Director: Jacques Audiard
Writer: Jacques Audiard
Stars: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez

Synopsis: When a Mexican cartel leader kidnaps criminal lawyer Rita and hires her to help him become a woman, a journey begins for both characters that changes them both, taking them face to face with the very essence of the country in which they live.

What should a musical about a Mexican drug lord looking to become a woman look and sound like? Whatever your answer to that question is, think again: you are not prepared for the deliriously subversive, savagely fun ride Emilia Pérez is about to take you on.

Writer-director Jacques Audiard’s (Paris, 13th District) new film, presented in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, takes place in Mexico City, where disillusioned lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) is getting tired of helping criminals get away with murder. Rita knows that complying with her boss’s requests to do just that is the only way to survive in her corrupt country, but that doesn’t stop her from expressing all her frustration in a song. “¿De que hablamos hoy y ahora?” (“What are we talking about, today and now?”), she sings, highlighting the issues in Mexico’s criminal justice system, and we are mesmerized by a performance that’s as spectacular as the most grandiose Broadway show and yet retains the immediacy of an intimate theater play.

Just when we think we have Emilia Pérez all figured out, something else happens that subverts our expectations all over again. Suddenly, Rita is kidnapped and taken to infamous cartel leader Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón), who has a request for her. “Yes,” Rita responds, before the man has even begun explaining what he wants – knowing all too well that, just like at her daily job, she doesn’t really have a choice. But Manitas’ next words take her by surprise. “I want to be a woman,” he states, matter of factly. And just like that, Rita realizes that there’s a lot she doesn’t know about the most feared gangster in Mexico City.

Soon, Rita leaves the constraints of her daily routine and starts traveling around the world, looking for the right clinic for her client, having been given access to Manitas’ unlimited resources. The more she learns about her new employer’s upcoming surgeries, the more excited she becomes, and it all culminates in a delirious, wildly liberating musical number that sets the tone for what’s to come. “Nanoplasty?,” asks a nurse, to which Rita enthusiastically answers, “Yes!”.  “Vaginoplasty?” “Yes!”, “Laryngoplasty?” “Yes!”, “Chondrolaryngoplasty?” “YES!”

If you’re able to get on board with the madness, this is also a point when you’ll immediately fall in love with Emilia Pérez, a film that you, quite simply, won’t be able to take your eyes off of. The combination of perfectly timed routines that seem to take place almost by chance, Saldaña’s flawless delivery and physical acting, and infectious songs that blend musical conventions with the unmistakable vibe of mariachi music will have you dancing in your seat, as you eagerly anticipate the next scene of a movie that will take you to truly unpredictable places. And on top of this, the film is both hysterically funny and surprisingly poignant, depending on the scene.

Our protagonists’ real journeys effectively begin after the transition, when Manitas becomes Emilia Pérez. With her new identity comes a new sense of morality, since it was never her desire to be a gangster: she was born into that life. When we next meet her, years later in London, she has tracked down Rita again, to ask for her help one more time. Emilia needs Rita to help her move back to Mexico and reunite with her family, as she cannot live without her kids – only, her two children and her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) think she’s dead, as “Manitas” had to die in order for Emilia to be born.

Together, the two women find a way to get both Emilia and her wife and kids in Mexico, but that means that her family cannot know who she really is. And so, Emilia hides her true self once again – this time, assuming the identity of a relative. This version of Emilia is generous and kindhearted: on top of welcoming them all into her family, she starts a charity with Rita to help families whose loved ones are among the many desaparecidos in Mexico – people who simply “disappeared” due to organized crime, which to this day could be as many as 100,000 – get closure. The paradox is that, back when she was Manitas, Emilia was herself responsible for these disappearances, which usually resulted in bodies to get rid of. 

Is becoming the real you and deciding that you want to do good enough to cancel all the evil you’ve done in the past and grant you redemption? This is one of the questions Audiard and co-writers Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, and Léa Mysius ask in the film, and the answer is not so simple. 

Emilia Pérez is ultimately a tragedy, but it’s a grandiose one that’s drenched in the culture in which it takes place. From the start, we are shown a society whose many sides often clash with one another. It’s a patriarchy where women are often voiceless and have to endure a great deal of violence, yet, at the same time, they are also the ones who hold everything together with their love, empathy, resilience, and, ultimately, hope. The fact that Manitas wants to become a woman encapsulates these very contradictions, making this an unequivocally Mexican tale – one that embodies the very essence of the country, both in narrative and form, and raises complex, even controversial questions.

“When you were born to strive and raised to kill, you’d better dance or die,” reads one of the film’s most poignant song lyrics, which perfectly sums up its protagonist. Emilia Pérez isn’t defined by heroes and villains, but by multilayered humans who are who they are because of the context in which they were raised. It’s no coincidence that the movie often feels like a soap opera, with its use of melodrama and abundance of dramatic twists, which aren’t usually associated with the crime thriller genre: Emilia Pérez is ultimately a snapshot of a country defined by its contradictions, and a cry for forgiveness within the chaos.

Grade: A-

Director: Sean Baker
Writer: Sean Baker
Stars: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov

Synopsis: Anora is a comedy about a sex worker shot in New York City and Las Vegas.

