For the second time in six years – and only the fourth of its 78 years of history – the film which targeted the Palme d’Or in Cannes won the best film at the Oscars.
When it happened to “parasite”, it was easy to consider it as a stroke of luck. Not since “No Country for Old Men” (another film launched in Cannes) won the first prize in the Academy. And of course, no South Korean film had ever won (or even as much as the one nominated) for the best film before.
But the triumph of “anora” this year suggests a possible scheme … or perhaps, the inevitable result of a concerted effort from the Academy to diversify and globalize its adhesion (a decision that inevitably benefits the international and not English-speaking cinema among the Oscars). Anyway, the famous film festival – which takes place in May -May along the French Riviera – clearly gave Venice a race for his money to attract the kind of films that the Academy takes seriously.
This change of power – namely, questioning the perception that the first on the Croisette in Cannes could be a responsibility for the Oscar season, while an arc on the Lido in Venice has positioned films (like “Birdman”, “Spotlight” and “The Shape of Water”) for successful campaigns – makes the announcement of this morning of this morning selection of the official selection 2025. Exploited for competition, could we consider a future winner of the Oscars?
This is probably the wrong way to watch Cannes’ programming, which gives the authors – who make art for reasons other than trophies or a box office success – a respected platform on which launch their latest offers. But it is surely a welcome development for Cannes, whose official X flow has still not updated to reflect this morning’s press conference, rather cluttered with congratulations tweets for the many international prices won by films presented in the programming of Cannes 2024. The festival has lost the key sponsorship room in the years that followed the Covid-19, and Oscar Prestige Attracts the best international stars) greatly helps to court the big brands.
So what to do with official selection? Like all festivals, Cannes is limited by what is available, although Top Dog Thierry Frémaux obtains the first crack at any film that seeks to be presented in such a context – a number almost 3,000 this year. Not all films want the exhibition. For a while, Hollywood studios have had cold feet about the beginnings in Cannes, where criticisms can be hard for commercial films (like “Horizon: An American Saga”) by Kevin Costner. But Tom Cruise is not shy, returning to the Croisette (where he projected “Top Gun: Maverick” in 2022) with the Capper franchise “Mission: Impossible – The Final Recking” this year.
A blockbuster like this is obviously not an Oscar candidate, although the future is delighted with the 19 films selected for the competition this year (a figure that could climb up to 22, suggested Frémaux today). It is a heavy culture of American talents: Wes Anderson and his constantly increasing ensemble will be there with “The Phoenic Scheme”, Ari Aster brings his Western “Eddington”, Kelly Reichardt has the art film with “The Mastermind” and Richard Linklater paid tribute to the new French wave with “New Screet.
Barely an hour after the press based in Paris, Spike Lee went to social networks to announce that he had also been invited, saying that his film “High 2 plus low” (inspired by Akira Kurosawa “High and Low”, and let’s hope it better than his “old boy”, reimagination) would serve as competition. This looks like another case of Lee jumping the pistol with Cannes: let’s not forget how he spoiled the award ceremony in 2021, when he was president of the jury, announcing the winner of Palme d’Or before one of the lower prices.
Reichardt is only one of the six women in competition this year – a respectable number, but still far from parity # 5050 × 2020 requested in 2016. Julia Ducournau (whose “titanium” won the palm of Lee four years ago) returns with “Alpha”, which co -stars the two best players of their generation. It is the film that fascinates me the most, even if the aesthetics of Ducournau can be a little extreme for my taste (although it is difficult for the head of “The substance” of Coralie Fargeat last year).
When the time came to announce a certain respect (the parallel section reserved for young directors and to slightly more experimental work, where the beginnings of director of the actors Harris Dickinson and Scarlett Johansson will be presented in first), Frémaux described a return to the cinema in the films they had selected. This seems less obvious in the main competition, where new features of well -established authors – such as “It was just accident” by Jafar Panahi and “young mothers” of the Dardenne Brothers – play alongside less familiar names, some of which with which I confess completely unknown (like the Spanish directors Carla Simon and Oliver Lax).
Personally, I see these inclusions not yet established as encouraging – a sign that the Cannes selection team is doing its job to look at everything and choose what it feels as best, instead of simply going with the safe (or predictable) choices. At the same time, it is always exciting to imagine what proven filmmakers could have in terms of follow -up projects. I look forward to personally the director “Plan 75” and the second director of the 2022 camera, Chie Hayakawa, (“Renoir”), as well as new films by the Brazilian Lailure Kleber Mendonça Filho (“The Secret Agent”) and “The worst person in the world” Author Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”).
Even the invisible sight, I bet that the three prove to be serious contenders at the Oscar time. But what do I know about such things? A year ago, he would have considered me inconceivable that Netflix would spend more than $ 50 million trying to convince the world that “Emilia Pérez” was a favorite of the Oscars. (In Cannes, where the musical of the identity crisis was created, nobody treated it as the best everything.) This year, the Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, who made a superior trans-theme film with “A Fantastic Woman”, brings a politically loaded musical entitled “The Wave”. Color me curious about that one.
I also want to see the latest animated feature of the director of “Triplets of Belleville”, “A Magnifice Life”, a biopic by French director Marcel Pagnol who will bow to Cannes. Last year, Frémaux stuck his neck by putting the theme on the theme of the holocaust of Michel Hazanavicius “the most precious cargoes” in competition. I admired that the film and a little cynically predicted that it would win the Oscar (for an animated function), mainly because of the subject. I could never have imagined that the “flow” made by Latvian, which made its debut under the radar in the UN in certain respects, would continue to make such an impression with the Academy.
But after seeing several Oscar victories for “Anora”, “Emilia Pérez”, “Flow” and “The Substance” – and an equally spectacular raid showing by “Megalopolis” by Francis Ford Coppola – Hollywood is sure to look at this year’s selection with increased interest.
