Ep. 323: Jessica Kiang on Cannes 2025: Bi Gan’s Resurrection and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind

(water splashing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome to the last thing I saw. This is, toward the end, the very end. Not bitter end, bittersweet end of the 2025 can. And I'm here with Jessica Keang, who I often talk with, I guess, toward the end. - At the end of the festival, yes, I don't know. I think I just, yeah, I kind of avoid you at the beginning of the festival, I think. And then, yeah, I eventually can't run away anymore. (laughing) - Yes, I guess so. But then you're also accumulating both reviews that you're writing and movies that you've seen, so. - That's right, and then, therefore, also needing reasons to be able to procrastinate even further on my backlog, which is why you come in very useful around now. - I'm glad to be of that service at the end. And these are all for a variety, as well. A variety from here, yes. - Do you also look at films a little here with-- - No, here I'm exclusively for variety, and it's best, actually, to try and keep a certain distance between those two things, especially here, where there's so many different things going on. And also, honestly, for my sanity, I don't think I would be able to do, just, you know, inside me are two wolves, one a programmer, one a critic, and constantly they war with each other. - So, I mean, and I've been so busy getting back into the swing of writing, I don't think I'd be able to do both, but. - Wolves are chasing each other in my mind right now. Well, do you have any general overview thoughts about this festival, this lineup? - I don't know if it's just a more recent phenomenon, but it seems to me, year on year, that we are getting further and further away from true sort of senses of consensus over things. And even to the point of the feel of the festival, because from the very beginning, I have just been, I thought that this year was terrific. I've really liked this year. I think the competition is really strong. Far be it for me to ever give props to Thierry Framot and Co, but I have to say, I think, some of the choices that they've made and what they've decided to put into competition, especially, have been really daring and have really paid off. And I think that's really to be applauded. So I've been really high on this year's competition in general, and yet I've met so many people who think it's a lackluster year or something. And I really just do not know what movies they've been watching, 'cause I've seen a lot of really terrific stuff, and as I say, curated in a really brave and interesting way. - Yeah, no, it's funny you say that, 'cause I've actually had that experience, but filtered through, I guess, these various critic rating grids, because I've been going through the festival thinking, oh, I'm really not really seeing a lot of meh movies. I'm finding movies that are good, very good, really, really good, always have something I want to say about them. And it's not just, has a comparative or last film. - Exactly, yes, that's right. - And, but then I flip open, I don't know, like a screen daily grid or, I don't want to put down another grid, but it feels more contrarian lately. But, and it's just like, nothing's over three out of a five. And I'm just, I don't understand. - I mean, I think that's, I really think it's crazy. And I do think in particular this year, actually you mentioned the screen grid, I think the screen grid is whack this year. And it has, like from the beginning, it has been way out of whack, like just even the idea that until very recently, the Sergey Loznica film, Two Prosecutors, which I did very, I liked, I think it's very good. But it was topping the grid, like above way more exciting stuff. So, and that just feels really wrong, that felt really out of whack. And really not at all reflective of what people were talking about. Because if you, you know, a movie like Serrat, for example, the Oliver Lacks movie, which just blew everybody away. And people are still talking about right now at the end of the festival when it played very early on, the fact that that was lower than Two Prosecutors, which is a very solidly made, nice drama, a good piece of fiction is just, is just crazy. Especially here in Cam, where we're supposed to be championing the new and the exciting. - Yeah, it is strange. And people aren't always rallying around Loznica film lately. And so that was a surprise to me, even though, yeah, I found it quite solid. I don't know if it just spoke to some feeling of just helplessness, that whole movie. I don't know, but. - Very possibly, but I think there's quite a few movies that speak to the condition of hopelessness and do so, I mean, in maybe a slightly more unexpected way. - Yeah, and more dynamic maybe as well. Well, let's talk about another movie, which I mean, kind of makes all these discussions feel a little irrelevant. Because it just surges past above them in many ways. And I don't know, might be, I was saying how no movie felt really meant, might be a movie that feels like the old style, kind of like dazzling, you know, here's what you came for, sort of thing. And that is Resurrection, the new Be Gone movie. Yeah, I'll cede the floor to you, although I have seen it, I'll have thoughts, but yeah. - Okay, all right, you're ceding, yeah, you're ceding the floor to me to do like a plot summary of this movie, because we've got like four and a half hours. - Probably go with that part, yeah. - Okay, well, I mean, obviously, I mean, there's also like, there's lots of stories, even beyond the stories that are in Be Gone's Resurrection, but a lot about the placement of it, and the fact that it was only announced so late, and there's lots of rumors and reasons why that was happening. There was even an early screening that sometimes, you know, as daily press, I get to go to these sort of earlier screenings and market screenings and things, and there was an earlier screening that was planned and we were all invited to, and then it was canceled, because apparently the film was not ready yet, and this was like two days before it was due to premiere. So honestly, until I was sitting down in front of it, and the Dragon Seal comes up, I was genuinely not sure if we were actually going to see it. And it was, as well as your listeners probably know, it was like the very, very last film to be announced. It was announced after, after, after the late editions. - Oh yeah, that's true. - So, you know, it really just, just sort of came in there at the end. And all the time I had been hearing through various things that, no, no, it's definitely in, it's definitely in, but we just hadn't heard the announcement. So it's almost like now looking at it now in retrospect, it feels like one gigantically fantastic marketing ploy for this particular movie, because it meant that really nobody had seen it in