During his short yet acclaimed film career, Sean Baker went from grounded to hyper-extended. But that doesn’t remove how the indie-cinema darling is known to depict the lives of people who are frowned upon by the upper class. His characters always hold onto that promise that “the American Dream” has sold to them – looking for that moment to change their lives. It is a false advertisement that many people continue to follow. Yet, it gives them hope, even if their chances of moving into their dream house or having an easy life are slim. 

The reason Sean Baker’s cinema works and why many have grown attached to his filmmaking is because he explores their world with curiosity, empathy, and sincerity. You genuinely sense how much research and deep dives he does before writing his characters. In his latest work, Anora (which won the Palme d’Or in this year’s Cannes Film Festival), Baker remains with his current trend of delivering portraits of the “American Dream” through the lens of sex workers, hoping to remove the stigma around them. Here, we see it through the perspective of the young titular character, who has possibly her one-way ticket to a more lavish life that she’s been aching for. 

Halfway through the movie, Baker shifts the screwball comedy texture (don’t take the comedy part of it too literally) into one with heavier dramatic weight. A big heart is lingering around the film, intertwined with sadness, benignity, and hopelessness that help broaden the emotional scope of Baker’s storytelling. With great confidence, he maneuvers through all of those feelings, even when the narrative garners some less-than-realistic swings – keeping the project in balance and its crux intact. This is a director growing into a tone technician right before our eyes. 

The stellar Mikey Madison plays Anora, who prefers to be called Ani. She’s a twenty-three-year-old exotic dancer at a New York City strip club named Headquarters. She dances for her clients, and if it is convenient for her, Ani works as a sex worker late at night. She is in full command of her life; Ani knows precisely what she is doing and wants in life – always maintaining her head high even in the most dire situations. It is a tough life, yet Ani is more than determined and proud of how she makes her earnings. But she would drop everything if there was a chance to get the life of her dreams. Who wouldn’t? I think everyone would do the same thing if given the opportunity. 

Well, for Ani, that moment is right around the corner with the appearance of Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), a twenty-one-year-old Russian big spender and son of an oligarch. Ivan, who is living freely doing whatever he likes with his parents’ endless supply of cash, requests a dancer who can speak Russian for the day. Out of mere luck, Ani fits that billing, even if her grasp of the language is limited. He becomes enamored with the dancer, spending a few paid nights together. The two begin to click, nearly breaking the relationship between client and customer. Then, Ivan gets a crazy idea that will cause him much trouble with his family. 

Since he has to return to Russia soon to work with his father, Ivan takes Ani on a week-long trip to Las Vegas, with all of her days being paid, to not only get one last taste of freedom but also marry the dancer he has fallen in love with so he can stay in the U.S. Ani immediately accepts; she now has her way into the secured life where she’s wealthy and happy, having taken a liking to the oligarch’s son. But everything comes crashing down in a Safdie Brothers’ manner when Ivan’s parents get a notice about the whole thing. As a means to get the marriage annulled, they send Toros (Karren Karagulian) and his goons (Yuriy Borisov and Vache Tovmasyan) to handle the situation one way or another.

To avoid them, Ivan runs away, leaving Ani to deal with the three men, who have nowhere to go until everything is resolved. And so, a search for him begins. Emotions are all over the place collectively. Ani is worried and anxious about how everything is going to go down. The goons are obligating her to follow suit, or they’ll take matters into their own hands. This creates a parallel between her life previously and post-meeting Ivan, where before, she was in full command of her life, and now, men are trying to control every aspect of it afterward. But Ani is resilient and defiant, not indulging in what they set her up to do so easily. 

That’s one of the many reasons we, as an audience, begin to care for and want to protect Ani at any given turn. This is a statement about Baker’s writing, which seems to improve with each feature due to the nuance he gives to his characters and the understanding behind their decisions, as well as Mikey Madison’s astonishing (and hopefully star-making) performance, which will have everybody raving. Madison is effortlessly magnetic, oozing confidence – matching Baker behind the camera – in the way she does a balancing act of desperation, feistiness, and vulnerability amidst the screwball and thriller-like tension that shifts Anora into a place of cinematic appraisal. There’s a light that shines in her presence, even in the alarming situations that occur; this makes sense since the meaning of her character’s name turns out to be honor and grace. 

Although not to the same degree, her acting partner, Mark Eydelshteyn, doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. Eydelshteyn has a complex role in his hands, too. The young actor has to find a way to channel his character’s youthfulness and the intricacies of his lingering pain – the sadness within his timed freedom and the happiness that arises amidst his recklessness. It is all an escape for him. This can be seen more prevalent during the scenes where Ivan and Ani are intimate and open with one another. Both of them, even if they are content with their lives, have fractures in their soul that, with this new companionship, can be fixed to some degree. In Madison and Eydelshteyn’s performances, you see the depth of these characters, who initially looked thin-layered and uninteresting. 

The authenticity that Sean Baker brings to the project makes everything tick. From the sweet romantic comedy and zaniness in the likes of The Lady Eve to the moments of tension that come into play later on, you get a test of the city, its people, and the outsiders who now bask in it. Baker takes time to capture the heart of Coney Island and Las Vegas, both in its liveliness and the gutter. They are their characters, part of the play in genre and tone Baker crafts and maintains steady. If you have read about his scouting process, you know how much time he takes to pick up local places that draw out the essence of the cities within the confines of his respective stories. And once again, he does such with great attention to detail. 

