Thursday 19 May 2016

CANNES 2016: DAY SEVEN - IT'S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD, THE UNKNOWN GIRL


Programmers at the Cannes Film Festival have plenty to answer for: after a somewhat disappointing day yesterday, they've followed up with an even more disappointing day today. The normally-reliable Dardenne brothers, who haven't debuted a film outside of Cannes' official competition in 20 years, deliver their weakest work to date in The Unknown Girl, if reviewers are to be believed. And Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World hasn't helped brighten the mood, also drawing reactions that place his family reunion drama as his worst film yet. Oops!

Misfire away: both The Unknown Girl and It's Only the End of the World land in lowly positions on the Palme Poll.

Onwards and upwards, then, to a panoply of excellence in Cannes' other strands that utterly put today's Palme output to shame. In Directors' Fortnight, there were good reviews for Two Lovers and a Bear by Kim Nguyen, and great ones for Mercenary by Sacha Wolff and Therese by Sebastien Lifshitz. And in Un Certain Regard, a similar selection: good reviews for Behnam Behzadi's Inversion and Delphine and Muriel Coulin's The Stopover, and great ones for Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle and Koreeda Hirokazu's After the Storm - now here's a top comp regular who wouldn't have disappointed.

Prestigious placements for today's screeners from Un Certain Regard and Directors' Fortnight (no change in Critics' Week, with reviews for the final title A Yellow Bird as yet unavailable). In UCR, The Red Turtle finally kicks Clash off its top spot.

Official Competition
It's Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan)
The Playlist / Variety / The Wrap / Cine-Vue / The Hollywood Reporter / IndieWire
The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)
The Guardian / The Wrap / IndieWire / Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / Screen Daily / The Upcoming / The Telegraph / The Film Stage / The Irish Times / International Cinephile Society / Collider / The Playlist / Cine-Vue / Sight & Sound / The A.V. Club / Little White Lies

Un Certain Regard
After the Storm (Koreeda Hirokazu)
Cine-Vue / The Telegraph / The Hollywood Reporter
Inversion (Behnam Behzadi)
Variety / The Upcoming / RogerEbert.com
The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit)
Variety / The Hollywood Reporter / The Telegraph / IndieWire
The Stopover (Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin)
The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa

Directors' Fortnight
The Lives of Therese (Sebastien Lifshitz)
Cineuropa
Mercenary (Sacha Wolff)
Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter / Cineuropa
Two Lovers and a Bear (Kim Nguyen)
Variety / Screen Daily / The Hollywood Reporter

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