One film has shaken Cannes festival like few others in recent memory

A ‘frank explication’ with police

Here’s a story you don’t get every year. It seems that festival director Thierry Frémaux, had something of a (what other word will do here?) contretemps with a police officer after riding his bicycle on the pavement outside the Carlton Hotel last week. Video on social networks showed Frémaux waving his finger at the officer and being pushed in return. The statement ultimately released from the festival was a masterpiece of euphemism. “Last Thursday, at 2am in the morning, there was a lively discussion between a municipal police officer and Thierry Frémaux,” it read. “The truncated video circulating on social networks is absolutely not an exact reflection. In the minutes that followed, a frank and cordial explication took place, bringing an end to the exchange. The chapter is closed.” Oh dear? Not just a “Lively discussion,” but “a frank and cordial explication”. Good work, les médecins de spin.

An irritating tradition

There are some great traditions at Cannes. There are some more annoying ones. I miss the slight decline in people yelling “Raoul!” as the Cannes logo comes up before the film. Apparently this emerged after one fellow lost a friend of that name and shouted it out to titters and, ultimately, habitual adoption from the crowd. In recent years, the business of cheering the logos representing production companies and sales agents has become a tad irritating. The ripple from those working for the relevant firm is understandable. Less charming is the fanboy hoots for anything from the American distribution and production house A24. Yes, they’ve delivered some great work. Sure, they helped bring Occupied City and The Zone of Interest to this year’s Cannes. But they are not a rock band. The habit of booing the logos for streaming service – a relic of Netflix’s short-lived tome here – is even less charming. But at least it’s funny.

One minute really seems to matter

Ovationology is back. Over the years we have learned there is no film too awful not to get a standing ovation after its premiere at Cannes. If you turned up with slides from your holiday in Corfu you would have them on their feet. The habit of timing and then ranking the ovations does seem to be new. But, both here and in Venice, it has now become a sport. Leader of the pack at time of writing seems to be Killers of the Flower Moon with nine minutes. You can get some measure of the randomness at work by comparing two headlines from the same trade magazine. “Nazi Drama ‘Zone of Interest’ Is a Cannes Sensation With 6-Minute Standing Ovation,” we hear. Elsewhere we learn “Indiana Jones 5′ Gets Lukewarm Five-Minute Cannes Ovation”. That one minute really seems to matter.

Cannes review: The Zone of Interest

Fans of Jonathan Glazer’s extraordinary first three films – Sexy Beast, Birth and Under the Skin – have been anticipating his loose adaptation of Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest for a long, long time. Indeed, so little information has emerged about the production that some began to doubt it ever existed. It is here at Cannes and, if the first packed press show is any measure, the film has shaken the event like few others in recent memory. We begin with a muddied screen and the menacing rumbles of Mica Levi’s predictably ground breaking score. Eventually we find an apparently bucolic long-shot of a family enjoying an afternoon by the river. Later, they return to their well-appointed, if less than cosy, home by a high wall. If you didn’t already know, you soon realise we are watching Rudolf Höss (Christian Freidel), commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife (Sandra Hüller) with their fresh-faced children.

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There are few more controversial assignments than depicting the Holocaust. Glazer’s solution (and to an extent Amis’s) is to not depict it at all, but focus on the horrific way in which humans can normalise adjacent atrocity. If nothing else, The Zone of Interest deserves awards for its remarkable sound design. Throughout the film we here the faint rumble of annihilating machinery. Every now and then there is a faint scream. Is it a shout of fear or a bellowed order? Then there is the gentle “pop, pop, pop” of gunfire. Each, perhaps, signalling the end of a life.

The closest we come to direct representation is a shot of the famous tower emitting ashy smoke as the commandant relaxes in his garden. As eerie, but more insidious, are the glimpses of just a train’s chimney as it trails smoke on the way to the camp.

To cover the family, Glazer arranges fixed cameras throughout a recreation of the house as they go about their business. A picture emerges of a petty, small-minded bunch who seem oblivious to the cost of their comfort. There is barely a close-up throughout. The film fights with its own rigour, once breaking down into a metallic shriek from Levi as the screen again switches into a single angry shade.

Glazer may yet get in some trouble for taking such a formal approach to sensitive material. But, if anything, that self-imposed discipline – and utter lack of sentimentality – speaks to the profound respect he has for the subject. A chilling experience that pushes Glazer’s reputation into the next level.

Just one day after the premiere, the news was announced of Martin Amis’s death. The film now stands as fitting tribute.

Cannes review: May December

Todd Haynes’s last two fiction features – the messy Wonderstruck and the surprisingly mainstream Dark Waters – were, perhaps, the two least interesting in his career. Did we fear he might be “going off”? Not a bit of it. Working from a script by Samy Burch, May December harks back to the ground-breaking work on the horrors of shallow conformity with which he made his name. The story concerns a couple living an apparently idyllic life in evocative Savannah, some 20 years after their involvement in a busy tabloid scandal. Gracie (Julianne Moore, star of Haynes classics Safe and Far From Heaven), then in her 30s, was pilloried for having an affair with a 13-year-old. On the surface, she and Joe (Charles Melton from Riverdale), former teenager, have taken their revenge by living well. Their house in Georgia abuts the sea. Neighbours are kind. Yes, they still get the occasional box of excrement on their doorstep, but that could happen to any of us. Right?

It hardly needs to be said that chickens begin eyeing their roost when Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a successful actor, comes to research her role as Gracie in a film based on the scandal. Old friends are realistic. Family are resigned. But there is a tone to their answers that suggests Gracie may not be as adjusted as she pretends.

May December is shaped a little like a “what’s behind the white picket fence?” satire of the bourgeois life, but it is stranger than that suggests. Moore, in particular, brilliantly allows a personality to unravel subtly from within its shiny, yet brittle, carapace. The mass disintegration happens beneath the glossy patina of a daytime soap opera (a world where Moore first found fame) defined by Christopher Blauvelt’s purposefully icky camerawork. This is a deceptively peculiar film that positively invites repeat investigations. Haynes is back.