advance. Like nobody had seen it before those first press screenings, really. I think there had been maybe one market screening, but there wasn't word out about it. And it does mean that this already completely unspoilable, kind of pretty much unreviewable film, I mean, pity your poor reviewer, had sort of, for everybody, the shock of the new. Yeah, as just as well as being one of the most anticipated things, it was also, it's very rare that something that is that anticipated, and it has been like seven years since his last film. - Oh gosh. - Is it seven years? Yes, it has been seven years. So it's very rare that something that can come with that weight of expectation, but absolutely no knowledge about what was in it. It was even only one still floating around, and the still, actually, which we had to use, I think as our header image on our review, is really not representative of the film at all either. - What is it just like? - Well, actually all three, I think they supply like three stills with the press materials that you can use for download. And I don't think any of them are actually stills from the film. I mean, they use the characters and things, but they're not like actual shots that I recognize. - Oh, okay, I see. - And given also that we do know that Began was apparently editing until like two and a half minutes ago, it's very possible that at one point they were supposed to be in the film. - They weren't in there. - They weren't. But I even think the way this movie is structured and the way it's set up, and the beginning is kind of in a silent movie style, and there's a lot of intertitles that sort of carry the story and do a little bit of exposition and set up of this kind of almost ludicrously high concept science fiction concept that it has going on. But even the way that those are phrased and that they're sort of slightly, it's very charming, but it's a charmingly badly Google translated, it feels like a little bit. And what they actually say the sort of the premise that they lay out is also even itself marginally different from the synopsis that they have published on the website. So I really think that they might have been just like really doing this at the absolute last minute and just changing, futzing with this. - Right, right. - And then when you see the film, you can kind of understand that because it's the kind of film that you could futz with forever. And like even now discussing it, I mean, we can discuss this movie forever. I think you could have a whole series of podcasts on this movie. The movie is itself practically an entire can competition lineup of movies. - It is, it really is. - Okay, so there's to hazard a go at this very high concept. It is set in a near future, although we never see near future reality because we are always in a dream. Dreams which are always referring to movies really. They're dreams that are cold almost exclusively from 20th century history of movies, 20th century movies I should say. So there are five of these different things. The premise is that in the future, in this near future, in reality, humankind has discovered how to live almost forever or has discovered the key to longevity and it is to stop dreaming. So the comparison that I think is very beautiful and very apt and is actually then becomes a motif in the film in the movie is to imagine how a candle, a wax candle can last forever if you never light it. However, there are some people who would prefer to live shorter but more colorful and more dreamy lives. They are called phantasmers. - Phantasmers. - Yes, like awkward phantasmer word. And they refuse to do this and they refuse to stop dreaming. So they go into these dreams which again always look like movies or some era of cinema history. But they cause problems into reality. They cause time to jump. They cause, they bring chaos to history is one of the phrases. And so there are other people. This is kind of like the blade runnery aspect to it a little bit. There are other people who are called the big others. - The big others, yeah. - Yes, in this film played by the beautiful Shu Chi who have the power to sort of tell illusion from reality and therefore to go into these dream worlds and find the dreamers, find the phantasmers and wake them up and thus protect the integrity of linear time in reality. - Right. - So. - That's pretty good. I mean, actually, I've seen the film twice and that actually clarifies some things for me. (laughing) Yeah, cause I think I really saw that initial title card and I was like, okay. And sort of largely discarded it because you can just sort of go through. - You can just go through it. Yes, absolutely. And the other thing that we should say is so, so basically it starts with Shu Chi finding this one phantasmer who is played in all five incarnations by Jackson Yee who is a pop star and a very popular actor. You might recognize him from, I think he was in Better Days, which was the big hit. Anyway, a few years ago. And he's really chameleonic. I mean, there are some, I mean, in the very first silent movies style one which is very early cinema and German expressionism influenced. He's an actual monster. He's encased in this kind of latex monster suit and he's basically like a quasi-Modo meets Nosferatu sort of creature. And this is the silent part of it as well. So all of the story in this part is told by intro titles but in the subsequent story. So she finds him basically in this one. And there's also, I mean, oh my goodness, where do we start? There's just so much going on here. The other thing I wanted to say just right out of the beginning because lots of people I think didn't notice this. In the five stories, which all represent five like different eras of 20th century cinema, they also each take on one of the senses. So the first one, the silent cinema one, is she goes in through an eye, through the iris. So it's all about sight and it's all about photography. She captures him in a flash bulb, all of these things. The second one is where he is- - Hearing. - It's hearing which is ears. And it's music as well. There's a Bach piece of Bach music. There's a theremin in a suitcase. And that's the one that's set in the sort of in war era. So it's all fedoras. And there's a big lady of Shanghai style mirror shootout in it. The third one then is taste, which is kind of like refers back to Chinese folktales, but it's set 30 years after the previous one. So we're sort of queued to believe it's sort of the 70s or so. And it's in a Buddhist temple where Jackson Yee plays the phantasma who has woken up this time as a worker who's been abandoned in this Buddhist temple who has a toothache. And when he takes out his tooth, he discovers that trapped in his tooth all this time was a person called the spirit of bitterness. - Spirit of bitterness. - Who comes to him in the person of his deceased father. And they have this very sort of playful, mischievous, slightly