Revival of suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings... mainly happy endings

So here's the thing,  

The film festival starts tomorrow, and it seems weird to realise it's been four years since we had a proper traditional film festival. 2020 of course was the year of the deeply unsatisfying mostly online festival with just a handful of in-person sessions. In 2021 the festival left its traditional mid-winter positioning and moved to November, and then the screenings were all socially distanced due to a COVID outbreak, so the entire festival just felt empty. In 2022, we returned to our usual mid-winter timing, but it was a shorter festival - just 10 days rather than the traditional 17 days. But now, in 2023, we return to a complete 17-day festival, in its traditional time of year spanning July and August, with full screenings that are actually full. I cannot wait.   

Anyway, the films I will be seeing are:

- Anatomy of a Fall
- Reality
- Charcoal
- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
- The Delinquents
- The Munekata Sisters
- Perfect Days
- River
- Fantastic Machine
- De Humani Corporis Fabrica
- Beyond Utopia
- Afire
- Palm Trees and Power Lines
- Suzhou River
- #Manhole
- Bad Behaviour
- May December
- Chocolat
- Anselm 3D
- Past Lives
- Sanctuary

- La Chimera
- Monster
- Sisu
- Only the River Flows
- Showing Up
- Kim's Video
- War Pony
- Seven Winters in Tehran
- Saint Omer
- Inside
- EO
- Fremont
- No Bears
- Ennio
- Phantom
- The Innocents
- My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock
- Fallen Leaves

I've been enjoying this recent run of "Who, me? I'm not making movies!" documentary-style movies that Jafar Panahi has been making ever since Iran banned him from making movies, but the recent lifting of his travel ban is hopefully a sign that he can get back to making more traditional films if he wants to, and No Bears will be his last film that has to filmed in this way. 

I'm bracing myself for the documentary filmed at a Paris hospital, De Humani Corporis Fabrica - I normally don't enjoy even the mildest of medical detail, so I'm nervous about what I'll see. But I've heard such a strong response to the film that I've decided to give it a shot. 

Wim Wenders is clearly having a big year. A film about a toilet cleaner in Japan seems like a strange subject for a a German filmmaker, but Perfect Days is apparently pretty good. Meanwhile, remembering how effectively he used the extra dimension in his 3D documentary Pina makes me intrigued to see him working in that medium for another documentary about an artist in Anselm 3D.

You can usually rely on there being an interesting select of films about film. As a fan of both Hitchcock and the cinema documentaries by Mark Cousins, I'm interested to see what he does when approaching the Master of Suspense, while as a lover of film scores I'm excited to see a documentary celebrating the work of the maestro Ennio Morricone, arguably the greatest film composer of all time. And, as someone who is passionate about physical media, I'm intrigued by Kim's Video, telling the story of what happened to a massive collection of movies after the closure of the titular video store .

There's a mini-theme of people trapped and trying to escape, with Inside about a thief trapped in an apartment, and the annoyingly titled #Manhole about someone trapped in a manhole. Similarly, I'll be seeing two different dramas taking place within the French legal system(Anatomy of a Fall and Saint Omer). There's also a weird theme of films about teens being groomed into sexual relationships with adults - as someone who remembers the news in the mid-90s, I'm intrigued by the new Todd Haynes film May December apparently inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau case, while I've had Palm Trees and Power Lines noted as a film to look out for the past 18 months, ever since reading strong reviews when it premiered at Sundance last year.

The "classic" strand is interesting this year - it's almost entirely filled with films I've never even heard of, let along seen - The Munekata Sisters, Chocolat, as well as Detour (which I could not fit into my schedule. Only The Innocents was a title I was familiar with, and I'm excited to finally be crossing that one off my list.

Finally, I've heard great things about the new Kelly Reichardt film (Showing Up), the new adaptation of Judy Blume's most famous novel (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.), and the heartwarming movie about the journey of an escaped donkey (EO). I also hear Past Lives, the first film from playwright Celene Song, apparently inspired by her own experience reflecting on what might have been with her childhood friend, is supposed to be quite something. 

So that's this years festival. It's exciting to see it back to normal, where hopefully it will remain in place for many years.

1441 minutes

So here's the thing, 

About seven years ago, filmmaking duo the Daniels released their first film, Swiss Army Man. And there was a lot that I really liked in the film - it was a fascinating exploration of friendship, loneliness, love, and regret, anchored by a fantastic central performance by Daniel Radcliffe. But there was a lot in the film that I genuinely hated - after all, Daniel Radcliffe was playing a corpse that farts all the time and has an erection that works as a compass. The almost non-stop juvenile fascination with toilet humour made the film feel as though it was made by young teenagers rather than two adult men. So while there was a lot of potential in that film, if you had told me that the second film from that duo would be frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar, I think my brain might have broken at that idea.

[Thoughts on Everything Everywhere All At Once, and all nine other Best Picture nominees - The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, Triangle of Sadness, Tár, Women Talking, and All Quiet on the Western Front - after the jump]