The Cannes Film Festival was held in May this year as it did every year. Films from all over the world attended the festival. Among the films that attracted the attention of the festival viewers, five films bearing the signature of female directors were of particular interest and were among the unforgettable films of Cannes 2019. Now let’s briefly outline these five important films.
Little Joe – Jessica Hausner
“You’re a good mother, but which of your children will you choose?” This is the conundrum faced by the workaholic botanist Alice (Emily Beecham), who is torn between caring for her teenage son Joe and his diminutive namesake Little Joe, the plant she genetically engineers to make people happy.
The anthropomorphised blooms – which hiss out plumes of intoxicating pollen at nightfall – soon become linked to a spate of infinitesimal mood shifts among Alice’s colleagues and, worst of all, Joe. Are those around her genuinely fine, as they so adamantly claim? Or are they gaslighting her? Written and directed by the Austrian film-maker Jessica Hausner, Little Joe is an absorbing tangle of protocol breaches and relentless percussion that emotively interrogates the ethics of scientific advancement.
Port Authority – Danielle Lessovitz
Practise your death-drops and prepare a sickening look because the category is New York ballroom realness. Set in Harlem’s underground drag scene (much like the fabulous FX series Pose), Danielle Lessovitz’s Port Authority is an unlikely love story that collides two antithetical worlds, then rummages through the romantic fallout.
Fresh from a prison sentence, Paul (Fionn Whitehead) has unquestioningly swallowed the hulking, tattoo-sleeved masculinity of his homeless-shelter comrades. He is forced to reassess his prejudices, however, when he falls for Wye (Leyna Bloom), a member of the drag house of McQueen, and belatedly discovers she is trans. The film’s cast – who indulged in a delightful display of spontaneous voguing on the Cannes red carpet – made history at its premiere, specifically its leading lady. Leyna Bloom became the first transgender woman of colour to headline a movie at the festival, which she describes as a moment that has ”opened [a door] for a lot of people to sit at the table”.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Céline Sciamma
The French director Céline Sciamma has always been fascinated with image-making as a cornerstone of identity, showing her characters reinventing themselves in terms of gender (as in the trans drama Tomboy) and social currency (illustrated by the female gang in Girlhood). Now, her delicate 18th-century drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire – which showcases an all-female cast – fashions its heroine through painting. Marianne (Noémie Merlant) has been commissioned to render Héloïse (the double César winner Adèle Haenel) on canvas after a male artist failed to be up to the task.
By dint of spending time together, the women’s relationship gradually evolves into a gentle romance, captured in tender intimacy – a shot of Marianne sketching herself from a mirror propped up against her lover’s abdomen is a particular stand out. With its careful examination of contemporary concerns (including reproductive rights and the plight of female artists), Portrait has been one of the buzziest titles on the Croisette. It could very well go home with the Palme d’Or tomorrow (about time too, seeing as the first and last time a female director won the award was in 1993).
Share – Pippa Bianco
Growing up is hard to do, especially for today’s teens in this hyper-connected, social media-driven world. Pippa Bianco’s feature directorial debut Share is a sombre snapshot of how easily digital content can be weaponised. We meet the fun-loving 16-year-old Mandy (Rhianne Barreto) crumpled on her front lawn after a drunken night with her friends, completely unaware of what happened.
When a disturbing video of her – partially naked, unconscious and being jeered at by boys – circulates among her classmates, Mandy is forced to confront the events of the party. Despite her efforts to speed away from her problems by playing car-racing video games, she struggles to escape her trauma, with cyberbullies’ ping notifications ever present at high-school and at home. The film’s presentation of the isolation that comes with reporting sexual assault is particularly timely in this Me Too era, and is sensitively handled by Bianco.
Land of Ashes – Sofia Quiros
The Costa Rican film-maker Sofía Quirós Ubeda crafts a liminal space of dreamy landscapes and crushing realities in Land of Ashes, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week sidebar. Raised by her grandparents following the death of her mother, 13-year-old Selva (Smashleen Gutiérrez) has had to grow up by herself and takes pride in her maturity, teaching wide-eyed classmates in the schoolyard how to kiss and cooking meals for her infirm caregivers.
The disappearance of her grandmother, and her grandfather’s losing the will to live, gives Selva more responsibilities than she bargained for, pushing her off the ledge of infancy into adulthood. Quirós Ubeda daintily touches on mourning and the loss of innocence in this striking film.
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