Anora keeps an eye on the marginalized, as expected with Baker’s work, yet with a more playful and equally tactile touch. It is less distancing from the mainstream audience than before, but Baker doesn’t sacrifice what makes his films unique in appealing to a broader scope.  He maintains everything in his wheelhouse while being kittenish in his direction. We don’t know if this will be a hit at the cinema. However, Anora has many fun moments and reflective breathing spaces to captivate the viewers – immersing them in Ani’s journey and fighting for her right to a better life.

Grade: B+

Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: David Cronenberg
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce

Synopsis: Karsh, an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

In David Cronenberg’s world, everything is tangible, from his plastic, carnal creations to his characters’ emotions deep inside their hearts, even when the narrative seems somewhat distant from reality. You can grasp everything in his mind the same way you have dreams and nightmares about David Lynch’s oeuvre. Cronenberg does many things with the body, but his films also haunt the mind and soul of the viewer – his career is divided into those two halves – which traverses them into a state of shock and awe. And it is an experience like no other. He has often tested Cannes Film Festival attendees with these distinct, disturbing experiences that yield them until numb. In his latest work, The Shrouds, the Canadian filmmaker has done it again. 

David Cronenberg has decided to retain the mysteriousness and eroticism prevalent in his cinema while being more restrained in his horror elements and inquisitive prodding. It is one of his most refined works, cut from the same cloth as what came before, yet with a different, more intimate pattern. Switching the grisly for the abstruse and philosophical, The Shrouds is Cronenberg’s most contemplative work to date, using the grief he still holds after the death of his wife of forty-three years, Carolyn (who passed away in 2017 after battling cancer), to create a story about our own conspiracies while dealing with loss – our search for answers as we’re in our mourning processes. 

He draws from his own life – the lead, Vincent Cassel, mirroring his image and persona to offer a glance into the filmmaker’s psyche and soul – and pain to curate an intentionally estranged and cold atmosphere so the viewer can sense, both in front and behind the camera, that lingering dread that has haunted every one of us who have been struck with the death of a person held dear. This is all seen through the eyes of the melancholy-drowned Karsh (Cassel, or, to put it in Cronenbergian terms, the director’s dead ringer), who yearns and longs to be next to his passed wife, Beca (Diane Kruger in one of three roles). Karsh cries for her and yells to the void to have her back. 

You see how Karsh’s insides are gnawed, but, on the outside, there’s no abreaction. There’s no emotional release. Visions about her continue to haunt him to the point of being fixated on her presence. These necrophilic nightmares, not in the way that Jorg Buttgeirat did in the cheap sleaze that is Necromantik, about his wife, serve as some more tactile exploration into Karsh’s psyche. He sees the image of the past he’s holding onto in his mind and the decomposing one he can see via his skeptical technological creation. He has founded a revolutionary and provocative gadget called GraveTech. This company allows people to grieve in a different, more tangible manner by putting cameras in the burial so they can see a clear image of their loved ones. 

The headstones, a connective tissue between life and death, demonstrate the body’s materiality. This image of a body without a beating heart being readily available at all times, rotting as time passes, adds another layer. Cronenberg, known for deconstructing and reconstructing the body, explores with this new technology how we tend to hold onto that perfect image of a person once they are gone. However, he does so uniquely, where both the rotting flesh and youth intertwine, creating a potent coldness that puts chills down the viewer’s spine. In this world where Karsh is doing acts that service his emotions, the body, now ridden with everything human, comes as an everlasting image that stains and relives. 

Just as the body turns inside out, Karsh’s obsession increases; his world revolves around that shroud—that vision planted in his mind that time destroys while he remains wounded yet enamored. Even when he matches with a woman on a dating service, he brings her close to the memory of his passed wife; they walk around the graves and bask in what is left –  to quote Eva H. D.’s poem ‘Bonedog’: “Everything you see now, all of it… bone.” Even through these perilous thoughts across his mind, Karsh remains calm, as if nothing fazes him. This calmness maintains him as a complex, meditative character we want to dissect. 

We all have had to put on a poker face during our worst times. But Karsh doesn’t seem to have one; he just wanders lost in life at this point, staggered and impenetrable. He goes to the void and awaits a response; in his visions, Beca comes up with some answers that leave Karsh meditative. However, everything begins to change once the cemetery is broken into and vandalized; a hacker has also blocked the images from the corpse. Who is trying to do the deed? Is it someone who is against what Karsh has created? Or is it just a person tired of seeing people like him remain broken? He enlists the help of his brother-in-law, Maury (Guy Pierce), so they can find the culprit. 

This creates a conspiracy theory about why this has happened, reflecting on how we, while facing grief, turn to plays of deception and neglect to make sense of something deemed untenable. We create alternate realities and conclusions to try to make sense of life’s biggest hardship, death. Instead of looking for answers, we ignore our realities for a second as we riddle ourselves with questions about every single detail, action, and choice as a coping mechanism. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But grief is something that everybody goes through differently – depending on our fears about the great beyond and how attached we were to the person. David Cronenberg comments on topics that translate from his decade’s worth of material, like sex, the rise of technology (and our dependence on it), and artificial intelligence. 

