{"id":3450,"date":"2018-05-20T14:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commarts.pleather.us\/2018\/05\/20\/cannes-2018-the-11-best-movies-of-this-years-festival\/"},"modified":"2018-05-20T14:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T14:00:59","slug":"cannes-2018-the-11-best-movies-of-this-years-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/2018\/05\/20\/cannes-2018-the-11-best-movies-of-this-years-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannes 2018: The 11 Best Movies of This Year\u2019s Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/t\/cannes\/\" id=\"auto-tag_cannes\">Cannes<\/a> Film Festival has ended, but the movies are very much still with us. This year&#8217;s festival started with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/2018\/05\/jean-luc-godard-cannes-netflix-the-image-book-1201959881\/\">a Netflix controversy<\/a> and hosted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/2018\/05\/women-protest-cannes-lets-climb-1201963626\/\">major activism<\/a> around women in the film industry. But despite the many conversations swirling around the festival environment, Cannes was still a film festival. So how were those movies, anyway?<\/p>\n<p>Early on, this year&#8217;s program was assailed for lacking star power and many A-list auteurs, but in retrospect, not of that skepticism really gelled with a selection that ranged from newcomers to veterans, and from stars to fresh faces \u2014 and it all cast an exciting spotlight on movies from around the world. Here are the best of the bunch.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pmc-related-link read-more\">\n\t\t\t<strong class=\"pmc-related-type\">Read More:<\/strong><a target=\"_self\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/2018\/05\/2018-cannes-winners-list-palme-dor-1201966264\/\" title=\"2018 Cannes Film Festival Awards: \u2018Shoplifters\u2019 Wins Palme d\u2019Or, Spike Lee Earns Grand Prix\">2018 Cannes Film Festival Awards: \u2018Shoplifters\u2019 Wins Palme d\u2019Or, Spike Lee Earns Grand Prix<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<h3>\u201cArctic\u201d<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_1201962962\" style=\"width: 790px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1201962962 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/arctic.jpg?w=780\" alt=\"&quot;Arctic&quot;\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Arctic&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"image-credit\">Cannes<\/p>\n<p>This may be a low bar to clear, but Joe Penna\u2019s directorial feature debut is one of the best movies ever made about a man stranded in the wilderness. Mads Mikkelsen, throwing himself into an Iceland shoot that could probably have made for a compelling survival story unto itself, gives a career-best performance as a downed pilot named Overg\u00e5rd. We join his nearly wordless ordeal at some point after his plane has crashed into a deep white valley in the middle of nowhere. At first, it seems like a familiar setup, but the cast soon doubles in size when Overg\u00e5rd is forced to care for the helicopter pilot who crashes while trying to rescue him. Maybe there are some places where people just aren\u2019t supposed to fly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cArctic\u201d is such an involving experience because Penna finds ways to infuse real drama into potentially mundane details; we always know where the characters are and what\u2019s at stake with each step, so that watching Mikkelsen turn a sled into a makeshift shelter achieves the excitement of a major setpiece. It\u2019s broad stuff, and well-trod terrain for a movie that takes place in uncharted territory, but it cuts straight to the difference between endurance and survival. Movies like this are typically only exciting because the hero might die. \u201cArctic\u201d is so compelling because Overg\u00e5rd might not. <em>\u2014DE<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/t\/blackkklansman\/\" id=\"auto-tag_blackkklansman\">BlacKkKlansman<\/a>&#8221;<\/h3>\n<div>Spike Lee made a triumphant return to the Croisette after 20 years with the angry and hugely entertaining \u201cBlacKkKlansman,\u201d which took home the Grand Prix. \u201cGet Out\u201d director Jordan Peele called Lee out of blue to see if he wanted to direct an adaptation of Ron Stallworth\u2019s memoir \u201cBlack Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime,\u201d the story of a young black man who became the first police officer in Colorado Springs. Lee instantly saw how to make the movie work \u2014 connect it to the age of Trump \u2014 and called in &#8220;Chi-Raq&#8221; co-writer Kevin Willmott. They put Trump catch-phrases like &#8220;America First&#8221; into the mouths of the KKK, along with torrents of incendiary hate-speak. The colorful dialogue spewing out of mouths of David Duke (Topher Grace), the KKK, and Stallworth (played by Denzel Washington\u2019s son, John David Washington, familiar from \u201cBallers\u201d and \u201cMonster\u201d) is extraordinary to hear. The movie is outrageous, hilarious and serious, all at the same time. It couldn&#8217;t be more timely. Or timeless.\u00a0 <em>\u2014AT<\/em><\/div>\n<h3>\u201cBurning\u201d<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_1201960806\" style=\"width: 790px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1201960806 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/burning.jpg?w=780\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"338\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Burning&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Eight years had passed since Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong brought another movie to Cannes. Lee, a precise filmmaker whose patient character studies are among some of the richest in world cinema today, doesn\u2019t need to rush. Of course it was worth the wait: Combing forces with Haruki Murakami by adapting his short story \u201cBarn Burning,\u201d Lee develops a haunting, beautiful tone poem about working class frustrations, based around the experiences of frustrated wannabe writer Lee (a