I, Daniel Blake (2016)Even by the high standards of Cannes’ recent years, the lineup for the 2016 edition of the world’s most famous film festival looks unusually strong, at least on paper. It’s been widely noted for some time now that Thierry Frémaux and his team have been pulling further ahead of rival A-list festivals in terms of being able to cherry-pick movies by the top directors, and most would agree that in the main competition that has once again proven to be the case.
Many of those competing for the Palme d’Or are now Cannes regulars, though that certainly doesn’t mean there’ll be no surprises. Nor does it mean that the official festival as a whole is playing it safe. In the Un Certain Regard strand, just as in the Directors’ Fortnight (which has found space for films by such established talents as Paul Schrader, Marco Bellocchio, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pablo Larraín) and the Critics’ Week, there are plenty of first and second features by relatively unknown names.
Britain is pretty well represented by Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey and – in the Un Certain Regard selection – David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water, though geographically speaking the last two are both set in the US. The Loach, typically, isn’t, and would seem to be a timely reflection on the current condition of Britain’s welfare state; if memory serves, he’s said it is his last film, but then again he’s said that before. Whatever, as he approaches his 80th birthday in June, it’s heartening indeed to see Ken competing once more in Cannes.
The other English-language contestants are also by Cannes regulars. Opening the festival, and out of competition, is Woody Allen’s Café Society, with Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Steve Carell and other big names. Those who can recall an earlier Allen Cannes opener – the lamentable Hollywood Ending (2002) – are undoubtedly hoping the new film will be a worthier choice to kick off the festival.
The other American directors in competition are perhaps more dependable: Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (with Adam Driver as a poet bus-driver) sounds highly appealing, while Jeff Nichols’ Loving (about a mixed-race couple in 50s Virginia and once more starring Michael Shannon) sounds as if it’s considerably less fanciful than his Berlin-premiered Midnight Special. Sean Penn is back after a lengthy absence with The Last Face, a political drama set in Africa, while Denmark’s Nicolas Winding Refn has set his latest genre film The Neon Demon in LA. This one – a horror movie – doesn’t star Ryan Gosling but Elle Fanning, Christina Hendricks and Keanu Reeves.
Needless to say, the French are well represented by Cannes regulars, though it must be said that if there are to be any surprises they might just be found here. Set in 1910 and starring Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay is said to be a comedy about people going missing on the northern French coast; if we hadn’t already seen his Li’l Quinquin (2014), the idea of a chuckle-fest from the hitherto mostly morose monsieur Dumont would probably have been quite unthinkable.
Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, which reunites him with Kristen Stewart, appears to be some sort of supernatural drama set in Paris’s ‘fashion underworld’, whereas Staying Vertical, from Alain Guiraudie, who has never failed to surprise with films like Ce vieux rêve qui bouge (2001), No Rest for the Brave (2003) and Stranger by the Lake (2013), is undoubtedly for this writer and programmer a must see. Perhaps Nicole Garcia’s From the Land of the Moon will be a little more conventional – it’s about a woman in a loveless marriage and stars Marion Cotillard and Louis Garrel – but with that title who can tell?
The rest of Europe appears to have some really promising fare on offer. Belgium’s extremely dependable Dardenne brothers are back in competition for a seventh time with The Unknown Girl; their regular troupe of actors is joined by Adèle Haenel, so expect the usual superb performances. Pedro Almodóvar returns with Julieta – a drama about a woman on the verge of some sort of breakdown, apparently – while Paul Verhoeven, who is not a Cannes regular, is contesting with a suspense drama entitled Elle. The latter stars Isabelle Huppert, who for entirely understandable reasons is undoubtedly a festival favourite.
Germany’s Maren Ade makes her debut in the Cannes competition with Toni Erdmann, a drama of familial tensions which boasts an intriguing international cast that includes Britain’s own Lucy Russell and Romania’s Vlad Ivanov. The latter will also be on screen in Cristian Mungiu’s own look at parenthood, Graduation, one of two tempting Romanian titles in competition, the other being Sieranevada, an extended film about an extended family by Cristi Puiu (a retrospective of whose work I’ve just curated for June at the BFI Southbank; watch this space…). Another one I’m particularly looking forward to.
The rest of the world is this year less well represented in the main competition. From Canada, enfant terrible Xavier Dolan also makes his subject the family in It’s Only the End of the World – though this time his cast is French, and unprecedentedly starry (Léa Seydoux, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye).
The Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho makes his competition debut with his second feature, Aquarius (the first was the well-received Neighbouring Sounds); intriguingly it marks the return to Cannes of Sonia Braga (who could be found on the Croisette in 1985 for Kiss of the Spider Woman). This time she’s playing a retired music critic.
From Asia, there are just three contestants (though Hirokazu Koreeda is making one of his by now almost inevitable appearances with After the Storm – albeit this year in the Un Certain Regard selection). Filipino Brillante Mendoza has become something of a Cannes habitué, and is competing with Ma’ Rosa; South Korea’s Park Chan-wook returns with The Handmaiden, an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith; and Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, who previously competed for the Palme d’Or with The Past, takes a second stab with The Salesman, which apparently concerns a couple’s relationship hitting the rocks during a run of Death of a Salesman. As I said, the surprises could come from anywhere. And as far as I’m concerned the more, the better.
I, Daniel Blake and American Honey were both backed by the BFI Film Fund.
