The Saturday morning press conference at Cannes, following the screening of Roman Polanski’s D’Apres Une Histoire Vraie ( Based On A True Story ), brought the Netflix issue to the forefront again with the 83-year-old filmmaker underlining that video-on-demand can’t be a threat to the big screen experience.
According to him it’s not about better sound, seats or projection at the cinema hall but the fact that people like to “participate in an experience”, want to “experience things together”. “Would you watch Borat alone or in cinema with a laughing audience?” He had the last word with this rhetorical question.
A few reminders, mostly online, of the statutory rape conviction aside, the focus remained squarely on his new film. Mildly engaging though it might be, the assertion that Based On A True Story is reminiscent of Polanski’s own film The Tenant felt preposterous.
Based On A True Story is too minor a film despite the collaboration of two masters like Polanski and Olivier Assayas on the script. It is too conveniently plotted and as a viewer one keeps thinking ahead of, and remains entirely unconvinced of the naive, foolish trust of the main character — a successful author — in a stranger and a very evidently menacing fan.
Unconvincing tale
Can you allow someone to insinuate things in your head and take over your life so ridiculously easily? Consequently the larger arc — the theme of manipulation and control, of perversion and passion, of what is real and what is an illusion, of the characters taking over an author’s life as much as the author interprets theirs — remained facile and obtuse and the ambivalences of the characters also failed to come alive. A line in the films talks about how people believe in lies more than the truth.
At the press conference Polanski himself dwelled on the deceptive, post-truth world. How in the face of a bombardment of images and information, something you believed in yesterday could turn out totally false today. How a photo can no longer be relied upon as a document of truth, how you could be cheated with it. And how the destiny of an entire country and its people can be changed with one simple gesture of its leader that gets amplified around the globe.
Imagery that disturbs
Lynne Ramsay’s fiercely violent You Were Never Really Here with child sex trafficking at its centre jolts the audience. Nightmares, hallucinations, painful memories, scars of the past and a continuity of cruelties — Ramsay relies on atmospherics to disturb viewers.
Hitman Joaquin Phoenix battles the demons of his own past while living with his old mother who loves watching horror films. Before you can pause and smile at the nod to Hitchcock’s Psycho , Ramsay whisks you away with Phoenix on his mission to save a young girl stuck in a sex racket. The political dimensions of it fall on him (and us) like a ton of bricks. But Ramsay doesn’t spell things out to the bare bones, relies on the power of the suggested through her unsettling imagery and allusions.
Student film awards
Meanwhile, the Cinefondation and short films jury headed by Cristian Mungiu announced the awards at Salle Bunuel on Friday. Of the 16 student films (including India’s Afternoon Clouds ), selected from 2600 entries, the first prize went to the Belgian film, Valentina Maurel’s Paul Is Here . The second prize was bagged by the Iranian film Heyvan ( Animal ) directed by Bahman and Bahram Ark.
The third prize was claimed by the French film, Deux Egares Sont Morts ( Two Youths Died ). The Iranian film came out particularly strong with its metaphor of man becoming animal and the hard-hitting and relevant call for a world without borders and restrictions.
On the last day of screenings, the guesses and speculations were in full swing about who could win the big award this year. All eyes are on the jury head, Pedro Almodovar, and knowing his love for women and in telling their stories, many are hedging their bets on a woman filmmaker snatching the Palme d’Or. The delicate sentiments of Naomi Kawase’s Hikari , the wicked sorority of Sophia Coppola’s The Beguiled or the hugely disturbing reality of Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here are all in competition. Will it go to the portrayal of the marginalised in 120 Beats Per Minute? Will the award be concurrent with the critic’s favourites like Loveless and The Gentle Creature. Or will it go to the not so loved Rodin ? Will it be about a stylised The Square and Jupiter’s Moon or a more mainstream Okja and Wonderstruck ? Will the old master Haneke stake a claim on it again or will a youngster take the spotlight? It’s not too long for tomorrow evening.
