Day 7 of Cannes Film Festival: Park Chan-Wook & David Cronberg back in action
Two much-awaited films were screened at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival on May 23, the Day 7 of the festival which is marking its 75th year.
The films, made by two of the most popular directors at Cannes 2022, are Park Chan-Wook’s Decision to Leave and David Cronberg’s Crimes of the Future. Incidentally, both the films figure in the main competition category of the festival.
Starring Tang Wei, Park Hae-il and Go Kyung-Pyo, Decision to Leave is a romantic thriller that tells the story of a detective who develops a romantic interest in a woman suspected of her husband’s death. This is Park’s fourth film at Cannes. His previous films Old Boy (2004) had won the Grand Prix and Thirst (2009) tied for the Jury prize. Another of his films, The Handmaiden, premiered here in 2016 and Decision to Leave marks his return to Cannes after a gap of six years.
Aside from the South Korean director, Canadian film maker David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, starring Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen, is a return to the genre of body horror for Cronenberg. He wrote the script for the movie 20 years ago and claims that he hasn’t changed anything. At least 15 people were reported to have walked out of the film due to its grotesque visuals. However, this year far lesser number of people walked out of the screening at Cannes than during the premiere of Cronenberg’s 1996 film Crash, when a much larger number of audience had made for the exit. Despite the audience walking out, Cronenberg had bagged the Prix Spécial du Jury for Crash. Since then, Cronenberg has returned twice to the Competition category of the festival. First was Spider in 2002 and then in 2005 with A History of Violence.
Besides Cronenberg and Chan-Wook, Day 7 of Cannes 2022 also featured a press conferences by Iranian film maker Ali Abbasi, a day after his own film Holy Spider had premiered. At the conference, Abbasi defended his film after it had shocked audiences for its provocative content, graphic violence and nudity. He explained that there was nothing controversial about his film at all and in fact that audiences in Iran and around the world have grown accustomed to seeing Iranian films that present a parallel reality and not the true picture.
Holy Spider is inspired by the true story of a 2001 serial killer who targetted sex workers and killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001 and the journalist who worked to investigate him in Mashhad in Iran.
Away from the controversies, Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes, the only Indian film selected by Cannes this year in any category, was also premiered on the same day in a ‘Special Screening’ segment.
The Cannes Film Festival will end on May 28, where the Jury will present the Palme d’Or for the winner in the competition section. India’s Deepika Padukone is amongst the jurors this year.