Film Shapes

Sean Baker has been making low budget, grungy-looking films for a while now, so it was probably a bit of a surprise when he won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Anora . The first third of this stripper/sex worker story pings along at a nice pace. It begins to go slightly baggy in the middle third but recomposes itself for the home straight. Mikey Madison plays Anora (or Ani), an erotic dancer in a club where it looks like the majority of the dosh comes from private lap-dances - she has issues with her boss not paying health insurance and holiday benefits. Madison is a natural in this medium (my notes for this say "Is she an actual stripper? Check.") One night, Ani is requested to translate and maybe dance for, a young Russian guy, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), who immediately takes a shine to her and invites her to come to his place the next day. Ani realises she's hit pay dirt when she arrives at his mansion, and his goofy, sweet nature endears him to her even more. Post-sha...

Justine Triet's Palme d'Or winning drama about the unravelling of a relationship is a coldly intriguing piece of work. The film starts at an Alpine cottage where Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is being interviewed about her writing. Her husband, Samuel (Samuel Maleski) is upstairs playing loud music, her son readying the dog for a walk in the snow. The music brings a premature end to the interview as the son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) heads out. On his return, his father lies dead at the front of the house. No spoilers here, this all happens in the first 10 minutes of the film. The rest of the runtime picks apart the events leading up to the fall. But did he fall, did he jump or was he pushed? The intrigue doesn't play out like a detective story, where the fun lies in the minutiae of putting the 'how' together. Rather, it focusses on the 'why', or how things got to this point. Sandra enlists the help of an old lawyer friend, Vincent (Swann Arlaud) when it appears...

With The Square in 2017, and now Triangle of Sadness , Ruben Östlund has joined a select group of directors who've won the Palme D'Or with consecutive films (Billie August and Michael Haneke being the others, though nine directors have won twice). Rarified air. Add 2014's Force Majeure and that makes up a critically lauded hat trick. With only Force and Triangle to go on (I've been meaning to see Square but, shit, I've been meaning to do loads of stuff), Östlund seems to be furrowing a mildly provocative, fluffy bête-noire niche for himself, not fully blown Von Trier, but it's early doors. The title refers to the space between your eyes and the top of your nose, and has something to do with modelling pouts, as far as I could tell. The leads, Harris Dickinson (Carl) and Charlbi Dean (Yaya) are gorgeous, young fashion models - Yaya is also an 'influencer', which is the reason they find themselves on a luxury super boat, fraternising with other disgust...

Here's this year's Palme d'Or winner and it certainly underlines Cannes' predilection for 'envelope-pushing' films. Broadly, it's a sweet story of two people who are searching for love, it's just that it's dressed up in body horror and violent killings. Don't let that put you off (unless you find long, bone hairpins in orifices beyond the pale), because this film has some pretty fine things going for it.  Director, Julia Ducournau, in only her second feature, shows a steady, confident hand. Oddly, for a film that's so provocative, she lets the audience assume details and, maybe reluctantly, accept certain events. Alexia, played by newcomer Agathe Rouselle, is involved in a car accident in her childhood, and is patched up with a titanium plate in her head. Fast forward 10 years or so and she's an exotic dancer at underground car shows (least, that's what it looks like). After one such show, a sleazy dude tries it on her, much to his de...