trickster God kind of exchange. Loosely to do with taste, I suppose that one is because they eat potatoes and there's the whole bitterness and sweetness thing that goes on in that one as well as motifs. - I don't know, just jump in for a second there. I mean, that section was interesting for me just 'cause it makes explicit one other layer that you could add to the movie, just like I guess a Buddhist sort of cycle of lives. - Cycle of life, yes. Yeah, and even, I mean, I think that's even there in the fact that the monster is very Nosferatu-esque in the beginning because at the end, the final segment, which we'll talk about in a minute because that's the Warner, but the final segment also features, I guess, no spoilers, but vampires. So there's a continuity there. And again, this sort of cyclical thing going on. I've forgotten, the fourth segment is smell, which is this really sort of delightful kind of paper moon-esque romp where Jackson Yee is the phantasma now. This time is a sort of a Rapscallian father figure to a young girl who he trains to be able to fake a supernatural ability to be able to smell the correct card chosen from a deck of playing cards. And this is all in such a way so as to scam an old man who has a lot of money but who has lost his daughter and there's just this very strange, but actually really sort of beautiful and actually quite moving that I think. - I really love that one. - I really love that one as well. Yeah, and so I think in between all of these, we have these sort of recurring motifs of melting candles. And we have quite a lot of voiceover from the Shuchi character, sort of explaining, you know, not really explaining, but adding kind of more layers of mystery and confoundment and befuddlement. But in this very beautiful way, and I think what you were saying before, that you can either really parse every single thing of this and drive yourself semi-insane as I did when I was trying to review this damn thing. I mean, trying to get this film into even a thousand-word reviewer just felt, I did start to go slightly insane. So you can either really do that, like really try and parse its dream logic and try and follow one thing to the other. Or, I mean, which I think is the best way of doing it is to kind of let go. And that one point, it really occurred to me that that's one of the things that I think is so special about specifically, that films have began about this one, and especially his last one, Long Day's Journey into Night. They really do require you to let go. I actually called this, at the end of my review, a sort of a beautifully similar letter at less and in the lost art of letting go, because it's kind of about, for me, and this is also then reading some of the press notes and things and understanding a little bit about when the film came into being. Began was actually writing an entirely different film when the pandemic hit. And then during the pandemic, for whatever reason, he entirely reconceived the film and then started the gestation of what then became Resurrection started. And one of the things that I thought, and this is just like a thing that occurred to me, it's not there in the press, and he hasn't said anything about this, but during the pandemic, I did remember how one of the early things that quite a lot of people reported on and quite a lot of places reported on was that everybody was reporting having really vivid dreams. - Oh, right, yeah. - And it was like a response to isolation and all these things that our dreams suddenly became more vivid. And after the pandemic, with so many other things, we've seemed to have lost that ability that the phenomenon has subsided as COVID-19 itself has subsided as well. And it seems to have done it in such a way that it's almost in tandem with the new threats that are rising towards cinema and to, you know, and it's just about our attention span. So I think there's almost, there's a nostalgia in this film and a melancholy in this film for the way we used to pay attention to movies, which is kind of the same way that you pay undivided attention to your own dreams because you don't have any choice. And so for me, a lot of this then started to fall into place, or certainly my own responses to it started to fall into place. When I started to think about it as that, as like a beautiful invitation, indeed almost like a challenge or a dare to just surrender, to surrender yourself to this and to not to get too worried about the logic of it because I don't think that that's necessarily there. But just to let yourself be swept along. And then the fact that the final one of these stories, the one that is loosely to do with touch, which is actually to do with a kiss and a bite is one of, began's now trademark signature winners. It's 40 minutes long, it's all in one unbroken take. And it is also the one that is closest to us in time. So the other sort of progressive thing that is happening in this is that each of these successive periods of cinema history are not just coming closer to us in time and ending in 1999, on New Year's Eve in 1999, but they're also becoming more coherent. They're becoming more what we can recognize easily. You know, you have the very, very expressionistic silent film and sometimes like this is the woodcut puppets and there's like dioramas and dollhouses and everything in the very first one. The second one is actually the one that I find personally the most incoherent, like the most self-containingly incoherent, even though it's beautiful and it's using a lot of these sort of film noir archetypes that we're quite used to, but it's within itself, it is the hardest to parse in a way. - Yeah, it's almost something like Wellesian in that. - Yes. - It doesn't quite make sense. And there's a lot of imagery. - There's a lot of imagery that's very Wellesian. Yes, yeah, and so we're getting progressively more sort of easy to parse. And so the fact that it ends with a winner, which aside from, I mean, again, let's not think about the one in Long Day's Journey Tonight because that was entirely surreal in lots of ways. But in some ways, just by virtue of it being in real time because the camera has to move, it has to be sort of easier. You at least know spatially where you are because you're always continuously on the one path. And so, yeah, so it almost feels like a surfacing as well, like the film is coming up from the depths of cinema history closer and closer and almost breaks the surface and then doesn't quite because this is also, it ends with the sun rising on New Year's Day of 2001. And I think that's also a deliberate choice as far as I know on Began's part, to make it all sort of a work of nostalgia for the 20th century of cinema. And he doesn't really have that much interest, I think, or any faith particularly in 21st century cinema. There's not some Zoey trope at the end that has a TikTok video in there or something. - No, no, damn, he really should have put that in there. - I could script doctor, just kind of shoehorn that in. By the fall, we'll have that version. - Yeah, we should just get AI to do it. AI would be great at this. