Another dispatch from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival! Christina talks about some of the stand-out performances from the fest.
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[00:00:00] We took it all. We brought them to our land.
[00:00:05] An endless night, ember hot and icy cold.
[00:00:10] The rage of the earth. We made this curse.
[00:00:15] Carved it in the blood on our backs.
[00:00:18] We did not see. We could not but she did.
[00:00:22] And in the end...
[00:00:23] What will I become?
[00:00:25] Senua Saga. Hellblade 2.
[00:00:28] Play it now with Game Pass.
[00:00:30] This is Pop Culture Confidential and I'm Christina Jirling-Beru.
[00:00:36] Hey everyone, welcome to another Dispatch from the Cannes Film Festival 2024.
[00:00:52] This time I want to talk to you about some of the best performances I've seen here at the Fest so far.
[00:00:59] I think that there are a few here that we're going to be talking about all awards season this coming year.
[00:01:06] First of all, let's talk about one of my favorite films at the festival,
[00:01:10] Yorgo Slantimos Kines of Kindness.
[00:01:13] This movie is in three parts, three separate stories, all very much about control and domination.
[00:01:20] They're pretty bizarre and out there and I'm really curious to see what the reactions are going to be to the movie when more people start seeing it.
[00:01:29] All of the stories are played by the same group of main actors in different roles for each chapter.
[00:01:35] Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Hung Chau, Margaret Quali are all excellent but I want to single out Jesse Plemmons.
[00:01:44] He is amazing in all three stories and he stands out in everything he does,
[00:01:50] even the smaller roles like in Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon last year
[00:01:55] and in just a few minutes of Civil War which came out a few months ago he was chilling.
[00:02:02] I've said it before, he reminds me of Philip C. Morhoffman, he's so versatile.
[00:02:08] He can be meek and quiet and then all of a sudden terrifying and dominating.
[00:02:14] I think Jesse Plemmons is on the precipice of becoming a huge mainstream star if he wants to.
[00:02:21] The whole ensemble of kinds of kindness is great and actors often talk about Jorgos Lanthimos process and generosity as a director.
[00:02:31] His frequent collaborator Emma Stone talked to us at the press conference at Cannes about working with him.
[00:02:37] He's my muse.
[00:02:39] We've established that long ago.
[00:02:43] I met him about ten years ago.
[00:02:47] We had lunch to talk about the favorite or the idea of doing the favorite.
[00:02:51] It was a couple years before we made the film and I was at that point had only seen Dogtooth and the lobster had just come here.
[00:03:02] I was just struck immediately by he was warm and easy to talk to.
[00:03:10] Stupidly very different than what his films are.
[00:03:15] I think I thought he would be much more intense than he actually is in person.
[00:03:22] We had such a great time working together on the favorite.
[00:03:27] I'm drawn to his stories, I'm drawn to his films, I'm drawn to his way of seeing the world and the characters and the way he goes about all of it.
[00:03:38] So it's just been mad.
[00:03:40] I think we both feel that way.
[00:03:42] We do.
[00:03:43] We have similar tastes.
[00:03:45] Who knew?
[00:03:47] We took it all.
[00:03:49] We brought them to our land.
[00:03:52] An endless night, ember hot and icy cold.
[00:03:57] The rage of the earth.
[00:03:59] We made this curse.
[00:04:02] Carved it in the blood on our backs.
[00:04:05] We did not see.
[00:04:07] We could not but she did.
[00:04:09] And in the end...
[00:04:10] What will I become?
[00:04:12] Senua Saga. Hellblade 2.
[00:04:14] Play it now with Game Pass.
[00:04:16] Halfton Ulman Töndel is Ingmar Bergman and Liev Ulmans grandson.
[00:04:22] So what could say he had some big cinematic shoes to fill?
[00:04:27] And I was really impressed with his debut.
[00:04:30] I think he's done a few short films but Armand here at the Cannes Film Festival is his first feature film.
[00:04:37] The first hour is exceptionally good.
[00:04:40] It's psychologically intense.
[00:04:43] It's almost a chamber piece about a parent teacher meeting after something has happened between their two little boys at school.
[00:04:51] This is interesting because last year we had both teachers lounge and Corea's monster,
[00:04:57] which were both dealing with believing children issues of bullying at schools and how adults handle this.
[00:05:06] The school environment with all its social hierarchy and difficulties seems to be a perfect mirror for our larger society.
[00:05:16] Anyway, I want to talk about Renate Rensvee the Norwegian actor who we know from worst person in the world.
[00:05:25] She is stunning in Armand.
[00:05:28] Intense, heartbreaking, funny, emotional all at the same time.
[00:05:34] I don't want to give away too much but there is a roughly 7 minute scene of her just reacting to the camera
[00:05:42] that is spellbinding and awkward for the audience at the same time.
[00:05:47] Really incredible work.
[00:05:48] In my opinion she's one of the best Scandinavian actors working right now.
[00:05:54] Moving on, let's talk about Carla Sofia Gascon.
[00:05:59] Remember that name because it's going to be huge.
[00:06:02] From the movie Emilia Perez, the biggest talk of the Cannes Film Festival so far.
[00:06:09] It's a musical by French director Jacques Odiard about a really violent Mexican crime cartel leader
[00:06:18] who undergoes gender affirmation surgery.
[00:06:22] It's a movie about becoming one's true self but also about Mexico,
[00:06:27] the vibrant culture of the country so affected by violence and traumatized families of the so-called disappeared.
[00:06:36] The movie stars Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Edgar Ramirez and the breakout star Carla Sofia Gascon that everyone's talking about.
[00:06:47] She is a trans actor from Spain and in her performance as Emilia Perez she takes us on a journey of pain,
[00:06:57] transformation, happiness and singing.
[00:07:01] She's truly terrific.
[00:07:03] And finally I want to shout out Ben Wysha as Limonov in Kirill Sbrennikov's new movie,
[00:07:12] Limonov the Ballad about the radical Russian poet and political leader who died in 2020,
[00:07:19] an electric punk rock performance by Wysha that's really on another level.
[00:07:25] Thank you for joining me on my Cannes 2024 Dispatches.
[00:07:29] Join me again next time and follow Pop Culture Confidential wherever you get your podcasts.
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