Cannes 2022: we saw a detective comedy with Vincent Lacoste and two new favorites for the Palme

Le Parfum Vert by Nicolas Pariser (Directors’ Fortnight)

After Le Grand Jeu and Alice and the Mayor, Nicolas Pariser returns with a very different new film, presented at the close of the Directors’ Fortnight. The Green Perfume is a burlesque spy comedy that borrows its suspense and detective aspect from Hitchcock’s cinema and draws its narrative inspiration from the world of Tintin.

A hero who approaches Martin, the character played by Vincent Lacoste. This comedian from the Comédie-Française in the midst of a divorce proceedings helplessly witnesses the death on stage in full performance of one of his playing partners and will find himself, despite himself, suspect number 1 in what turns out to be a murder.

Martin then embarks on a folkloric investigation with Claire (Sandrine Kiberlain), a comic book designer who flees her professional failure and family pressure, for this crazy adventure. As with Fabrice Luchini and Anaïs Demoustier in Alice and the Mayor, Nicolas Pariser once again brings together an unexpected but terribly tasty and effective duo in a finely written and very enjoyable tale.

Megane Choquet

Close by Lukas Dhont (Official Competition)

Diaphana Films

In 2018, Lukas Dhont presents his first film, Girl, at Cannes and wins the Caméra d’or. Today, he returns with a second feature film, Close, presented in Competition. It recounts the passionate friendship of two 13-year-old teenagers, Léo and Rémi. The first suddenly decides to distance himself when their proximity becomes a subject of mockery in college. This separation will trigger a devastating event.

Close takes everything in its path. Lukas Dhont offers a melodrama that is both intense and restrained. The director uses silences, looks and bodies to better tell a story that could do without words. The film is carried by an excellent cast. There are, first of all, two confirmed actresses, Léa Drucker and Emilie Dequenne – poignant in each of her screen appearances, but above all two magnetic revelations: Gustav De Waele and Eden Dambrine. Heart stroke.

Thomas Desroches

Torment on the Islands by Albert Serra (Competition)

Diamond Films

Three years after his Jury Prize in the Un certain regard for Freedom section, Albert Serra is in the Official Competition with Torment on the Islands (or Peace). And it is a true cinematographic experience that the Spanish filmmaker offers us and which will necessarily divide the proposal as it is radical and psychedelic.

The film, with Lynchian tunes, follows the labyrinthine wanderings of De Roller (amazing Benoit Magimel), a High Commissioner of the Republic, representative of the French State, on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia. This pugnacious, cynical and calculating man who tries to put the population in his pocket with fine speeches and false promises comes up against a threat of rebellion and great anger from the inhabitants following a persistent rumor about a potential resumption of French nuclear tests.

Between population pressure and government threats, De Roller feels the island engulf him as he plunges into a strange and hypnotic paranoia like the contemplative shots of the island that Albert Serra offers us, in addition forced and almost grotesque dialogues that reinforce the absurdity of an oppressive and unjust world.

Megane Choquet

The Blue of the Kaftan (Un Certain Regard)

New World Films/Ali n Productions/Velvet Films/Snowglobe

Halim has been married for a long time to Mina, with whom he runs a traditional caftan shop in the medina of Salé, Morocco. The couple have always lived with Halim’s secret, his homosexuality which he has learned to keep quiet. Mina’s illness and the arrival of a young apprentice will upset this balance. United in their love, each will help the other to face his fears.

Like the fabric of the caftan which gives its title to the film, Le Bleu du caftan is a very delicate, soft work, which modestly approaches the subject of homosexuality in Morocco. This is based on a fine scenario, which takes the time to reveal the characters to us gradually. Strong scenes emerge from the film. The interpretation of the trio that makes up the film is always right: Saleh Bakri, Lubna Azabal and Ayoub Missioui. Le Bleu du caftan is directed by Maryam Touzani (who previously directed Adam), and co-written by her and Nabil Ayouch (Much Loved, Haut et fort).

Brigitte Baronet

As Bestas by Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Cannes Premiere)

Lucia Faraig

After the shocking Madre, the Spaniard Rodrigo Sorogoyen returns to a totally different genre with the terrifying As Bestas. The story of a French couple – played by Denis Ménochet and Marina Foïs – settled in a small village in Galicia to build a haven of peace there. Their presence and their opposition to a wind turbine project will stir up the hatred of their neighbours, two brothers, ready to do anything, especially the worst, to make them live through a nightmare.

True thriller oppressive, suffocating even, As Bestas takes us into the Spanish countryside, an ideal setting to isolate his characters and put the viewer under tension. Violence grows more and more in the film, while the moments of discord accumulate. Impossible not to think of The Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman, but also of Deliverance by John Boorman for the time of a very striking scene.

Thomas Desroches

The Lucky Stars of Hirokazu Kore-Eda (Competition)

Metropolitan FilmExport

In 2018, the Japanese Hirokazu Kore-Eda won the Palme d’Or with A family matter. The following year, it was the turn of the Korean film Parasite, in which we found actor Song Kang-Ho. Today, it is together that they embark on the Cannes competition, the second in front of the camera of the first, who is changing countries again.

After France, where he examined the Catherine Deneuve myth, here he is in South Korea. But with his usual favorite themes of family and childhood, against a backdrop of social phenomena. There are boxes in which women can safely leave their babies, in place in the country since 2010. This is how it begins The Lucky Starsbefore two men illegally retrieve the toddler in an attempt to find him a new home.

We sometimes think of Little Miss Sunshine, when this blended and dysfunctional family (to which the child’s mother is added) crosses the country in a van. There are also a bit of police elements with this captain (Doona Bae) following them to try to catch them in the act. But it is above all the emotion that predominates. Without doing too much, as usual with the director, able to pick us up with a simple gesture, while the story is a continuation of his previous films, Like father, like son in mind.

We could blame the fatigue accumulated at the end of the festival for the tears caused. But you just have to admit that Les Bonnes étoiles is very beautiful. And upsetting. Will Kore-Eda join the very closed club of webbed doubles?

Maximilien Pierrette