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's almost like, I mean, not that anything is specifically the reaction to things, but I mean, part of what I like about that last one is it does ground you in the physical three-dimensional space you're moving through with them. But there's also this strong sense of artifice because I mean, watching, I was sort of like, what do these wonders mean even in the end? And they kept changing in my head. 'Cause at a certain point, I was like, it's a wonder which we associate with reality, but at the same time, there's so much artifice involved. - Exactly, and I think that's, I mean, that's what he's done always before. And I will say, obviously, I love this movie. I think it's insanely, incredibly interesting and insanely good. I think the winner for me in Long Day's Journey Tonight still has the edge for sheer transportative transcendence. It was one of those incredibly rare moments in the cinema where the back of my head just flew off. I was like, what? And I was floating. And this doesn't have quite that same impact. Partly as well, it doesn't have the gimmick of the 3D, and putting on the 3D glasses. And it's not, this particular section is kind of a love story, but it's not this overarchingly swoony love story as it was in Long Day's Journey. But this winner does really amaze me in different ways. It has different elements to it that are the ones where I'm like, but I don't understand how he did that. So just even several times, it goes in and out of somebody's subjectivity, and you can't see the scene. Like, I don't know how that can happen where at one point, you are very clearly like, in fact, you are a character called Mr. Law, who is played by Hoja, who is the star of Long Day's Journey into Night. - Oh, right, oh, yeah, okay. - And he's like a peripheral character, but the camera is actually him, so it is a first person. And then seamlessly, he steps in front of the camera, so this is no longer a first person anymore. And that happens a couple of times, and each time it sort of blew my mind. And then there's another really lovely in-camera moment where everything has been very lit in red. And then one of the Jackson Yee characters actually breaks in through a window, and as he breaks in through the window, the entire filter of the camera changes to blue. And it's just like, how did you make that happen at that time? I mean, who knows how much of this is sort of posts and is stitched together. But in the moment, it really does feel spontaneous. And then there's another one where the camera actually, even though it's moving most of the time, it stops just to observe this street party that is going on outside. And the street party has people moving in fast motion, but there's a sheet hanging with a silent movie and projected on it, and the projection is running at normal speed, but the sky is lightening very quickly behind it. So all of these, you know, playing with time and playing with the sort of elasticity of time within a runner, which as you say is, you know, traditionally the thing that you do when you're really trying to lock it into a sense of time is just, is so playful and so clever. I mean, like really nobody does it like vegan does it. - Yeah, I mean, it's also all just so, I don't know, natural or organic. Like sometimes when people do these sort of pastiches of styles, it just feels very synthetic, you know? But the silent cinema one, for example, like how many times have we seen like a Caligari sort of stairway, but for some reason this one, it felt like a space she was moving through. I just think the craftsmanship is incredible here. - It's incredible. I mean, the production design, which is really shown off in that early segment is wild. - That there's this one shot of a opium den. - Opium den with the white peacock and the hands coming in, like big hands coming in to readjust the chandelier as though it is a dollhouse, as though, but she is still walking through it as though she is the right size of the doll. You know, I mean, I don't, I don't, and there's like the woodcut puppets where I know it's sort of a workshop thing in mind. I really, it was absolutely flabbergasting. And then there's all of these really deeply embedded and deeply affectionate cinema references. And in that one, like afterwards, she basically turns a corner from that, or she goes through some passage where there's something from that opium den, and that's when the sort of the German expressionism motifs take over, but then then she's sort of dancing and it reminded me of the red shoes. And the music over it, also you should mention the music, which is an amazing score that's so elastic and so fluid. But in this particular point, and I really, I actually asked the PRs and they couldn't find me an answer, but there's, in this particular point, they seem to me to be using the actual Vertigo Love theme. - Oh, okay. - But I don't think that they are 'cause it didn't come up on the credits as a thank you. So I guess this is just a stretch of the score that is made to sound incredibly like the Vertigo Love theme because even then by itself, that Love theme being there introduces this note of an obsessive love between the monster and the pursuer. And then when he offers her, he wants to offer her flowers. You know, all of these sort of like naive, things that could be quite naive in other contexts, because they're put together in this incredibly synoliterate and really referential, but also reverential way, it really does become something bigger than the sum of its references. Yeah, it's beautiful. That first part is really beautiful. - Yeah, it just looks incredible. I mean, I don't even understand. I feel like this movie also must have cost a ton to make. I don't know, between all the sets and all the care that's taken with the photography and I'm sure whatever manipulation was done to it very well. I don't even understand. - Yeah, I mean, I really was thinking about that as well. And also then thinking about it in a slightly political context as well, because especially right now, you know, China, you know, even, I think last year, the biggest film worldwide was "Nezha 2" - Yeah, right. - Which is Chinese animation sequel. And, you know, China, I am half Chinese, so I can say whatever I like about China, but China, you know, always does have the desire to be the biggest and the best. And this, for however he's managed it, it feels like began has managed to carve out this space where they've just decided, okay, we're also going to be the biggest and the best in the art house. And this is like literally that we will just throw a lot of money and we will allow this guy to do whatever the hell he wants