To be honest, I woke up in the morning in a very unusual mood. I did not have the best night in my life. Loads of unpleasant and agitated dreams. I seemed to still be very much bothered by the opening movie screening. So much violence, so much noise. Train crashes, explosions, car accidents, broken little pieces of human bodies – all this not much counterbalanced by humour or at least some kind of lightness. If you add to this the fact that an acquaintance of ours killed himself and half of his family in a car crash earlier this week, the last thing you actually want to see is broken cars and dead people. Even worse, when all this is making no sense at all.
So to summarize, I woke up angry and fulminating. I spent the first half of the day thinking that, given the current context of inflation and hardship for many, maybe 150 million EUR could have served to a better purpose than to spoil my night. Level of grumpiness 500 reached.
My evaluation of the situation was shared with my movie buddies as follows : I do not need more agitation and disturbance. What I need right now is enchantment.
It seems that the gods of cinema heard me.
It required a bit of fighting to enter the movie theater. My bad vibes seemed to have an impact on the ticket screening machine. It indeed said that I had already entered the room. An absurd 10 minutes of negotiation with the controller, during which I had to prove that I am I and that, as I was standing beside him, I was obviously not inside the movie theater, followed. Final result: Klara 1 – machine 0. That victory against the machine saved my festival.
Again, as on day 1, two names could potentially appear like a guarantee of success: Kazuo Ishiguro and Bill Nighy. But I took my lesson and remained cautious this time. For those who do not know him, Kazuo Ishiguro (who wrote the screenplay and produced the film we were about to see) is 2017 Nobel Price of Literature and wrote a masterpiece that everyone should read at least once in his/her life: “The Remains of the Day”. Bill Nighy, I assume I do not need to introduce.
The film was presented out of competition for the simple reason that Kazuo Ishiguro is actually a jury member in the official competition (my professional self was very happy to see that conflict of interest is somehow dealt with at the Mostra).
“Living” was introduced as a remake of Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” which, I have to confess, I did not see (this shall be corrected soon). And “Living” ended up being the beautiful enchantment I was desperately in need of.
First, because Bill Nighy is once and for all the winner of Klara’s heart award (sadly he won’t get a price this year as, as explained, he is not competing). Second, because the entire film ends up being as delicate, discrete and subtle as Bill Nighy is. Something that only Brits know how to do. We laughed (thanks as well to a great performance by Aimee Lou Wood, who is as adorable as in “Sex Education”) and we cried spontaneously over the destiny of this condemned man trying, in his own way, to trigger a last little spark of life around him.
Beautiful visuals (guaranteed 100% car crash free), subtle dialogues and complex and sensitive characters seal the deal.
A must see. I am happy to announce that I am officially reconciled with the 2022 Mostra.
Klara's cinema 