Alejandro G. Inarritu and Emmanuel Lubezki are making a splash in the world of virtual reality with their VR installation “Arena y Carne (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible)” but the Oscar-winning director and cinematographer are also playing hard to get at the Cannes Film Festival. Although the work is part of the official selection, the first VR experience to make that prestigious cut, it is playing not in the Palais or elsewhere along the Croisette, but in a warehouse space 15 minutes west of town, near the small Aeroport Cannes Mandelieu.
But you can’t just show up with your badge and walk in — you have to sign up in advance for a specific time slot, which is when you’ll be driven to the location in a festival car. And you can’t sign up unless you’ve been invited, with invitations mostly going to members of the press. And even if you have been invited, all the available time slots — two people every half hour through the end of the festival on May 28 — are filled.
The work itself lasts about six and a half minutes, but it’s about a 90-minute commitment. Oh, and when you get there you have to surrender your phone and your ID, take off your shoes and socks and sign a waiver absolving the festival of responsibility if you’re injured or you die. This is surely the only Cannes Film Festival event ever to make that requirement.
“Carne y Arena” is not physically dangerous – viewers are free to move around a large open space while the action is unfolding, but only one person at a time undergoes the experience, surrounded by unseen aides who keep cords from being tangled and prevent visitors from walking into walls.
And yes, those things could happen — because when you put on the VR headset and headphones, you find yourself in the desert along the U.S./Mexico border just before dawn. (The floor of the space is sand, the one non-virtual effect.) You are soon surrounded by a group of migrants who are attempting to cross the border, and quickly you’re all under the harsh spotlight of a border patrol helicopter and in the sights of a bevy of gun-toting agents.
The purpose of the installation, said Inarritu in a statement introducing it, is to “experiment with VR technology in order to explore the human condition while finding a personal way to represent it.” The people around you in the virtual desert are not actors playing roles — they’re men and women who really made the dangerous border crossing and are recreating their real experiences, sometimes in the clothes they actually wore when they made the trip.
As a viewer, you are free to interact in whatever way you want — you can wander from one migrant to another, and when the agents scream at you to get on your knees, you can drop to the sand along with the migrants, or walk over to the agents to see the confrontation from their perspective.
It is an immersive experience but, more than that, it is designed to be an emotional one. “By adapting the events experienced by one or many of the immigrants during their journeys across the border and adding specific details described by them, I wrote and staged a scene creating a multi-narrative space that incorporates many of them in what could be called a semi-fictionalized ethnography,” wrote Inarritu. He expanded the experience by piling real shoes from those who died making the crossing in the waiting room, and adding stark and compelling video testimonies from the people he interviewed on the way out.
“Carne y Arena” is disturbing and enlightening, to be sure, personalizing the immigrant experience in a way that none of the other Cannes works about refugees and immigration can do. (So far, that list includes the Vanessa Redgrave documentary “Sea Sorrow” and Kornel Mundruczo’s competition title “Jupiter’s Moon.”)
As for the level of realism that Inarritu and Lubezki are able to achieve, this VR neophyte will only say that while the experience is undeniably powerful, the viewer is still at a distance. You can observe the action from any angle, but you can’t change what happens, and while the pre-dawn darkness helps with realism, what you see comes through a slight haze and feels more like a dream than reality.
Or, rather, it feels like a nightmare, which in many ways is the point. “Carne y Arena” uses technology not to show off, but to make us feel and understand, which is an altogether worthier goal.
Obviously, this isn’t the kind of experience that can be marketed for a wide audience — but when Cannes concludes, “Carne y Arena” will become a little more accessible to the general public. In an expanded version, it will be presented at the Fondazione Prada in Milan from June 7 through Jan. 28, and subsequently at other museums around the world.
Cannes Film Festival 2017: 20 Most Intriguing Movies, From 'The Beguiled' to 'Okja' (Photos)
Cannes entries are divided between the main competition, the out-of-competition screenings, the Un Certain Regard section and the Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week sidebars. Here are some of the most promising titles to seek out.
"The Beguiled" (Main Competition)
Sofia Coppola is expected to take a feminist angle on a story that yielded a lurid Clint Eastwood potboiler in 1971.