and just go absolutely crazy because it is the intricacy of all of this and the amount of just, I actually then sat, obviously I sat through the credits 'cause I was timing the film. There's seven columns and two screens of drivers who are credited on this film. And like the extras, the page of extras is go, it goes on and on and on and on. So, you know, just the sheer number of people and man hours that this film represents, that any one segment of this film would represent and then to have five of them and then the sixth, the sort of the framing aspect of it as well, I mean, it's staggering that he managed to make this in seven years, not so much that we had to wait seven years for it. - Yeah, and it's also the sort of like high quality production where it's not just this sort of heavy, bulky, like nice sets you're moving through. I mean, everything is just seamlessly, also has amazing style to it, you know, and so I just mean it's not like he just built a town and we're moving through it or something. And also it's on, there's some, I guess, probably not very expensive effects that are among the most beautiful in the film, just with wax, he has these transitions with melting wax. - With melting wax. - And I've seen melting wax before. - I don't know if it's ever looked as gory to say. - You ain't seen melting wax, so I've seen bigger melting wax. - That's right, so yeah. And then the references are also interesting because in the later segments, I mean, there seem to be pretty clear explicit references to stuff from like the '90s and even more recent than that with fellow filmmaker, I guess, that the song choice that they're dancing to. - Oh, what was that? - Isn't it the same song that's in "By the Tides"? - Oh, is it? - I think so. - Oh my God, I didn't get that. Anyway, I don't know, there's that. Maybe I'm mixing up identical techno songs. - You're probably very right. - I don't know, and then even just the couple at the end that are in this, the day before the millennium, I mean, there was some sort of Wong Kar-Wai feel to it. - Oh, 100%. I mean, it really, and the way she was styled, for example, I think I mentioned that as well. She really feels like one of the characters from "Trinking Express." She's got the little half moon sunglasses on, she's got high-top converse on, and that's also a romance. That's the most overtly romantic segment. So, of course, he was referring, I mean, as well as all of the classical Hollywood references, he refers to a lot of Chinese cinema as well. He refers, and definitely, I mean, historically, "Bigan" has always been part of, kind of actually a Chinese tradition that is very indebted to Tarkovsky, but specifically to Tarkovsky's stalker. They really seem to go nuts. And somebody was mentioning this apparently in the Beijing Film School, which is where a lot of our current crop of Chinese auteurs come from or go through. Stalker is like, it's like the basic text. - The basic text. - It's like the movie that is, the "er" movie, yes. So, that's how you learn to make movies. So, yes, between that and then "One Car Why," and there's also, there's a little bit of a pitch-at-pong in there sometimes. There's lots of different Asian auteurs, as well as the Hollywood things that he is referencing. Yes, it's like a magnificence to you. And truly, it's like a filmic education, as well, because I have no doubt, the few that I've picked up on, there are infinitely more. And there are sometimes when I could almost see that there's something happening here that I know is a reference to just something that I'm too ignorant to know. So, yeah, it's amazing. I mean, people talk about rich texts and lots to unpack, but I mean, really, you could spend a year with this movie. And I don't think it's at the bottom of all of its mysteries. Yeah, I would agree. And we could definitely keep talking about it, but we were hoping to talk, we were going to talk about one more movie at least on this. But all I wanted to add is that, to use the cliche, it's not just style over substance, either. I mean, we definitely don't have time to get into it, but I think what was feeling so deep, there was this feeling of the interplay in what you're watching and for the artists, what they're conveying. I felt he had new ways of describing how empathy works or describing really just how art transmits in some way that he was finding to do. I mean, this last millennial day is not the very last thing in the movie. There is something after that that I think we could leave as a total surprise, but it's just a whole 'nother level. So, yeah, I just wanted to add that because I know, I feel like you could hear about this movie and think like, well, yeah, but, you know, so it's got all this stuff. Yes, exactly. You'll be thinking, wow, Jess and Nick have done such a good job of describing this movie. I don't need to go and see it anymore. You would be wrong. You would be wrong, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, resurrection, see it. See it and be amazed. See it and surrender. And, you know, actually, this is gonna be a good pairing of movies 'cause they're very like complementary in the sense that this other movie just pairs everything away to an extent and also even pairs away a whole movie tradition with it because it doesn't go with the movie tradition that you think it's really gonna do. And that's the mastermind. That's the mastermind. The new Kelly Reichart film, which is, I can give like two lines for this one because it's so like, you know, Josh O'Connor plays a, you know, I'm not actually sure what he does for, I guess he seems to be like a carpenter or something for a living. I mean, you do not really see that. What's happening in the very beginning is he's casing a, you know, regional art museum, which seems to have not the greatest security but still has some very nice rare works. - It is 1970 as well. - And it is 1970, so there are no cameras. They're just a couple of guards, one of them seems to sleep. So that's the beginning. And then sure enough, the jazz kicks in that lets you know that there's planning going on. And they go through the planning with a couple of guys that he has to undertake the heist and then the aftermath of that. And the movie really is more aftermath, even more. Yeah, I almost hesitate to say too much about it because a lot of it is about expectations and dashing of expectations, but even not even in the way that I feel the like '70s heist movie usually does for you, I think it even like twists the '70s heist movie punchline too. - Yeah, yeah. - But I don't know, what did you make of the movie? - I mean, I think really I came out of it just being like, I think that might be perfect. I mean, I don't really know. I would not describe the began movie, for example, as perfect, it's brilliant or extraordinary or phenomenal or something rather. But this just was perfect. And it was maybe also