Horror and fantasy: 4 nuggets that prove that Cannes 2023 also loves the genre #mediago #mediago24 #movielovers #moviegoers #movieworld #moviecomers

The idea is strange, ambitious and it shows on screen. This feature film follows the story of a father ( Romain Duris ) who, accompanied by his son ( Paul Kircher ), goes in search of his wife who has disappeared. Thomas Cailley develops a real cinema show, focusing much on the intimate ties that unite the two heroes just as the splendor of the views.

The Animal Kingdom is a big French fantasy film which, when  released - it is expected on October 4 - should surprise many. The work on the special effects, quiet practical than digital, is impressive. Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful surprises of this 76th Festival.

Capricci Films

Vincent Must Die (Critics' Week)

This is a obviously a crazy film that does a lot of good. Vincent Must Die stages Karim Leklou - impeccable - inside of the unfortunately named Vincent, who overnight becomes,  the privileged target of the rest of the population. This Mr. Everyman is attacked by people for no apparent reason & they tried to kill him. He tries to continue a normal life but when the phenomenon amplifies, he must flee and completely change his way of life...

Vincent must die

And from the very stylized credits, we know that we are going to see a singular and innovative film. First feature film by Stéphan Castang , from the theatrical world, embarks his troupe - which also includes Vimala Pons , François Chattot or even Karoline Rose Sun - in a rhythmic adventure enhanced by an explosive soundtrack that goes off the beaten track.

A film full of references but which avoids excess and which lets itself be guided by its sincerity and its madness, Vincent must die navigates between paranoid survival, romantic comedy, psychological thriller and humanist fable to question our relationship to the banality of violence. A nugget to see and savor on the big screen.

Christa Théret in Conann

Conann (Fortnight of Filmmakers)

With Bertrand Mandico , the genre comes in the plural. Because it is both cinematographic and sexual in the man who went full-length in 2018 with Les Garçons sauvage , a metaphor for transidentity that alternated colors and sublime black & white. Like Conann , his new opus presented at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes.

The director seizes the fantasy novels of Robert E. Howard , already adapted to the cinema with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the main role. A hero that he transforms here into a woman, embodied by six different actresses according to the moments of his life that he stages and that recounts the dog of the underworld Rainer, canine reincarnation of the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder .

Conan

A queer epic that assumes the artificiality of its settings and recalls Bertrand Mandico's taste for fluids, love and death (which still go just as well together, even with less nudity than in the past), Conann is perhaps to be his most mastered opus. Less focused on metaphor than cinematographic references and political messages, in a story where it is a question of killing youth or a character called Europe, just as much as pointing the finger at the barbarism of our society.

A real UFO presented in front of spectators committed to the cause of the director and whose eyes have often shone like the sequins that regularly cross the screen.

The Jokers

Sleep (Critics' Week)

"The most unique and clever first film I have seen in the last ten years." These words are not from the author of these lines but from Bong Joon-ho . Not a namesake but the web-based and Oscar-winning director thanks to Parasite , and who is now helping one of his foals to get into the deep end. Because Jason Yu , director of Sleep , is none other than his former assistant.

He therefore signs his first feature film with this story of a young couple whose life is turned upside down when the husband becomes a sleepwalker and turns into someone else at nightfall. Fearing for their newborn, his wife can no longer sleep. Discovering such a film in a Festival where the nights are short is not lacking in salt, but it knows how to keep us awake with great reinforcements of tension (and a little jump scares too).

Sleep

If we can see a little humor in the first minutes, when sleepwalking gives rise to pleasantly comical situations, Sleep remains serious most of the time. And a shock scene shows that we can expect anything, in a second part that is more effective than the first, where it is difficult to see the direction the story is taking.

You have to be patient at first, but then the pace picks up, with some particularly successful shots, while the scenario and this story of sleepwalking can be interpreted in several ways depending on everyone's sensibilities. Jason Yu may not be the new Bong Joon-ho yet, but the promise is there. And one of the Cannes sessions of Sleep was obviously particularly memorable.

The feature film does not yet have a release date in France.

#mediago #mediago24 #movielovers #moviegoers #movieworld #moviecomers