The Cannes Film Festival is rightly regarded as a bastion of sophisticated film culture, yet on the Côte d’Azur there is a relaxed attitude towards American blockbusters. Long-time attendees will recall how George Lucas led a troop of galactic warriors down the red carpet. A few years ago, it was Harrison Ford who appeared at the Grand Théâtre Lumière in a lacklustre Indiana Jones sequel. Tom Cruise thrilled the festival audience at the premiere of “Top Gun Maverick” in 2022. The original “Top Gun” from 1986 can be seen again this year in a screening at “Cinéma à la plage”. An evening gala is even planned for the first film in the endless “The Fast and the Furious” series (2001). This year’s poster features Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in their heyday, when they roamed the US in the feminist road movie “Thelma and Louise”.
In Berlin, people would probably turn up their noses at so much Hollywood commercialism. Where is the political ambition and the gender-critical perspective? In Cannes, there is no fear of engaging with Hollywood; the festival is as much a venue for popular cinema as it is for arthouse films, as artistic director Thierry Frémaux emphasised at the opening press conference. He confidently presented a competition programme featuring only a handful of American films, without any complaints about a lack of glamour or star power.
What’s more, the major American studios are unhappy with the festival’s May slot and fear that too much time will pass before the films shown there reach the cinemas. Venice, in September, is much closer to the release date. “But if Cannes is moving away from Hollywood a bit, it puts the spotlight back on world cinema – and for that side of the business, that’s a good thing,” as British producer Mike Downey told the “Hollywood Reporter”. A clear sign of this development is the invitation extended to Korean director Park Chan-wook to serve as president of the competition jury. At the press conference, he recalled how Korea was still on the fringes of the international film industry when he first attended Cannes in 2004 with his film “Old Boy”. Twenty-two years later, the balance of power has shifted fundamentally – Korean cinema is now a force to be reckoned with in the global film business.
But the real stars in Cannes are the auteurs: directors such as Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar, Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski and Russia’s Andrei Zvyagintsev (who, oh dear, once shook hands with Putin more than 20 years ago). Added to these are internationally renowned names such as the Belgian Lucas Dhont, the Romanian Cristian Mungiu and the Hungarian László Nemes. I am particularly curious about the new film by the Spaniard Rodrigo Sorogoyen, “El ser querido” (The Beloved), starring Javier Bardem in the lead role. Sorogoyen, who most recently impressed with “As bestas” (2022), is also the creator of the extraordinary series “Antidustrbios” (2020) and “Los Años Nuevos” (2024), which can still be viewed in the Arte Mediathek under the title “Ana and Oscar”. I am rather sceptical about the German entry in the competition, “Das geträumte Abenteuer” by Valeska Grisebach. Not only because of the director’s previous films, but also because of its length of almost three hours and the rather unappealing prospect of amateur actors.
Once again, Cannes demonstrated its lucky hand with the opening film. “La Vénus électrique” (The Electric Kiss) by Pierre Salvadori is an entertaining comedy with a star-studded cast. Paris in the late 1920s: following the death of his lover Iréne (Vimala Pons), the painter Antoine (Pio Marmai) is a mere shadow of his former self. He no longer paints and spends his time drinking. At the fair, he meets Suzanne (Anais Demoustier), who claims to be a medium but actually performs as Venus Electrificata. For 30 centimes, you can kiss her and be electrically charged in the process. “Love is ecstasy and burning,” as the fairground owner Titus (Gustave Kevern) proclaims. Suzanne becomes Antoine’s spiritual therapist; with coloured contact lenses, she transforms herself into his dead lover and speaks to him from the afterlife. Whilst the art dealer Armand (Gilles Lellouche) is initially outraged by this deceptive charade, he eventually pays Suzanne to encourage Antoine to take up painting again. Inevitably, Suzanne increasingly takes on the role of the dead woman and begins to develop feelings. After all, Antoine began his career as a nude model and the floating demigod Hermes before he himself became a successful painter.
The screenplay for 'Vénus électrique’ is based on an idea by French directors Rebecca Zlotowski and Robin Campiello, whilst the dialogue was written by Pierre Salvadori himself. The result is an intelligent interplay of delusions and disappointment. Pio Marmai, as Antoine, demonstrates his remarkable versatility when one recalls such diverse roles as the husband in couples’ therapy in the psychoanalysis series “En thérapie” or as the wounded Gilet Jaune in Catherine Corsini’s “La fracture” (In the Best of Hands, 2021). Anais Demoustier, as a fake spiritualist, initially intends only to exploit the naive painter’s gullibility, until she becomes ensnared in the labyrinth of her own emotional intrigue. Gilles Lellouche, best known in France for his roles in police films, impresses with the sleazy charm of a bourgeois art dealer, only to reveal a surprising vulnerability in the end.
If you add the opening gala moderated by French actress Eye Haïdara, who has Malian roots, at which Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”) was awarded a Golden Palm of Honour, it seems that Cannes has once again managed to get a lot of things right.