Cannes 66: radical solutions and fury of puritans

Kechiche is a French actor and film director of Tunisian origin. At the age of six together with his parents he emigrated to France. He grew up in Nice. In 1978 he presented his first theater production to the public. In 2000 Kechiche made his debut in film direction with the drama La Faute a Voltaire (Blame It on Voltaire). Almost immediately he won recognition among the festival audience. He is a repeated winner of the European Film Academy Prize “Cesar.”

La Vied’Adele, which will be released for the international audience under the title Blue is the Warmest Color, is unusual in many respects. It was filmed based on a story from a comic book, which is a clear exception for the art film. Secondly, the plot of the film reveals a love story unfolding between the two young ladies with lots of explicit scenes. Many publications immediately rushed to shoot sensational headlines like “Film about Same-Sex Love Won the Cannes Film Festival” and homophobes began producing irritated comments. However, the erotic flair is only on the surface.

The director said that he wanted to dedicate the award and the film itself to “the wonderful youth of France whom I met during the long period while making this film... Those young people taught me a lot about the spirit of freedom and living together. I would also like to dedicate this film to other young people who have survived something which happened not so very long ago, the revolution in Tunisia. They also have this aspiration to live free, to express themselves freely and to love in full freedom.”

Mentions of the Tunisian revolution and freedom to “live, express yourself, and love” in the same phrase said by an outstanding cinematographer are not accidental. Festival press noted that Blue is the Warmest Color is, primarily, the finest deep drama about growing up and searching for a path in life by young people with equally awesome directing and acting work. By the way, that’s why not only the director of the film, but also the young actresses Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux were awarded with special diplomas. Of course, it’s all not about sex. The film presents more complex and, at the same time, urgent matters.

In this regard it is necessary to say a few words about the situation in Ukraine. Anti-Western hysteria has been aggravated in the country for a long time already and surprisingly has brought together ultra-nationalists from Freedom Party with their implacable opponents like MP from the Party of Regions Vadym Kolesnichenko. The events surrounding gay pride parade in Kyiv held on May 25 showed the face of those morals campaigners in all their beauty: there are videos available to watch online with many hateful extras of those who lost their human form. Constant chanting of the fanatics of the Russian World and “Ukraine for Ukrainians” movement that we don’t need to join this Europe, where they only look after “perverts” is a typical example of distortion and ignorance inherent in this audience. In Kechiche’s film they will see only two lesbians and in Europe they see only LGBT demonstrations and nothing more. Our home-grown Tartuffes are unaware of the fact that freedom is when the strong protect the weak and vulnerable, and the society is proud not of its national density, but of its diversity, in which there is a place for demonstrations of many thousands supporters of the patriarchal marriage in Paris. Tartuffes in Ukraine don’t need diversity by definition because it is much easier to manage sterilized society bobbed with the same brush, in such bleak social environment it is much easier to enjoy the undivided power. It is the power and private well-being rather than the fantastic “homodictatorship” that are of the greatest concern to our moralists. And the fact that it is thanks to the freedom and diversity the European film directors shoot stunning movies and European audience have immeasurably higher standards of living than those in Ukraine is of no interest to the moralists. They can live without it. Stalin is grinning with satisfaction in his grave.

Now, let’s get back to the festival. The decision on La Vie d’Adele is a rare case when the preferences of critics and the jury matched, which is especially nice in view of concerns about the objectivity of decisions made by Steven Spielberg, who headed the main jury. Creator of the Jurassic Park and his colleagues at the festival Areopagus showed excellent taste not only in awarding the Palme d’Or. Grand Prix – the second highest prize was awarded to the Coen brothers for musical tragicomedy Inside Llewyn Davis (USA) – full of humor, melancholy, and charming folk ballads. The Award for Best Director went to the youngest participant – Mexican director Amat Escalante for his social drama Heli – perhaps, the most brutal, but, at the same time, a beautifully shot film of the competition program.

Jia Zhangke (China) received the award for Best Screenplay. His film Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin) is mini-epic in four parts, its characters are outcasts by their own choice or because of life circumstances are in open conflict with the reality of the Chinese “communist capitalism.”

Actor prizes look rather like results of compromises. Award for Best Actor went to 76-year-old American actor Bruce Dern, who previously starred mostly in low-brow movies of “B” category. In his declining years he received his most important role in the black-and-white road movie Nebraska filmed by Alexander Payne. Dern’s character, confident that he won a certain (highly suspicious) lottery a million dollars, goes on a journey across the country accompanied by his family for the mythical winnings. Director’s study of American life turned out rather mediocre, but Dern, by all accounts, really stood out with his acting.

French actress Berenice Bejo, nominated last year for Oscar in the Best Actress nomination, won the Cannes prize in the same category for her role of a woman who cannot choose between two lovers – an Iranian and an Arab in the family drama of diligent but undistinguished Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi Le Passe (The Past).

Now we are simply looking forward to seeing the mentioned films on the big screens already this year.