just the time that I saw it. It's at the end of the festival. Traditionally, Kelly Reichart ends the festival. - Yeah, for some reason. - Which, you know, we can, which I have often, my friends have often snidely suggested is because they're sort of reluctantly putting her in competition and so they kind of give her what is regarded as a not particularly desirable slot. But the upside to that for us has been and certainly the last couple of times it's been showing up and now with the mastermind that we get to end, you know, attiring long two weeks with this bomb. Like just feels like somebody just gently massaging your brain or gently stroking the hair back from your forehead because that is Kelly Reichart style. However, I will say, I think that this one, it's also to my mind, I think it's probably her most accessible and her most like purely enjoyable film, partly because it does have however loosely it has that heist movie structure. And there is a heist in it. It's very funny that the heist is like the least dramatic heist you have ever seen. I think maybe the least dramatic heist since the delinquents Rodrigo Morena's Delinquents where, which was the least dramatic bank robbery you've ever seen. This is the least dramatic art heist you have ever seen and the most bumbling and anept really. And yes, you're right. Most of what happens then in it, it happens afterwards. But so much of it is about this wonderful texture about that amazing score by Rob Mazurek. And the score is really, I mean, this is such a cliche, but it really is another character. In fact, it feels like Elliot Gould. The score just feels like Elliot Gould. And it's this wonderful, jazzy score. So in the very beginning where Josh O'Connor is there with his family, his wife is played by Alana Heim and his two little boys, you know, there's no reason that this family trip to the local art museum should seem like anything untoward is going to happen, except that you have this practically pink panthery, brush symbol percussion going on, and then a little trumpet comes in to tell you that something is up and some fiber phone. I mean, it's really, it's just, it's a fantastic score. And it's really quite there in this incarnation throughout. And it really just gives pictures that do not necessarily have anything like that. This added dimension. So there's a lovely dialogue, I think, going on between the score and the images, which as you say, like the film itself is a deconstruction of a deconstruction. It's a deconstruction of the already deconstructed 1970s heist thriller, but it's 70s detailing is so good. It's so perfect. I actually came out of it and a friend who is older than me, so this was not my observation, but was actually saying, oh, you guys are probably too young to know, but they're really, he remembered a time when Pantyhose did come in these plastic egg things. - Oh yeah, I remember the ads for those, yeah. - I mean, it's just so weird. And it's just a really tossed aside thing. But he was just like, oh yes, that's there. And there's another very funny moment during the actual heist itself, where they've stolen a car and it's this kind of station wagon thing. And the two robbers, his two accomplices are coming out with paintings under their arms and the stockings on their heads. And they have to just put them into the back of the car. But this is a station wagon and you have to wind down the back window of the station wagon like manually. And they're trying to do that while carrying paintings. And anyway, it's just ludicrous bit of physical comedy and it's shot from this lovely sardonic distance, which is just observing these absolutely inept idiots doing this. And so yeah, so there's lots of that kind of stuff. And then as soon as, I think it does take a turn sort of halfway through or so, unsurprisingly, for such a badly planned robbery, pretty soon the chickens come home to roost. And at one point, and Joshua Conner's JB has to go on the run. And I think it's when he goes on the run that the film really, to my mind, I mean, it changes, it's still in the same register, but it becomes more sharply ironic, I think. And it also becomes a more incisive deconstruction of him, of his character. And of actually what that kind of character is. And I think it's really fascinating. I think very possibly the final scene of this movie is the best final scene of any film in Cannes with the police cars. Because it's also the one, you know, Joshua Conner, I could also talk about Joshua Conner in this movie for ages, right down to his stubbly face, his grubby suit, and his weird relationship to these objects of art, these art pieces that he steals. It's basically the character from "Lakimera." But it's completely also different from the character in "Lakimera." Because "Lakimera" is an absolutely fantastic film that I adore, and he is amazing in it. But there's a dimension of sort of tragic sorrowfulness going on in that, and it's etched into his face. Here, he is recognizably the same guy, and he has got the same facial hair, and it sort of feels like it's set maybe just a little bit earlier in time period. But still, he's just a completely different human. And a lot of this, as I've just been writing in my review, I think is kind of part of Kelly White's ongoing fascination with exactly those parts of a movie that most filmmakers would just cut out or get away from. It's these sort of ordinary things. I think she's really, really interested in ordinariness, and in what happens to the fabric of ordinar-- when the fabric of ordinariness starts to fray. And so this is-- I mean, here he is a very ordinary man. He's married, and he has the two kids. He has a kind of crappy relationship with his parents. His father played by Bill Kamp, who's just wonderful. His mother played by Hope Davis, who's also wonderful. And they're only in a couple of scenes, but this is the incredible genius of Kelly Reichart, just in a couple of scenes. Or sometimes, even in one scene, in a couple of lines of dialogue, she just creates these entirely fully realized characters. - And then she casts them so brilliantly. - Yes, he's so good. I mean, so good. So Joshua Conner's relationship with his parents sort of tells you quite a lot about him, and he's a bit of a loser, basically, and especially compared to his very well-respected judge father, who's a bit of a bloviating fool, but is obviously an important man in the community. And so you can kind of understand, and in some ways sympathize with, his decision to do this heist, because it's his way of being remarkable when he's been so ordinary for so long. - Yeah, it's something he can do, something different that he can do. But so interesting for me is that he's not like this anti-hero. I mean, like La Chimera, he has that white suit, there's this mystery to him, and there's also, I think, in that performance, there's this flicker in him. This guy, he