We are in a hurry, but we still have trouble believing it, as we approach the Palais des Festivals, on the Croisette, this Tuesday, July 6 at around 6.30 p.m.: the 74e edition of the Cannes Film Festival is about to open, with the screening ofAnnette, by Leos Carax, in competition, a musical comedy with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, to music by the Sparks. After the white year of 2020 imposed by the pandemic, the opening ceremony, at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, marks a new beginning.
In recent months, the announcement of the Cannes edition “From July 6 to 17, 2021” looked like a mirage that you clung to in curfew weather. We wanted to believe it without thinking too much about it, always scalded by the cascading cancellations of cultural events. The Cannes Film Festival then made the screening times public, and the online reservation platform, a new compulsory step to register for screenings, became operational on July 3. So you could take the train, the plane or whatever you wanted… Cannes was back! The wheel turns, like the big wheel that stands out against the blue sky, a stone’s throw from the Casino, behind the Palais des Festivals.
Everything is as before, or almost. Same red carpet, albeit in a more sustainable, fully recyclable version, same ballet of official cars, same yachts in the marina, etc. On stage, the mistress of ceremony, Doria Tillier, gently warms the atmosphere by making the second degree on the “Cinema magic”, a ready-made formula that hides “Thousands of hours of work” invisible to make a film. Then the actress welcomes the members of the jury and invites them to sit on a large white sofa: its president, the American Spike Lee, in fuchsia pink costume, the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, the Austrian director Jessica Hausner, the French actress and producer Mélanie Laurent, Franco-Senegalese director Mati Diop, South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, etc.
“Partner in pajamas”
It would almost purr when the American Jodie Foster comes to put the ideas in place, in an impressive French. At 58, the American actress, director and producer, revealed in 1976 in Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese, comes to Cannes to receive the Palme d’honneur for his entire career, from the hands of Pedro Almodovar, dressed all in black. Big designer dresses are fine, joked “Jodie” in her white outfit with rhinestones, but, of all the materials, she prefers the fleece: “In two hours, I’ll be in my pajamas watching TV. “ Why not in front of the Italy-Spain match with his wife, Alexandra, his “Partner in pajamas”, who accompanied her for the rise of the stairs … The director of Money Monster (2016) rejoiced that people in the cinema are “Reunited again”, all together, whatever the uncertain future.
So can we start? “So may we start? “, do we want to hum like in the song of the Sparks, which opens Annette with his retinue of actors. Another small detail to settle: the South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, winner of the Palme d’Or in 2019 with Parasite, goes on stage: he returned to Cannes this year, he explains, at the invitation of the general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, to symbolically make the link between 2019 and 2021. The circle is complete: finally the 74e edition of the Cannes Film Festival is declared ” opened “. So that there is no doubt, the word is pronounced in English, French, Spanish and Korean. This time it’s the right one.