The competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival has not been the strongest, a look at any jury grid will tell you that. Titles that received (near-)universal praise like last year’s The Zone of Interest or Anatomy of a Fall have proved hard to find. Also of note is the fact that some of the films this year have gone very broad or very niche, which likely contributed to the polarized reactions.
Sean Baker, for example, made the most multiplex-friendly film of his career with Anora, a lively, raunchy, very funny comedy that should reach a much wider audience than his previous works. Written and directed with an infectious, propulsive energy and featuring a star-making performance by Mikey Madison, it’s one wild joyride you don’t want to miss.
The titular character Anora, who goes by Ani, works at a strip club in New York and is very good at her job. After impressing a young client named Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), she gets invited to his ginormous home and discovers he’s the son of a Russian billionaire. The two soon begin a steamy, transaction-based relationship and, while on a party trip in Vegas, concluded the ultimate transaction and tied the knot. The fairytale cracks open, however, when Ivan’s parents find out what happened and send their handlers to annul the marriage.
Baker wrote a winning screenplay carried by vivid characters. The depiction of Ani’s daily grind as a stripper has a raw authenticity that neither glamorizes nor sentimentalizes. What you get is a protagonist who doesn’t have an easy life but is tough and smart enough to fend for herself. On the other hand, you have someone like Ivan who leads a seemingly charmed existence and only ever plays video games and gets high. Caught between them are the three handlers including Igor (Yura Borisov), who shares some memorably tender moments with Ani at the end.
The tone of Anora is quite different from The Florida Project or Tangerine. A large mid-section involving the search for the missing Ivan is more akin to something like The Hangover in its comedic DNA. People will be surprised by how ridiculously funny this one is. At the same time, all the hallmarks of a Sean Baker joint – from the naturalistic direction to the strong visual style and disarmingly unaffected performances – are unmistakably there. Eydelshteyn is hilarious as the clueless Oligarch-heir. Borisov delivers the more poignant moments as the watchful, soulful Igor. And Madison shines as Ani, compelling not just in the uninhibited physicality of her work, but also in the air of resilience and the quickness of wit she brings. Some may question the placement of a broad comedy like Anora in competition, but I can tell you that 139 minutes have seldom flown by so fast at Cannes this year.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhangke who returns to Cannes competition for the 6th time with Caught by the Tides, his most experimental, impressionistic film to date. Its free-flowing, image-driven form will no doubt alienate many viewers, but those willing to just let its singular cinematic language wash over them would be rewarded with something barely articulated yet quietly profound.
The first hour or so of the film is composed predominantly of candid footage shot around China during the early 2000’s. We see regular folks sitting around, chatting, singing, shopping, going about their daily routines. The footage has no apparent thematic focus except one, it often references the monumental (and controversial) infrastructure project Three Gorges Dam and the city of Datong, one of the places most affected by the project; and two, every now and then you’ll see actress Zhao Tao and actor Li Zhubin, who have both repeatedly appeared in Jia’s films, show up in brief staged sequences. These sequences have next to no dialogue, but Jia’s fans will recognize them as scenes shot and cut from such films as Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004) and Still Life (2006). From the wordless interaction between them you understand that they are a couple but Li’s character Bin has decided to leave Datong and ends his relationship with Zhao’s character Qiaoqiao. The second half of the film contains more enacted scenes, which show the reunion of the two after Bin returns to Datong a much older man.
Even as someone who frequently watches arthouse movies, I was quite confused by the first part of Caught by the Tides. The purpose of the documentary/fiction mix is unclear, the narrative-free footage seems to go on forever and the image quality is often not great. But as the film progresses and we get more and more fictional scenes with the two characters in increasingly crisper imagery, I started to sense that it’s all part of Jia’s vision. Like Boyhood, time is an essential element of this film and it’s tracked by all possible means – through the storyline with the couple, the candid images from the past 20 years, the ever-changing appearance of the actors themselves. It’s an incredibly ambitious approach that pays off at Bin and Qiaoqiao’s reunion at the film’s end – when you feel like you’ve not only known these people for two decades but literally absorbed their memory as well.
Zhao has no speaking line throughout the film and gives a performance that’s all the more powerful for its silence. It’s a testament to both Jia’s direction and her acting prowess that even though nothing is said in her later scenes both alone and with Li, you understand immediately what her character is going through. The cumulative effect of 20 years of footage really blossoms in these final moments.