Cronenberg does so via his usual visually hypnotizing measures. However, those are the crucial focus this time, even though they are very present in the film. The Shrouds is not precisely autobiographical, but it uses many details in the director’s life to forge a compelling, spine-chilling story. Cronenberg doesn’t just translate real-life situations into the canvas. Cinematographer Douglas Koch, who worked on Crimes of the Future, highlights the light lurking within the darkness, even when the atmosphere is most opaque. This is reflected in a more literal manner when Karsh gazes up his cemetery at night, with the screen lighting up as beacons of the love we had for our dearly departed – which is a powerful image that is quite angelic in its Cronenbergian way – and the visions he has about his wife. 

There’s a luminescent glow amidst the decomposing flesh. Yet, the dark shadows of melancholy continue to march on every scene, creating that fight between light and darkness, life and death (or even isolation and companionship) that’s so incredibly moving in a way that you can’t experience with the rest of Cronenberg’s work. Some narrative swings might not work in their totality, especially when the exposition dumps are on and about. However, the conspiracy theory element has many philosophical layers to peel that intrigue you, and later perturb, about his cinematic approach to healing his wounded soul. It is fascinating to see how these nihilistic scenarios have a duality, like a mirroring effect that coats the film in a shroud of its own, where Cronenberg uses cinema as a gateway to his questions, doubts, and anxieties. 

Cinema is indeed a shroud for life in its complexities and hardships. That drapery symbolizes the parting of the veil between this world and the next. And, like so, the director uses (and watches) such to visit the dead and have conversations with the living about it. David Cronenberg said something very striking in a recent interview before The Shrouds at Cannes premiere: “I’m often watching movies to see dead people. I want to see them again; I want to hear them.” He also said, “cinema is, in a way, a shrouded post-death machine.” And while that perspective is genuinely depressive, it is also very accurate. 

Glancing upon a film from the 1920s, and even though you are immersed in its totality, the thought of seeing ghosts goes through your mind. Seeing a creation, a piece of art and history, through that lens adds a mysticality to the picture. You start pondering about their lives, both in and out of the screen, almost like a conspiracy theory, except there’s nobody to answer your questions. It is cinema as a cemetery, much like The Shrouds, and it is an exploration of the living brooding, lamenting, and interrogating about the people we wish they’d be next to us. And an ever-transfixing one, even though challenging to approach, much like death itself.

Grade: A-

Director: Antoine Chevrollier
Writers: Berenice Bocquillon, Antoine Chevrollier, Faiza Guene
Stars: Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Demy, Leonie Dahan-Lamort

Synopsis: Willy and Jojo are childhood friends who never leave each other’s side. To beat boredom, they train at the Pampa, a motocross track. One evening, Willy discovers Jojo’s secret.

The Cannes Film Festival always has an array of coming-of-age stories lined up in their slate, whether in competition for the Palme d’Or or their independent sections, such as the Semaine de la Critique (Critic’s Week). Many directors are given the opportunity to concoct their near-adulthood tales that, one way or another, reflect their own lives. Antoine Chevrollier is one of those filmmakers in this year’s festival, presenting his latest work, Block Pass (La Pampa) – a genuine yet poorly structured story about two best friends’ trials and tribulations, as one of them deals with the loss of his father, while the other has his most kept secret revealed. 

Block Pass begins with a dare between friends – a dangerous antic that might kill someone in the worst-case scenario. Jojo (Amaury Foucher) must cross the busy highway on his motorbike at top speed. His best friend, Willy (Sayyid El Alami), is highly preoccupied with what might happen if Jojo doesn’t make it or crashes into a vehicle. Everything goes well. Willy recognizes that it was a risky move on his part yet celebrates this stunt, as he deems it entertainingly maddening. After this maneuver, we get a glimpse of their life as off-road circuit racers, where the adrenaline rush fuels each turn and jump. These scenes reminded me of Lola Quiveron’s Rodeo, which coincidentally also played at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago. 

The viewer is placed at the center of this subculture, but instead of dirt riders in Quiveron’s film, Chevrollier uses motor cross. Unlike the aforementioned film, Block Pass doesn’t focus on this daredevil, thrilling lifestyle’s specifics and ins and outs. It gives hints during the first act to get you in the headspace of the lead characters – the reasons why they do the sport. I would have appreciated seeing more of this life, not to the extent that Quiveron did in great detail, but something of that nature. It adds more personality to the film and provides glances at a side of the world that most people don’t know about. Instead, Chevrollier focuses on the dramatic elements rather than drawing up the environment. 

When the races are finished and the duo is tired from celebrating, Willy and Jojo return to their respective homes, dealing with their family troubles and demons. Willy is still emotionally wounded by the death of his father. He hasn’t been able to move on, hence the aggression and hostility toward his mother’s new partner. Meanwhile, Jojo is trying to reach the standards that his father has for him, as well as keeping his sexuality a secret from the people around him. The reason why Jojo hides this big secret is because this subculture is very masculine, and he knows that they won’t look at  once they hear about his sexuality, they won’t look at him the same way – treating him with disrespect and malice. The only person who will be there for him is his best friend.

