoming opera stars, as they perform before the Japanese occupying forces in the 1940s and witness the victory of the Communists under Mao. The images of the Cultural Revolution in the years from 1966 onwards are the hardest to watch. Performances of the Peking Opera are banned as a bourgeois relic; Dieyi and Xialou are publicly humiliated and paraded through the streets. They are lucky to escape with their lives. The images are also so disturbing because Chen Kaige is drawing on his own experiences of denouncing his father during the Cultural Revolution.
As a 14-year-old schoolboy, he, like many young people, fell under the influence of the Cultural Revolution, which was driven primarily by schoolchildren and students. They were urged to denounce their parents as ‘counter-revolutionaries’. Chen’s father worked as a director of opera films at the Beijing Film Studio, whilst his mother wrote screenplays. In 1968, Chen was forcibly sent to the countryside for re-education through labour. When the Beijing Film Academy reopened in 1978, he, along with Zhang Yimou (who was the cinematographer on "Farewell, My Concubine"), belonged to the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese directors. When one reflects on the significance of Peking Opera and the traumatic experiences of the Cultural Revolution, one understands the film’s enormous personal significance for Chen Kaige.
The Cannes Classics section saw a encounter between two legendary Polish directors, Jerzy Skolimowski and Andrzej Wajda.Now 88 years old, Skolimowski attended the famous film school in Łódź and wrote screenplays for Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polanski before directing his first feature film, “Rysopis” (Distinguishing Features: None), in 1965. In the 1970s, he left Poland to work in France and England. “Moonlighting” (1982) is an unjustly forgotten masterpiece from this period. A group of Polish workers is sent to London to renovate the flat of a party official. In Warsaw, they smuggle their tools through customs and fly to London on tourist visas.
Jeremy Irons plays the foreman Nowak, who is the only one who speaks English and ensures that the other workers stay inside the house so as not to arouse suspicion. Whilst the men tear down walls and lay new pipes and flooring, Nowak buys food and building materials. His attempts to communicate with the neighbours provide Skolimowski with an opportunity to paint sarcastic portraits of English narrow-mindedness.
As accidents and a burst water pipe occur, the atmosphere grows increasingly tense. Nowak runs out of money, is forced to resort to petty theft, and reacts with increasing authoritarianism to the workers’ discontent. You watch his shenanigans at the supermarket checkout with bated breath, always hoping he won’t get caught. Meanwhile, as Nowak learns from the newspaper, the Solidarność movement is being crushed in Poland and martial law has been imposed. When they run out of money for the Underground, the men have to walk six hours to the airport in the middle of the night.
Skolimowski wrote the screenplay when he heard about the imposition of martial law in Poland and shot the film in a matter of weeks on a shoestring budget. ‘Moonlighting’ can be seen as a parable of exploitation under Polish state socialism, whilst at the same time offering amusement at the clash between Polish workers and English locals.
A little earlier, Andrzej Wajda made his film *Man of Iron* (1981) about the strikes in Gdańsk and the emergence of the Solidarność movement. Wajda feared that state repression would ensue, and managed to complete the film before martial law was imposed. However, he had to shoot it in winter, as Krystyna Janda, the female lead, recounted at the presentation in Cannes, although the strikes took place in the hot summer of 1980.
The radio journalist Winkel (Marian Opania) is sent to the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk to discredit the strikes as “irresponsible counter-revolutionary actions”. But Winkel, an alcoholic, gradually becomes a sympathiser when he encounters the rebelling workers and their leader Lech Wałęsa (who plays himself in the film). Alongside Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Wajda has assembled a star-studded cast: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz plays the activist Maciek Tomczyk, Bogusław Linda the radio technician Dzidek, and Janusz Gajos the head of state radio. The film gains additional authenticity through the use of documentary footage of the negotiations between state representatives and the strikers. In 1981 “Man of Iron” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
The Cannes Classics programme reflects the importance the festival attaches to film history and creates a fascinating encounter between cinema’s past and present. It reveals connections and references that not only allow us to revisit classics, but also enrich our appreciation of new films.