POMO

A lot of dark drama inspired by actual events, which you ideally shouldn’t read about beforehand. Because even though the protagonist, Karoline, has it as badly as possible, more unexpected blows will come. The impressive production design gives a sense of the filth and hopelessness of the time. The film also impresses in places with almost expressionistic compositions, whose meaning is symbolically filled out by the appearance of Karoline’s husband, who had been disfigured in the war. There are a lot of details that make us wonder how people lived in such discomfort during that time a century ago. Vic Carmen Sonne in the main role leads the film with her brilliant, quiet performance, which veteran actress Trine Dyrholm later darkens (literally) in a smaller space with equal intensity. Facial expressions are paramount here. Viewers will experience the maternal moments even more powerfully; many gasps were heard in the screening room and people could be seen covering their eyes. [Cannes FF]

Lanthimos has taken a sharp detour from his recent mainstream films. He knows that we will eat anything out of the palm of his hand. Kinds of Kindness is a decadent riddle reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson’s sultry conversational flicks and his own early Greek films, but with Hollywood stars and an American setting. The first and most polished of the three stories masterfully draws us in from the opening seconds with its subject matter and characters. The second one throws us off balance and the third, in relation to the two that came before, is already fodder for a roundtable discussion. The dark, unexplained supporting character R.M.F, around whom the stories revolve, is most likely the alter ego of the director himself (and is played by Lanthimos’s Greek friend Yorgos Stefanakos) and represents a metaphor for his journey through big-time show business. There is no shortage of funny, bizarre, disturbing and bold moments in Kinds of Kindness, as Lanthimos again takes an original approach to exploring sexuality, sensuality, cruelty, dominance and all of the other things that we love him for. Only with a smaller budget and in a realistic contemporary setting. [Cannes FF]

An ancient drama set in a futuristic New York with literary quotes from classics and existential contemplations, ridiculously incongruent with the film’s overall execution. It’s sexy once and funny once, but in its aesthetics, the rest of the film is a mix of styles ranging from embarrassing to kitschy, making it absolutely unsellable to a broader audience. Crowd scenes with dozens of extras, costumes with motifs from ancient Rome and digital scenes out of a television fantasy for retirement homes. The groundless, half-baked motif of stopping time and many other outlined ideas go nowhere. Is it possible that Coppola would consider this to be his great final work to which he gave his all? Just as he kicked his career into high gear with the long wedding scene in The Godfather, he lays it to rest with this horrible theatrical event for the cream of Megalopolis like something out of the mega-flop Caligula. Otherwise, Nathalie Emmanuel is beautiful, Aubrey Plaza is dangerously seductive and Shia LaBeouf is the best of them all. [Cannes FF]