Block Pass struggles with how Chevrollier handles the intertwining between Willy’s grief and his relationship with Jojo, sometimes making it feel like two different projects. When Chevrollier focuses on one side of the story, the other is sidelined for a very long period of time, making each narrative intersection between the two have a lesser impact than it should. Each of these topics, grief, and acceptance, needed more time to be examined. They remain incomplete; the audience wants to learn more about the characters and their respective angst. Willy and Jojo suffer plenty, yet they aren’t given many moments of brevity so that we can know them better. While the emotions are palpable, the notions about understanding are somewhat short-sighted. 
Halfway through Block Pass, Chevrollier pivots the story into a Close territory.

And that transition in dramatic tone doesn’t contain the emotional potency or subtlety that Lukas Dhont provided his film with when approaching that heavy emotional turn. During that section of the film, the story is handled with care yet in a loose manner that makes each scene afterward feel a tad distant. However, when Block Pass is nearing its end, Chevrollier delivers one final punch that is very effective. It is a short and slight moment that not only makes up for the poor management of the narrative beats in the film’s second half but also encapsulates the beautiful friendship that Willy and Jojo have in a single frame. But this moment arrives so late that it makes you wish that Chevrollier had delivered the same emotional potency to the rest of the story.

Grade: C-

Director: Jonathan Millet
Writers: Jonathan Millet
Stars: Adam Bessa, Tawfeek Barhom, Julia Franz Richter

Synopsis: Hamid joins a secret group tracking Syrian regime leaders on the run. His mission takes him to France, pursuing his former torturer for a fateful confrontation.

Jonathan Millet’s feature-length debut Ghost Trail (Les fantômes) is a neatly crafted film that explores the psyche of a Syrian refugee via a spy-genre model. Millet uses an exciting way of exploring the tensions and angst a refugee goes through during and after the significant changes in their lives, especially when encountering ghosts of the past. However, such deconstruction of the espionage subgenre tends to drag across the film’s fascinating premise. Ghost Trail begins in 2015, when we see a man named Jamid (Adam Bessa, an underrated, talented actor) waiting exhausted alongside some other men in the back of a truck. They look worn out and tired of having to face these injustices daily. 

The camera focuses on the sun burning the Syrian desert as they head toward the light until there is no return. The film flashes forward to when Hamid lives in Strasburg, France, two years later. In this time that we miss, Hamid has been very busy – doing various jobs, talking to other Syrians from exile circles, as well as trying to find a person who he deems is his lost cousin from the war. It is slowly revealed that our protagonist is hiding secrets, so his life is very isolated; he even lies to his mother about living a successful life in Berlin. Hamid is part of a “clock-and-dagger” European-based organization that tracks down war criminals responsible for the atrocities that occurred under Bashar’s regime. 

These people Hamid and company are searching for use fake names and disguises, hiding themselves within all of Europe – camouflaging to begin their new lives. With these details known, you realize that Hamid is not looking for his cousin. Instead, he is searching for a man named Harfaz, his torturer from the time he was imprisoned in Sednaya. This is an intriguing premise with many possibilities as the spy games begin and the tension rises. Miller doesn’t indulge in the flash and action that modern spy films tend to use; instead, he takes a more grounded approach to the genre, focusing on Hamid’s perspective during his search for the man who tormented him.

We get plenty of close-ups of Hamid’s stone-cold expressions in the process, further adopting the persona of a lone wolf captured with ease by Bessa throughout the film. Ghost Trail begins to go into a darker territory thematically when Hami thinks he has found Harfaz near Strasbourg. Hamid only has a blurry picture of him and can’t rely on facial recognition, as Harfaz put a bag over his head when torturing him. But his presence still puts a chill down his spine; the way the man talks, smells, and walks reminds Hamid of Harfaz. However, the key is in the details. Hamid notices the man has an injured hand, a mark he recognizes immediately. That’s when he questions what his next move will be. 

The man Hamid believes is his torturer goes by the name of “Hassan” (Tawfeek Barhom), who lives a comfortable life devoid of any complications. This makes Hamid even more furious, as “Hassan” is living a life that he couldn’t have – one taken away from him forcefully. The audience feels his pain through Bessa’s solid performance. The man was robbed of a prosperous life with his wife and daughter, who died during the war. But he now lies deep in isolation; his PTSD haunts his daily living. Through this isolation, MIllet reflects on how the world moves on from these severe problems worldwide. He questions if the world wants, or is interested, in bringing these war criminals to justice instead of letting them go on with their lives as if nothing has happened. 

When Hamid finally decides how to approach the situation, Ghost Trail then plays off as a game of cat and mouse, where Hamid is slowly trying to get closer to “Hassan;” it even reaches a point where he can smell him, which has the audience worried about his actions. During these moments, you get the best and worst assets that MIllet offers in his feature debut. Ghost Trail, unfortunately, ends up dragging a lot when developing this hunt. By the last act, you feel pretty tired of the lone wolf procedure of catch and follow, and the film’s strong ending doesn’t manage to hit as hard as one would like. 

Sometimes, Miller’s direction hints at Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation via sensory clues and details revealed instead of lots of violence, which would have the film go to an unwanted exploitative territory. However, Millet runs out of ideas to keep the audience completely hooked on the narrative. For the most part, Ghost Trail remains engaging enough to make us intrigued about where it is heading and the exploration of a refugee’s broken psyche thanks to the solid performances and the aforementioned sensory element. I think there should have been a more crafty or savvy manner in which everything came to a close in the last few minutes.

