Life itself

SACHIN CHATTE

There is so much happening at the Cannes Film Festival purely in terms of cinema that it is impossible to keep up with all the films. There are plenty of parties too, but with no invitations to chase, that turns out to be a blessing in disguise — one can focus entirely on watching films.

Apart from the Competition section, which remains the main attraction, there is also Un Certain Regard — where ‘Homebound’ screened last year — and that section draws considerable attention as well, with screenings held at the Palais. Then there are parallel sections like Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week and ACID. Cannes Immersive also continues as a dedicated strand. No matter where you go, there are long queues, eager audiences, and in those queues, conversations about cinema that range from the sensible to the absurd.

Here are some more films from the Competition section that worked for me.

‘Parallel Tales’ — Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi returns with an ambitiously written French-language film set in Paris. It has received mixed reactions at the festival, though there is much to admire, especially in the writing. Starring Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel, the film is inspired by ‘Dekalog’ — specifically episode six — and you can also sense shades of Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ throughout.

Huppert plays Sylvie, a writer searching for inspiration for her new novel. The inspiration lies just across the street: with a telescope in hand, she begins spying on a sound recording studio. A middle-aged man runs the place, assisted by a younger woman, Nita (Virginie Efira), and his brother (Pierre Niney). That workplace also carries echoes from Sylvie’s own past, and she lets her imagination run wild, constructing the novel from what she thinks she sees. Soon, the line between imagination and reality starts to blur, and Farhadi leans into that uncertainty.

The film takes time to settle into itself, and the 140-minute duration does not help. It also demands a fair bit of imagination from the viewer. As Sylvie says in one scene, think of a duck in a bottle — the duck is real, the bottle is real, but the duck going into the bottle is imagination.

‘All of a Sudden’ — Ryusuke Hamaguchi had his Cannes breakthrough with ‘Drive My Car’, and it would not be surprising if this tender, meditative film picks up a major award, perhaps even the Palme d’Or. The film runs well over three hours, and like life itself, moves at an unhurried pace. Yet it draws you in completely. Before you realise it, the end credits arrive — and in the 2,300-seat Grand Théâtre Lumière, the sobs were unmistakable. Many eyes had welled up. “Up close, no one is normal,” says one line in the film.

Set in Paris, it revolves around Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira), director of a care home for the elderly. She believes in Humanitude, an empathetic philosophy of caregiving, which does not sit well with those who favour more traditional methods.

She meets Mari (Tao Okamoto), a Japanese theatre director living in Paris, and they connect on a deeply cerebral level, talking about everything from democracy to nature to mortality.

The affection between them makes you care for them not only as individuals but as two people who have found something rare in one another. It helps that they communicate effortlessly — the Parisian speaks Japanese, and the Japanese woman speaks French. Beyond the conversations, the film works cinematically too: the editing finds exactly the right rhythm, and the camerawork remains quietly observant.

There are several moments that move, and even more that linger in the mind afterward. By the end, I was reminded of the line Gulzar saab wrote in ‘Anand’, “zindagi badi honi chahiye lambi nahi” (life should be measured by its depth, not by its length)