kind of seems confident, 'cause he's going ahead with this, but I've detected this great sadness underneath. - Yeah, I think you're maybe more charitable than I, because I think what I more detected underneath is just, I think he's a guy who thinks he's a nice guy. I think that he thinks he's a decent guy. And had all this not happened, and had it all not gone horribly wrong, he probably would have lived his whole life believing that. But one of the things that I think is so fascinating and about this sort of interrogation of ordinariness is how it gives, and it is especially men, because we are dealing with a man here, but it's like, especially men, this kind of cover, as sort of an outwards respectability or whatever, that doesn't necessarily reflect who they are inside. So as he goes on the lam and as the journey sort of starts to unpick him further and further, I think we realize, even if he doesn't, because I don't think he's a particularly self-aware person or a particularly self-examining person, that I don't think he is a nice guy at all. In fact, he kind of is a bit of an asshole. And how many of the people who we just go through life thinking, "Oh, no, he's a nice guy," whatever, would be given the right circumstances, would let their inner asshole flag fly. And this is what I'm talking about. This is the sharpening of the irony of it towards the end. There's also, we should say, this amazing... I mean, the photography is wonderful. It's Christopher Blauvelt again, who always works with Kelly Weikart. The background noise of the Vietnam War protests and Walter Cronkite on the TV talking about Cambodia and all of those things that, initially, to me, just seemed like more beautiful local color on the period detail as well, like really puts you in that time and place. But then towards the end, that background starts to come to the foreground and starts to assume more of a presence in the film. And you do, I did start to think, wonder then about also this guy doing this very selfish, archized, for really selfish, and never particularly clear reasons why he chose this particular paintings, all of those sort of things, but also the sort of the irresponsibility of him doing this and of him getting caught up in all of this at a time when all of this public stuff is going on and it's really crucial and really vital. And so, the beautifully poised ending in that wonderful last shot is, to me, this really fantastically, sort of perfectly judged moment of anti-climax for him. It's a real comeuppance for him, 'cause he doesn't even get to own the end of his own story. Even that gets taken away from him. It's really, I just, but I mean, now I'm making it sound like a major downer and I think there's something, because I'm actually quite glad to see him get his comeuppance, I'm quite glad that he didn't get away with it because by this time, I think I have realized that I don't like this guy anymore. And because he's played by so likeable, like by Josh O'Connor and 'cause you kind of, you're brought along with that to a certain degree and then she really cleverly sort of investigates and unpicks it, unpicks him. - Yeah, yeah, basically, what are you liking exactly here? - Yes, exactly, what is there to like here? - Yeah, and since she grounds it in such a, not like stylized world, you really aren't able to evaluate him just as a person in this world. Without having like a, I don't know, like a moralizing tone at it whatsoever. - Exactly, that's the thing, yeah. - Yeah, and it's interesting, yeah, stylistically, it drifts away from the comforts of genre as it goes on. And at one point, you know, you're like firmly in some other right-hartian territory when there's like a pretty incredible camera movement, like more eloquently than like any establishing shot shows you the limits of him himself. I'm thinking about the 360-degree camera where when he's in like the hotel room, I just-- - Oh, right, okay, yes, yeah. No, I don't, yes, I didn't even, it didn't even, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, which I just felt was like, this is your world now and then it's gonna, it ends up reflecting and you see what his limits are. - Yeah, exactly, yes. - So yeah, and it's strange because you think, this is happening with a couple of movies where genre has just set you up so much and you realize that it's really like being on these like train tracks, you know? - Yeah, genre is a hell of a drug. - Genre is a hell of a drug. And yeah, as you mentioned, you know, it looks great. The color is, she loves her like 70s, like sort of eggshell blues. - Eggshell blues, but also then outside it's just like, I describe it as permanently windbreaker weather. It's like always full and then there's a little bit of winter but it's just like, yeah, it's always overcast and it's always in those mid-tone browns and actually quite like warmly shot by Blauweils. It's really lovely to look at and sort of luxuriant to look at. And again, this sort of sense of the period is so well evoked but not showily so, of course it's not showy, it's Kelly Reichard. Yeah, so there's so much richness going on there but it's actually also relatively speaking very straightforward. I did point out as well that I think you're almost honor-bound if you're doing a heist movie, no matter what it is, to include an entirely wordless procedural sequence in deference to Riffifee. And she does that here but it's not during the heist. She does it when he's trying to hide the paintings in the barn and that extended sequence just gets more and more funny to me. I mean, because it's just the physical difficulty of one man trying to carry four paintings and the box that they're contained in up this rickety, you know, a barn ladder to a loft. And it just goes on inordinately long time because it just takes him so long to do it. And it's really, yeah, just that kind of thing again is another, to my mind, it's another example of her taking what was already like a revolutionarily un-deconstructed way to approach a heist movie and then riffing on it again and commenting on it again. Yeah, so you're right, it's like a double deconstruction. Yeah, it's just, remember there's the pig oinking throughout. The pig oinking, exactly. Yes, the pig is snuffling through some straw. Snuffling through some straw. Yeah. So, I mean, definitely just a filmmaker. I'm always, it feels like a gift whenever she has a new movie and I can't wait to see what she's come up with. One last thing is that weirdly, I found myself thinking of like certain women a little bit at times in this, just something about the ultimate character portraiture of it somehow, and maybe the colors as well was what it was. But yeah, I don't know. I actually, we didn't mention, and we should, there's a wonderful scene with John McGarrow who is now like a recent Kelly Reichart regular and Gabby Hoffman. And again, that's just another example