Grade: C+

Director: Luis Federico
Writers: Tomas Murphy, Federico Luis Tachella, Agustin Toscano
Stars: Lorenzo Ferro, Pehuen Pedre, Kiara Supini

Synopsis: Seeking change, 21-year-old Simon finds purpose by befriending two disabled children who teach him to embrace life’s joys. Together, they navigate a world not designed for them, inventing their own rules for love and happiness.

Simon of the Mountain (Simón de la montaña), Federico Luis Tachella’s pretty frustrating picture (screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Semaine de la critique), is built like a coming-of-story that we all know – a type of narrative that we tend to see at the festival. However, Federico Luis Tachella focuses more on the aspect of trying to find a place or group in the world where he could feel special and cared for. The film is groundbreaking in its casting choices and subject matter, as we haven’t seen it depict disabled people. However, even though it covers an important topic, it feels ever so distant due to some narrative decisions. 

The film begins abruptly, introducing us immediately to the twenty-one-year-old titular character, Simon (Lorenzo Ferro). He claims to be a moving assistant; he knows how to make a bed but nothing else. Simon can’t cook, clean, or lift heavy objects; so the viewer hesitates to believe him during the film’s first segment. At first glance, he is a complex character to read because the director places us in the middle of an encounter between him and a stranger who asks about his past experiences. The first few minutes contain a sense of mystery; the narrative is unclear as we go through a series of vignettes that capture Simon’s life after that encounter. 

Simon remains mostly silent during these scenes; he stays in the background like the viewer watching the film unfold. The only narrative tissue connecting these scenes is the love story between Pehuen (Pehuén Pedie), the stranger from before, and a girl named Angelica. The two meet in secret; the hospice of the disabled where they stay prohibits sexual relations. One day, Pehuén asks Simon to cover for him as he meets Angelica in the showers. But they all get caught, with Pehuén and Simon being sent to the director’s office to discuss the situation. In this scene, we get some clarity within the narrative and some background to Simon as a character. 

We meet his mother, who has been worried sick as she searches for him everywhere. She starts to notice that her son is acting differently. Simon has apparently lost his ID and disability certificate, yet his mother states that he has never had the latter. At this point, multiple questions pop into the viewer’s mind. Is Simon lying to this three-week-old friend about his condition? What are his intentions? Is he being genuine or mocking them? You don’t exactly know, and the film doesn’t make the search for these answers easy. His mother believes he doesn’t have the best intentions, yet Simon remarks that he has always felt that way, just like Pehuén and Angelica. 

That’s why Pehuén helps him to get the disability certificate; he does so by teaching him how to walk, talk, and react just like him. During Simon of the Mountain, the titular character goes through a couple of discussions that make him think about why he feels he belongs alongside his friends. Simon, as well as the audience watching, questions whether or not he is disabled, and if so, why would his mother reject him like that instead of seeking help. This is Simon’s journey of self-discovery, hoping the people around him accept him into this place he deems special. While well-intentioned and good-hearted, the film fails to transmit the character’s emotions to the viewer. 

We watch as he immerses himself in this new life, yet the viewer is not entirely captivated by his journey. Federico Luis Tachella doesn’t take much time to provide details about Simon’s background. Instead, he has him in different scenarios that don’t develop his character to a compelling degree. Simon of the Mountain is a fairly acted drama that leaves more questions in your mind than answering the ones established throughout the narrative. That isn’t a particular issue that ruins the viewing experience. I prefer that films leave room for ambiguity rather than having an immediate answer for everything or sugarcoating the story to avoid doing so. 

However, when you don’t have a fully defined character in the lead role, and he doesn’t grow much during the story being told, significant problems arise. I would like to revisit the film later to see if my thoughts would change, given that I know how Simon’s journey concludes. But as of now, I think the film lacks the brevity to showcase its beating heart properly.  It has been one of the most strenuous watches at the festival, not because of how Federico Luis Tachella handles the subject matter but because of the procedure he used to tell this story.

Grade: C-

Director: Coralie Fargeat
Writer: Coralie Fargeat
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Demi Moore

Synopsis: A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Body horror is the house for mad creatures to concoct their carnal visions, dreams, and nightmares. The exploration of the body is endless in this canvas. Why would filmmakers limit themselves when crossing into this subgenre when it is all about venturing into the unknown? There are many ways you can tie these bloody brigades with everything in life, not necessarily limited to the classic theme of trauma. Filmmakers like David Cronenberg and Julia Ducournau – the king and queen of body horror (and two of my favorite directors of all time) – have found fascinating, unique ways to implement these elements to a plethora of themes, whether it is the 80s obsession with violence on the media in Videodrome or finding unconditional love in Titane. 

The two have revolutionized what can be done with the horror genre. However, a new name is emerging that can be placed on that short list. That is Coralie Fargeat, known for her excellent debut, Revenge, in 2017. The French filmmaker had dabbled before with the subgenre, although it was just passing moments rather than complete focus on it. But in her follow-up, The Substance (screening in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival), she decides to go all out, to degrees that both Cronenberg and Ducournau would be proud of. As grizzly as her previous work, yet more audacious, The Substance has Fargeat not wanting to hold back. 

