Kaurismaki presents a beautiful sad love story at Cannes

2023-05-22 21:30:31

A regular at the festival, where he has competed five times, winning the Grand Prix in 2002 with “A man without a past”, he was looking forward to Canes the return of one of the most beloved directors in the French competition, the Finnish one Aki Kaurismaki. Unclassifiable and always ready to put on his show during the famous climb up the stairs of the Palais des Festivals – where he joked with General Delegate Thierry Fremaux-. Kaurismaki has presented in competition “The dead leaves”, his first work after six years of silence. And she’s proven she’s in top form with this melancholic and gorgeous love story which maintains all the elements that have built its personal and non-transferable style. Filled with cinematic references – some explicit such as David Lean’s “Brief encounter” or Robert Bresson’s “Pickpocket” – and others more subtle, “The dead leaves” explains the relationship between a lonely woman and a man who are faced with various fortuitous situations they will prevent establishing a sentimental relationship. It is pure Kaurismaki, with its almost timeless aesthetics, its conspicuous dialogues, tinged with that sadness and sentimentality of his best films. And with a very exciting and tremendously poetic tribute to the cinema of Charles Chaplin.

The second film in competition of the day came from another Cannes regular, the Austrian one Jessica Hausner. Four years after “Little Joe”, the Central European director has presented “Club zero”, a terribly disturbing film – there is even a particularly unpleasant scene to watch – centered on theorganic food and the new nutritional therapies. “Club zero” stars Mia Wasikowska, who plays a teacher at an elitist high school who convinces a group of students to introduce them to new eating habits based on the concept of “conscious eating” that will gradually become more and more dangerous. As usual with its director, “Club zero” excels in the methodical, millimetric and minimalist staging. From the costumes to the sets, through the planning of the shots, everything is calculated in detail with an almost obsessive precision. This formal perfection perhaps dilutes his background speech a bit, which once proposed does not finish developing.

Finally, at the Filmmakers’ Fortnight, the Franco-American Michael Gondry has presented “The solution book”, his latest work starring Pierre Niney. Far from the inspiration of his great works like “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” or “The science of sleep”, Gondry starts from a very good idea – a director decides to steal his own film once he sees that the his producers will force him to change the assembly – but that sells out quickly. There’s something wickedly self-portraiture about this one comedy which has led to some of the funniest moments of the festival. It’s a shame that these sparks of genius are diluted in a less inspired and rather repetitive second part of the film.