superb, understated Ah-in Yoo) who thinks he\u2019s found an escape from his loneliness when he encounters Haimi (energetic newcomer Jean Jong Seo), a lively woman from his past with whom he sees romantic possibilities. That situation gets complicated by the arrival of Ben (Steven Yeung), a wealthy and assertive stranger with an American name who represents everything Lee wants in life. The filmmaker develops a fascinating, allegorical mystery around these circumstances as the drama builds to a shocking confrontation that asks as many questions as it answers. \u201cBurning\u201d is at once a social parable for lower class struggles and an intimate portrait of struggling for companionship and assertiveness in an indifferent world. That\u2019s typical Lee Chang-dong territory, and it\u2019s a thrill to have him back. <em>\u2014EK<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;Capernaum&#8221;<\/h3>\n<div>Actress-writer-director Nadine Labaki follows up &#8220;Caramel&#8221; and &#8220;Where Do We Go Now?&#8221; with a brilliant fictional take on children in poverty, matching non-pros with roles they can inhabit with ease, from Zain Al Rafeea, who plays the angry yet humane 12-year-old boy who sues his parents for giving him life, to an undocumented Ethiopian woman (Yordanos Shiferaw) with an adorable son Yonas \u2014 a girl who learned to walk on camera.\u00a0 Not unlike &#8220;Slumdog Millionaire,&#8221; Labaki&#8217;s challenging shoot in the slums of Beirut teems with vital street life, filth and horror. This likely Oscar submission from Lebanon provoked sobs at Cannes showings, and it really worked for the Cannes jury, which awarded it the Jury Prize. <em>\u2014AT<\/em><\/div>\n<h3>\u201cClimax\u201d<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_1201963875\" style=\"width: 790px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1201963875 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indiewire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/still-1.jpg?w=780\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"563\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Climax&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"image-credit\">Wild Bunch<\/p>\n<p>Gaspar No\u00e9 returned to Cannes by conquering the one area of the festival he had yet to screen, winning the top prize at Directors\u2019 Fortnight for his trippy LSD-gone-wrong dance saga \u201cClimax.\u201d This visually striking achievement, picked up by A24 during the festival, funnels the director\u2019s penchant for acrobatic camerawork into an alternately snazzy and disturbing look at the dissolution of community in a single, claustrophobic setting. The camera twirls around, peering up and down at its doomed characters as they careen into the depths of a drug-induced frenzy, as hypnotic beats dominate the soundtrack. But no matter its nauseating effects, No\u00e9\u2019s remarkable psychedelic ride is his most focused achievement, a concise package of sizzling dance numbers and jolting (often quite violent) twists that play like a slick mashup of the \u201cStep Up\u201d franchise and \u201cSalo, or the 120 Days of Sodom,\u201d not to mention the disorienting cinematic trickery of No\u00e9\u2019s own provocative credits. After so many movies designed to divide people, it\u2019s exciting to watch the provocateur entice his audience with catchy rhythms before dragging them to hell. This wild, unpredictable achievement will get people talking, which is nothing new for No\u00e9, but it could also win him some fresh admirers. If so, they&#8217;re long overdue, and welcome to the party. It&#8217;s wild place.\u00a0<em>\u2014EK<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;Cold War&#8221;<\/h3>\n<div>\u201cIda\u201d Oscar-winner Pawel Pawlikowski\u2019s stunning black-and-white 50s romance \u201cCold War\u201d \u2014 which took home Best Director and is a likely Polish Oscar contender as well \u2014 is about how fucked-up national politics prevent you from being your authentic self. Loosely inspired by his two parents, who got together and broke up several times over the years and seemed to always be at odds with one another, Pawlikowski traces his star-crossed lovers&#8217; trajectory across Stalin-era Eastern Europe through divided Berlin to free-wheeling Paris and back to the oppressive chill of Poland. The movie blows hot and cold, passionately sexy one minute, dark and chilly the next. It&#8217;s also a personal film for a filmmaker who seeks to probe the unfathomable mysteries of love. And it breaks out Pawlikowski&#8217;s frequent muse Joanna Kelig, whose future is in vivid color. <em>\u2014AT<\/em><\/div>\n<h3>\u201cHappy as Lazzaro\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>Alice Rohrwacher\u2019s surreal follow-up to her previous Cannes winner \u201cThe Wonders\u201d expands on her ongoing study of the way rural life is constantly threatened by urban progress. But this time, she expands on her naturalistic style with a welcome dose of magical realism, following the tale of Lazzaro (extraordinary discovery (Adriano Tardiolo), a peasant who serves an affluent family in the countryside. The life of Lazzaro and his peers seemingly exists out of time, until sudden events sent him traveling into a future state where he doesn\u2019t quite belong. A fascinating, poetic statement on the endless march of time, \u201cLazzaro\u201d fulfills the promise of Rohrwatcher\u2019s earlier achievements while cementing her status as one of Italy\u2019s greatest working directors. <em>\u2014EK<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This article continues on the next page.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source: IndieWire film<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 Cannes Film Festival has ended, but the movies are very much still with us. This year&#8217;s festival started with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-3450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-careering"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paqOTj-TE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/m2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}