A Reflection on the 76th International Film Festival in Cannes: The Return of Cinema Amidst the Pandemic

The 76th International Film Festival in the French city of Cannes has just ended, with a grandiose award ceremony, similar to the one the Festival held before suffering the severe blow of the Covid pandemic. Passionate about cinema since my childhood and willing to do my best to satisfy this passion, I managed to attend -for 30 years- and without interruption, the eleven days that the Festival takes place each year.

My last attempt was in 2021, which was terribly painful for me, both because of the Covid, which had already forced the closure of movie theaters around the world and had reduced it to a poor level – the experts spoke of its prompt disappearance -as well as for other health-related reasons. Fortunately, the experts were wrong. The Festival withstood the enormous damage of the pandemic, recovered and this year demonstrated that the appetite of filmmakers for cinema on the big screen is still intact. The idea that cinema is eternal and that its cultural contribution -through a collective experience- is incomparable, was once again imposed. For more platforms like Netflix that try to supplant it.

This year the Festival arrived -and en masse- the greatest of the Seventh Art in the world. On the catwalk of the glorious ‘Palais’ and on its majestic red carpet, hundreds of ‘front line’ film stars paraded, such as Scorsese, DiCaprio, Binoche, Tarantino, De Niro, Deneuve, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, Nanni Moretti, Almodovar and others. Wearing the best of fashion and glamour. And they suddenly made Cannes breathe the air of a true resurrection, of a reunion with a glorious past. And with the gift of a selection of films of unsurpassed quality. For the prestigious Palme d’Or award, 19 films directed by the most important directors – old and new – of the genre competed. Among them, seven women who arrived prepared to compete and turned out to be stature when they emerged triumphant when one of them – the French Justine Triet – took the Palme d’Or.

Without being physically in Cannes and overwhelmed by nostalgia, I was able, through the internet and the formidable coverage of the event, to follow the Festival day by day. And I saw it all, the press conferences, the critiques from the pros, the arrival of the superstars, the comments from the public, etc. I only missed the most important thing: the movies that I wanted to see so much. I will (I hope so) when they hit the theaters near my house. In the meantime, I would like to list a few that I consider obligatory to mention:

‘Anatomy of a fall’, the winner of the Palme d’Or by the young French filmmaker Justine Triet about the difficult relationship of couples and the story of a writer accused of murdering her husband. I like movies with judicial processes and, surely, I will like this one inspired, according to her director, by famous classic movies. Also because the actress who plays the main role is the German Sandra Huller that she had admired in Cannes in 2016 in the film ‘Toni Erdman’.

‘The Zone of Interest’ by British director Jonathan Glazer whose main actress is also Sandra Huller. Qualified as “chilling”, it talks about the family of a Nazi German officer who lives -in the most normal way in the world- next to a concentration camp. A film about the horror of Aushwitz, without showing Aushwitz; a reflection on Hanna Arendt’s theory of the ‘banality of evil’, so difficult to understand.

The short film ‘Strange way of life’ by the Spanish Almodovar; the subtle film (Dry Herbs) by the magnificent Turk Nuri Bilge Ceylan; the Finnish Aki Kaurismaki (Dead Leaves) melancholic and comic at the same time… and many others.