She tests the audience to see if they can stomach the brutal beast she has created. And if they can’t, well… good luck then! The procedure Fargeat uses is similar to how two-time Palme d’Or-winner Ruben Östlund creates satires: having the subtlety of a sledgehammer and putting the audience through an array of loud scenarios that provoke and detach. But unlike him, Fargeat isn’t blindsided by the fact that she has done this; it is a part of the aberrant painting she has covered in bodily fluids, in all of its cinematically delightful carnage that will leave gore-hounds and horror freaks enamored by its madness. 

The Substance centers around Elizabeth Sparkle (a magnificent Demi Moore who has never been better). She is a veteran actress and a top talent of her time whose name immediately hints at the sledgehammer-wielding Fargeat’s unsubtle satire. Elizabeth is a star fading away from the spotlight that used to caress her face with a soothing luminescence. Even with the trophies that ensure she doesn’t vanish from the ostentatious world of Hollywood – an Oscar for a movie that nobody remembers and a now cracked star in the “honored” Walk of Fame, which Fargeat shows from its installation to the stepped-on present during the film’s first-minutes – none of that is stopping the cruelty of how this society focused rejuvenation value women when they are young, leaving them to roost once they are not youthful. 

This is Fargeat’s crux, seen early in the film as a more grounded (in comparison with what the rest of the film has to offer) and unsubtle critique. However, she doesn’t want to stop there. You already might get the point, yet Fargeat intends to construct a carnal attraction of her own. And it is a thing of horrific beauty. The once A-lister is now turned fifty, looking for a way back into the bright lights after the TV executive, Harvey (Dennis Quaid, ever so despicable in his performance, tuning into the material perfectly) lets her go from the dance workout show she hosted, Sparkle Your Life, because he wants a young face in the poster. Elizabeth doesn’t know what to do; in Hollywood’s eye, her glamor is fading. 

With a string of back luck on her side, the day gets worse. She gets into a car accident that sends her to the hospital, even though no injuries were suffered. It is here where she has an encounter with a stranger, a moment that might seem insignificant if it wasn’t for the USB she has now in her possession. Arriving as a “guardian angel” at first, later revealed as a “be careful what you wish for” devil, the hard drive has information about a procedure that will make her young again via a cloning process. As explained in the USB, the experiment involves injecting a serum called “The Substance”, which will allow the user to live a new life in a young, beautiful body for seven days at a time. 

The two women can’t be conscious simultaneously, as they are one person, just separated into two different bodies. Intrigued by the idea, Elizabeth decides to proceed with the unorthodox experiment since she doesn’t have another idea. Out of her spine, she hatches a younger version of herself, Sue (Margaret Qualley), in an amusing, disgusting way. She can’t believe it; right before her eyes lies a new creation. “The Substance” plays a god-like role, breaking the rules and notions of the body and its capabilities. Sue then follows to audition for the role Elizabeth has lost and gains immediate stardom, the slimy Harvey rejoicing as the fresh meat earns him money. But a huge problem arises. Sue doesn’t want to share her time in the world; meanwhile, Elizabeth is comatose in a private room, her life slowly draining and decaying as the starlet gains vivacity. The arrangement fractures as time passes and spinal fluid is removed.

This ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ meets ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’-like story develops into an amalgamation of gory inventions, referencing multiple cinema legends (Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Lucio Fulci) as well as some of the genre’s cult classics (Society, The Stuff). You immediately notice not only how well-versed Coralie Fargeat is in cinema history but also her great confidence behind the camera. The film oozes, both literally and figuratively, in style and flash, adopting hallucinatory and gruesome techniques that make each horror set piece have a great force of cinematic prowess. Consequently, it feels like a breath of fresh air, a unique addition to a vast genre filled with many ideas and concepts that are as striking as they are thrilling. 

Fargeat demonstrated in Revenge how she could take a subgenre such as rape revenge-thriller and make it her own via her unique feminist methodology in her filmmaking, which lines up with what Carol J. Clover said about the victim-hero and final girl in her excellent book ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws’. And the French filmmaker, who might win an award at the end of the festival, does the same thing with body horror. It is a movie that is influenced, yet savvy and prolific, made within the confines of a subgenre that hasn’t seen much reinvention since the aforementioned Cronenberg and Ducournau. Fargeat is in full command, never letting the boat she’s sailing go close to sinking. 

In terms of horror, The Substance is a work of sheer expertise. You are perplexed by the tastelessness in the brutality, in awe of the vision in her creations, and captivated by the approach to this damning story. When it comes to the satire, that’s where some audience members might find the most faults. The whole ordeal is more than obvious; the joke that “The Substance doesn’t have much substance” will be thrown around many times in cheap one-sentence Letterboxd reviews. The mechanics of the narrative and the world the film builds revolve around that on-the-nose laughability. The comedy and horror elements are heightened due to the hollowness of the film’s casing, catching the viewer easily off guard when the director mutilates and deconstructs the body of her characters. With a blood bath that emerges later in the story, it might be possible that the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière might be strained in crimson red for a very long time. The Substance, a beast of its own, is a total uncouth jewel.

Grade: A

Director: Paul Schrader
Writers: Paul Schrader, Russell Banks
Stars: Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman

Synopsis: Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam, shares all his secrets to de-mythologize his mythologized life.

