Julia Ducournau’s bizarre Titane sent punters over the edge, while films such as Asghar Fahadi’s A Hero offered more subtle rewards
The pandemic hits Cannes in the form of a movie that plays near the beach, buffeted by strong winds. On screen, the people are sickening by degrees. They’re coughing on commuter buses and sidestreets and in the musty, book-lined aisles down at the local library. They’re seeing mad visions of motherships in the sky. The madness is contagious; the city’s in meltdown. “Don’t worry,” says the doctor, “it’s just an outbreak of the flu.”
The film in question is Petrov’s Flu, directed by the dissident Russian film-maker Kirill Serebrennikov, who’s laying the chaos on thick and fast. I’m liking the movie but many others are not. They keep breaking for the exit, pushing the back door to escape. They think the whole thing’s too fevered; too malarial to make sense. Or maybe it’s that Serebrennikov’s story lands a little too close to home.
