Cannes, France
Cnn
–
Spike Lee and Denzel Washington have traveled a long road together. The collaboration of the director and the actor has been taking place for 35 years, starting with “Mo”
Better blues “and including the seminal” Malcolm X “. But one thing they have never done is to go up the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival as arms comrades.
It changed on Monday evening when Spike Lee unrolled his new joint on the Croisette. The premiere of “Highst 2 Plus Lowst”, their fifth film together, scored the first time from Washington as a main actor in Cannes, and the first time he hit the festival since “Much Ado About Nothing” from 1993.
Feeling the opportunity, the general delegate Thierry Fremaux announced before the projection that the festival would attribute to the actor an honorary palm of gold. Cue a reel of protruding facts of the double winner of the Academy Prize played the public of more than 2,000 inside the Grand Theater Lumière, which applauded some of the emblematic lines of Washington, and reserved the most noise for the Tour of Bravura of the actor as a corrupt cop Alonzo Harris in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001 in 2001
“Training day.”
Subsequently, Washington went on stage with Lee, who wore a fine stripes costume in his beloved Knicks colors – a look that was also a possible tribute to a wooded lee when he acted alongside Washington in “Malcolm X”.
A few words from Lee and the actor had the honorary palm in his hands.
“Sit please,” implored Washinton the prolonged ovation. “It’s a total surprise for me, so I feel emotional. But from the bottom of your heart, thank you all. It was a great opportunity to collaborate with my brother – my brother of another mother, Spike. ”
Their film is Lee’s point of view on the “High and Low” of the legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. This film, which made its debut in 1963, also played a muse of a director in the form of the accustomed to Kurosawa Toshirō Mifune, playing a businessman on the edge of a big problem when the son of his driver is wrongly kidnapped for a ransom instead of his.
This is not the first time that Lee has appeared the opportunity to reinterpret a classic of Asian cinema: “She’s Gotta Have It”, the director’s first film in Cannes in 1986, was inspired by “Rashomon” by Kurosawa (1950). Then, in 2013, he redid the “Oldboy” thriller from the South Korea of the Korean South Park Chan-Wook, “Oldboy”, throwing Josh Brolin in the main role originally played by Choi Min-Sik.
This remake turned out to be a divisor, especially with the cult of Park always fresh in the memory of moviegoers. “High and low” had more time to disappear in history, and Lee makes daring choices to get rid of himself.
On the one hand, David King of Washington is not a big blow in the Japanese shoe industry but a New York music magnate, deemed to have the best ear of the business. His driver – a Jeffrey Wright out of competition – is an ex -pump that cannot take a break when the police get involved. A $ AP Rocky also plays in the film as Yung Felon, a budding rapper who hopes to be noticed by the character of Washington.
Lee and his team have received a long -standing ovation after the credits drove during the projection on Monday, where the partner of a $ AP Rocky, Rihanna, appeared. Washington, however, was nowhere. The actor left the projection early, the price in hand. He had returned directly to Broadway to resume his series of “Othello”, explained Lee.
“You cannot go out in the same way you have entered,” said a music executive in Washington in the film. It seems that the actor has taken advice at heart.
“The highest 2 lower” made its debut in American cinemas on August 22 before broadcasting on Apple TV + on September 5. The Cannes Film Festival takes place until May 24.
