Every year, I come home from Cannes with a song. One of the pleasures of this festival, beyond seeing so many invigorating films, is to be introduced (or reintroduced) to a tune that works astonishingly well within the context of a movie. In past years, tracks like Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band's cover of 50 Cent's "PIMP" (from Anatomy of a Fall) or Anna Von Hausswolff's "Stranger" (from Sound of Falling) became the unofficial theme of those editions of Cannes, providing pleasure not just inside the accompanying film but during the months after the festival when I'm still playing the track on repeat. Those songs become my memory of those two weeks on the Croisette.
Many have written about this year's Cannes being underwhelming, which I generally agree with. But the way in which I feel that most acutely is the fact that I'm not leaving France with a signature song. There were some memorable tracks scattered across several films. I loved Ira Sachs' period-specific tunes for The Man I Love. Two different songs from Kind of Blue put in an appearance. And a colleague wholeheartedly suggests that this year's song has to be "A Long December," which is implemented snarkily in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. But still, no musical moment fully wowed me. And maybe that says something about the lineup's relative strengths. Certainly, this Cannes featured some significant movies. But perhaps not enough. And, likewise, no song that encapsulated the highs that come from discovering unexpectedly terrific films.
Going into this edition, the major story was that Hollywood was sitting the festival out, with only a handful of American indie auteurs screening their latest projects. I wasn't concerned about that relative lack of a U.S. presence, figuring that the established international directors would more than compensate. (They usually do, as witnessed by last year's all-timer edition.) And, sure enough, as I look at my rankings of this year's Cannes films, many of my top picks are from the big names. But what ultimately hurt this Cannes was that there weren't enough exciting surprises, the out-of-nowhere stunners from filmmakers whose names you needed to learn. (Here's where I have to own up to not being able to catch up with a few movies from exactly those kinds of emerging talents. I cannot wait for La Gradiva, Everytime, The Match and Rehearsals for a Revolution.) In retrospect, maybe the 79th Cannes Film Festival will be remembered as a transitional one, the new guard about to supplant the old masters. That sounds good to me.
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Without further ado, from worst to best, here's a list of everything I saw, with links leading to individual reviews:
37. Diamond
36. Her Private Hell
35. The Birthday Party
34. Parallel Tales
33. Butterfly Jam
32. The Electric Kiss
31. Another Day
30. Gentle Monster
29. Sheep in the Box
28. La Bola Negra
27. Bitter Christmas
26. A Woman’s Life
25. Jim Queen
24. The Beloved
23. The Unknown
22. Aqui
21. In Waves
20. I'll Be Gone in June
19. Coward
18. Nagi Notes
17. Ashes
16. Club Kid
15. The Blow
14. Hope
13. The Dreamed Adventure
12. The Diary of a Chambermaid
11. A Man of His Time
10. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
9. Paper Tiger
8. Clarissa
7. Minotaur
6. Fjord
5. The Man I Love
4. Moulin
3. Fatherland
2. Once Upon a Time in Harlem
1. All of a Sudden
You may notice that my No. 2 film, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, premiered at Sundance. That remarkable documentary played in Directors' Fortnight; I wish I could have seen it a second time, especially with a more international audience. But for now, it ranks just slightly behind Ryusuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden, a three-hour stunner that screened early in the Competition, promising an incredible festival that never quite materialized. No matter: The Hamaguchi film is singular, capturing the acclaimed writer-director pushing himself into even more extraordinary terrain. And for all the talk about a weak Competition, I'm awfully happy to have seen the riveting new films from Cristian Mungiu, László Nemes, Paweł Pawlikowski, Ira Sachs and Andrey Zvyagintsev. Did Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi and Hirokazu Koreeda let me down with their misfires? Absolutely, but even the greats stumble from time to time.
One film not included in my rankings was Ken Russell's The Devils, from 1971, which screened in Cannes Classics and was the hot ticket of the festival. Only screening once, and in one of the smaller theaters, the restored director's cut may not have been my favorite film of this year's edition, but it was easily the most energizing moment of Cannes. I haven't watched The Devils since college, but its audaciousness and shock hadn't lessened, and its emotional undercurrents were far richer than I recalled. Many in the room had never seen the film, and you could feel the thrill of discovery happening in real time. That's what film festivals, and film love in general, is all about. This new restoration looks immaculate; you should seek it out when it opens in the U.S.
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I've been coming to Cannes since 2013, and last year was the first time I correctly guessed what film would win the Palme d'Or. Not that I think I'm on some sort of roll now, although once again this year I did see all 22 films in Competition.
Best as I can tell, there are three likely contenders to take home the big prize: All of a Sudden, Fatherland or Minotaur. I think all three movies are superb, which makes it even harder to predict a winner. What also makes it tricky is that the jury is made up of only nine people, and who can possibly guess what films, say, Park Chan-wook or Demi Moore really dug? Is it the kind of movies they themselves make? Are they movies that speak more to the head or the heart? Who knows? This uncertainty, of course, makes the guessing all the more fun.
In their own way, each of my three contenders Grapple With How We Live Now. Hamaguchi offers hard-earned optimism while Pawlikowski and Zvyagintsev are more suspect about what seems like the permanent bleakness of our moment, with Fatherland connecting 1949 Germany to now and Minotaur returning to the initial invasion of Ukraine by Russia. If there is a "perfect" film of the three -- a term I use extremely advisedly -- it would be the precise, controlled Fatherland, which says everything it wants to say in 82 minutes. On the other end of the spectrum is All of a Sudden's enveloping 196 minutes, which encompasses the beginning, middle and end of a short-lived friendship in its expansive running time. Minotaur is chillier than the other two, reaffirming Zvyagintsev's status as one of our greats, and it's probably the most "conventional" -- another term I'm using extremely advisedly -- in its narrative approach.
After much debate, it's also the film I'm picking to win the Palme d'Or. Minotaur's merging of the story of a businessman who suspects his wife of adultery with a larger commentary on the corruption going on in Russia is an affecting strategy that could resonate with jury members who want to vote for something that's political but also about people. Plus, there's Zvyagintsev's own story: He spent 40 days in a coma during Covid and was close to death. Will the jury be moved by his circumstance? Maybe, maybe not. But if Fatherland's concision might come across as airless to those immune to its spell -- and All of a Sudden too "baggy" to the impatient -- Minotaur's potent timeliness could be an ideal compromise choice for Park and his fellow jurors. How certain do I feel about my pick? Oh, maybe 20 percent.
We'll see soon enough if I'm right. But before I sign off, one last thought: Perhaps this year's unofficial song was the one that was mentioned consistently whenever anyone discussed Koreeda's Competition title, Sheep in the Box. You won't believe how many people, independently of one another, asked me, "Do you just keep getting 'Dick in a Box' stuck in your head when you hear that title?" I hadn't, but I certainly did after colleagues kept bringing it up. Maybe this year's Cannes wasn't an all-timer, but we found ways to amuse ourselves nonetheless.