of like how even these small roles are so fully lived in and realized. And there's a really amazing, like not very wordy dialogue scene at night between Gabby Hoffman and Josh O'Connor. And it's just so remarkable. And like that Gabby Hoffman character, I feel like I've watched a whole movie about her. I feel like I know so much about her and you basically have two scenes with her. But like there's a shrewdness to her and the sort of the geniality of the John McGarrow character who is her partner. And yeah, just so all of these things. And that's, I think that to me is also the first time when I sort of got a hint of where I think the film was going to go with regards to his character. When you're suddenly like, oh, actually, he is a bit of an entitled prick. He does actually just think that these people are going to put him up even though he's on the run. And even though he's basically endangering them. And yeah, amazing. - No, and yeah, there's stuff with his kids too where if you think about it for a second, you're like, oh shit. - Yeah, yeah, or he just like sends them off with some money. - Yeah, yeah. - To the mall or whatever. - Yeah, so yeah, this is, maybe I'm actually here to see again too because it's so finely wrought, I guess. - Yes, I'd love to see it again. - So this might be a two film podcast. - A two film podcast, sorry. - But no, no, I mean, they're well, yeah, they really are great to talk about. But it just as by way of ending, what would you want to win? And what do you think will win? That old question. - Right, well, I mean, as we were saying before, I've had a great time at this festival and I've had a great time with the movies at this festival. And I think there's so many deserving winners. There's also quite a fun thing going on at the moment where it basically just seems to be neon and movie, desperately acquiring as many films as they can, especially neon, because neon have like this unbroken run of getting the palm door. And they're so really anxious to maintain that streak. - It's so weird. - So there's part of me that kind of wants it to not be in the on movie just for that reason, 'cause I mean, but also because I think, like even before this festival and coming into my favorite film, and the one I think would be most remarkable if it won, is "Sound of Falling" by Masha Shilinski, which is actually a movie acquisition and not neon. But I think it's an incredible film. And I do think, I think it really, surely it has to win something with this jury, Juliet Beynosh in the head of it. And I can't really see like Alboror Vakar and Payal Kapadia, like not really liking this film, not really getting on board with this film. And Juliet as well, when Juliet was the head of the Berlin jury a few years ago, she was in charge of the jury that chose synonyms for the top prize and Adam Lapid's synonyms, which was like absolutely the best choice. And as such, very often would not be the film that would actually win. So I have a lot of faith in Juliet Beynosh, and everything that she's spoken about, in terms of her presidency here of this jury, she has talked about wanting to see the new thing, wanting to see the thing that changes the language of cinema a little bit. So I think if it were up to her, I think that "Sound of Falling" would be in a really, would be in a really good position for that. But there is also "Oliver Lax's Serrat," which I adored and I think is, again, something new in the world. And I think that would be an incredibly ballsy choice as well. And it's kind of the reason as well, I suppose. I'm leaning away from some of the other things that people are suggesting might be the front runners, such as "Sentimental Value," which to be fair, I have not seen yet, I'm seeing it tomorrow. "Schwackentria's Sentimental Value," which I'm sure is wonderful, and I hear "Silence Guardsguard," for example, is very possibly in with a shout at "Best Actor," because he's really great in it. But I think that that would be just a little bit more expected to me. People liked "Carla Simone's Romaria," people really loved "Gefar Panahi's" film as well, which is really terrific. But any of those, even "Panahi," I just feel, would be slightly the safer choices. And I would love to see the bravery of this can being rewarded by the really brave winner. - I guess, you know, it's a good can when "Panahi" is the safe choice. - Yes, I know, I know, that's terrible. It's actually a really good film, it's really funny. And it's really, yeah, it's really angry and really funny. And it's the first film that he's made since being able to do whatever he wants. And you're like, "Really, dude? You're just asking to be put back under house arrest, seriously." - Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, well, my luxury is that I can ask the question, but I don't have to figure it out yet. - Oh, come on, you've got to put your money away, your mouth is. - Yeah, actually, I mean, I was hopeful as soon as I saw "Sound of Falling," that that would be it. There was just something about it, and feeling that you are watching someone come up with a new language. That resembles or has ancestors, but is doing its own thing as well. And as for what, yeah, I think I would have to agree with you. I didn't think of through about just all the jurors on that who would be receptive. And I do find it harder to believe that they would take the, yeah, something like "Sentiment of Value," which I have not seen either. - Yes, okay, all right, so we're talking out of our ass. - Right, exactly. I would think that "Sarrot" might be a little too, what's the word, like a little too apocalyptic, or in a sense, there are a couple other movies that just are pushing on multiple fronts, whereas that one kind of, I mean, it's doing a lot, but it is kind of this arrow. - It's true, but it's an arrow that, like it's like the magic bullet of that arrow, because it just goes in the last place you would expect it to go. I mean, over and over again. Still, I think my jaw is still on the floor from that movie, which played over a week ago now. - Yeah, but the big question is, how much do they value hope, I guess? - I suppose, yes. - And what does hope look like? - What does hope look like? - Because sound of falling-- - But I mean, I think that there's hope in it specifically because it's a second time female filmmaker who is, as you say, like recreating her own language. And so, yes, she's telling a powerfully despairing story, I suppose, but in form alone, it felt so new to me and so exciting to me, and that it's an optimistic experience to watch something like that. - Yeah, I feel the same. All right, well, I guess we can ramp up there, but thank you again. - Thank you very much, Nick, this was fun. - You've been listening to "The Last Thing I Saw" with host Nicholas Rapole. You can support the podcast by signing up at rapole.substack.com. Thank you for listening.