Paul Schrader’s cinema has always delved into the depths of death and existentialism, with some films more overtly exploring these themes than others. The characters he crafts, whether they be taxi drivers, drug dealers, gigolos, or boxers, all grapple with a profound sense of dread. They transform their trauma into a vocational obsession, constructing a facade that conceals their past struggles and perturbations. Schrader’s works, particularly those in the latter half of his career, serve as a confessional for these characters as they introspect on their lives and strive for redemption. You are invited to listen to their revelations and delve into their fractured psyche. The contemplation of broken men on a canvas has become more simplistic, yet no less intriguing to explore, even when these introspections are not entirely successful. 

This self-analysis and exploration by the characters are now prevalent in a more literal form in Schrader’s latest work, Oh, Canada, an adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel ‘Foregone’ from two years ago. After a series of tragic events for him, like the passing of his friend Russell Banks, his health scares, and caring for his wife after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Paul Schrader is now, more than ever, thinking and reflecting on mortality. A string of events made him ponder what’s next for him and how much time he has, both in and out of cinema. Feeling like death was near, he decided to make a movie about that same predicament: running out of time. 

“If I want to make a film about death, I’d better hurry up”, said Schrader in an interview with Le Monde. This is why Oh, Canada has a sense of urgency. Even though his previous work covered prevalent and important topics, they often lacked the immediacy that adds emotional depth to a film. Schrader taps into a manner of storytelling that we haven’t seen from him before; he is reflective and more personal, which amounts to a moving portrait of a flawed man looking back at his life and coming to terms with his mistakes and regrets. Oh, Canada tells the story of the fictional documentarian Leonard Fife (Richard Gere, returning to work with Schrader after 44 years, delivering his best performance in a very long time). 

In 1968, he dodged the draft that was going to send Leonard to the Vietnam War by fleeing to Canada, marrying one of his students, Emma (Uma Thurman), so that he could permanently stay, ridden of the atrocities that occurred at the time. To this day, he feels the pain of his choices, burdened by the effect of what happened during the war, where thousands of young men were sent out to die. And as he has aged, this feeling has increased. Leonard doesn’t show that guilt outwardly; it is mostly internal. But when he agrees to do an interview with two of his old students, Malcolm (Michale Imperioli) and his partner, Diana (Victoria Hill), these emotions are given a time in the spotlight. 

What was initially considered a celebration of his work becomes a confessional. Leonard is questioned about everything that happened in his life, including the partner and child he left behind when he fled to Canada. Leonard isn’t resistant to revealing his past; as a matter of fact, he is insistent on doing so. Leonard wants Emma to know what he has done and who he really is. But the man can’t seem to piece together every memory of that neglected past. The crew and companions around him blame it on his cancer treatment, which has increased due to his condition worsening. This is where Schrader cuts back and forth between the present and the concealed past. The audience slowly learns about what Leonard has been hiding for decades. 

Via flashbacks, we see a young Leonard (played by Jacob Elordi) gearing up to leave his humble life in Virginia, living with a caring wife and a son, to enroll as a teacher in Vermont. In these scenes, you notice the differences in Leonard’s persona. When he was young, the man was charismatic and visionary; meanwhile, he is now pompous and egotistical. He packed his bags on moral grounds and unpacked everything for the first time in public. It brings a haunting sensation of existential regret and hindrance to the film. Leonard continues to share as everyone begs him to stop confessing his hard choices – pouring his heart and soul into the camera recording him. The people in the room and the audience watching are now asked to decide whether or not to judge Leonard for all that he has admitted. 

Evidently, through the project’s backstory and narrative, Oh, Canada is Paul Schrader’s most personal film to date. He takes parts of his own life to plant inside the scripture of Banks’ novel as an ode to his dear friend and a way to be vulnerable with the audience. This is why we get a sense of familiarity in the company of Leonard. We see a bit of the influential American director in him, which both Gere and Elordi bring to life remarkably. Schrader reflects on his worries, offenses, and struggles to ensure the film has that genuine feeling of a confessional – a filmmaker who has been quite indulgent in doing an open testimony. Via the power of cinema, these emotions get transmitted to the viewer on multiple levels. 

Oh, Canada contains a sense of honesty that Schrader hasn’t seen before. Like Francis Ford Coppola in Megalopolis, Schrader puts his thoughts on the passing of time and our inability to stop it on a cinematic canvas—although the director of Apocalypse Now was less successful at doing so with his thematic exploration. Both veteran filmmakers who have graced the screen with masterpieces of their own in the 70s and 80s have endured many hindrances across their careers. Somehow, Oh, Canada and Megalopolis arrive not only in unison (both screening in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival), but at the perfect time. They are at a point in their life where they notice more of the remaining sand in the hourglass. And it is fascinating how the two intersect. 

Schrader’s latest is thematically tragic, cinematically moving, and, most importantly, filled with hope, yearning for us who still have time on our hands to self-reflect on our lives before it is too late. As grim and anxiety-inducing as it may sound, that’s the thought that lingers in your head after watching Oh, Canada. Through the puzzle Leonard is trying to assemble, we slowly come to our own conclusions about where we are headed, at least at this point in time. It is missing a couple of pieces to complete the picture, just like Leonard’s confession is just a part of it – a human element that holds onto you. Instead of gnawing and unforgiving notions about death, we get a more evocative one. Oh, Canada is more than a gateway into Schrader’s psyche; it is a candid divulgence, rampant Facebook comments and all.

Grade: B+