Focus Features
"Promised Land" (Special Screenings)
Documentary director Eugene Jarecki takes a road trip to tell the story of Elvis Presley and the story of America -- because aren't they really one and the same?
"Okja" (Main Competition)
Tilda Swinton is bad, An Seo Hyun is good, and wait until director Bong Joon Ho shows you the little girl's pet.
Netflix
"Based on a True Story" ("D'Apres une Historie Vraie") - (Out of Competition)
A new Roman Polanski film, starring Eva Green and Emmanuelle Seigner, may close the festival in steamy fashion.
Sony Pictures Classics
"Wonderstruck" (Main Competition)
Todd Haynes dazzled Cannes with the quiet "Carol" two years ago, and now adapts a time-hopping novel by Brian Selznick, the author of the book that spawned Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."
Amazon Studios
"The Workshop" ("L'Atelier") (Un Certain Regard)
Director Laurent Cantet won the Palme d'Or (and landed an Oscar nomination) for his 2008 film "The Class." This one is in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, but Cantet is rarely second-tier.
Diaphana Films
"Happy End" (Main Competition)
The rigorous and unsparing director Michael Haneke is gunning for his third Palme d'Or with this story of immigration starring the inescapable Isabelle Huppert.
Sony Pictures Classics
"The Florida Project" (Directors Fortnight)
Sean Baker's last film, "Tangerine," was shot on an iPhone and won a Spirit Award. This one stars Willem Dafoe and a cast of non-pros.
Mark Schmidt
"Visages, Villages" (Out of Competition)
At the age of 88, the legendary French director Agnes Varda is still active, teaming up with muralist and co-director J.R. on a road trip through rural France.
"Jeannette, The Childhood of Joan of Arc" ("Jeannette, J'Enfance de Jeanne d'Arc") (Directors Fortnight)
Director Bruno Dumont was at Cannes last year with the positively unhinged "Slack Bay," and now he's back with a musical look at the Maid of Orleans. Yep, musical.
Memento Films
"Loveless" (Main Competition)
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev won acclaim and an Oscar nomination for "Leviathan," but some officials his home country weren't thrilled with that unsparing film about corruption. So he made this one without government money.
Pyramide Distribution
"The Meyerowitz Stories" (Main Competition)
Does Adam Sandler belong at Cannes? Sure, if he's in a Noah Baumbach movie with Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Emma Thompson and Candice Bergen.
Netflix/Atsushi Nishijima
"Sea Sorrow" (Special Screenings)
Vanessa Redgrave waited until she was 80 to make her directorial debut with this film inspired by footage of Syrian refugees. It takes its title from a line from Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
"A Ciambra" (Directors Fortnight)
Born in New York but based in Italy, Jonas Carpignano made a splash with his 2015 drama "Mediterranea," which dealt with refugees coming to Italy. This film follows some of the same characters.
"Redoubtable" (Main Competition)
Can "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavius pull off a film about the romance between revered auteur Jean-Luc Godard and a teenage actress in 1968? It sounds risky but could be fascinating.
Les Compagnons du Cinéma - Photo Philippe Aubry
"Let the Sunshine In" (Directors Fortnight)
The Directors Fortnight section will open with the new film from 71-year-old French legend Claire Denis, whose cast includes Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu.
"24 Frames" (Special Screenings)
The late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami made this collection of shorts on the heels of his quietly brilliant features "Certified Copy" and "Like Someone in Love." This is his final film, which makes it a must-see.
"Good Time" (Main Competition)
Brothers Josh and Benny Safdie have become indie stars with films like "Daddy Longlegs" and "Heaven Knows What," and this crime drama with Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Jason Leigh is their biggest production to date.
A24
"The Killing Of a Sacred Deer" (Main Competition)
One of the four Nicole Kidman productions at Cannes, this film was directed by "Dogtooth" and "The Lobster" auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, which means it'll likely be wonderfully bizarre.
A24
"Carne Y Arena" (Out of Competition)
It's only six minutes long and you have to take a shuttle to get to where it's showing -- but this VR installation that puts viewers in the shoes of Mexican refugees was directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu and shot by Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, which should be all you need to know.
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More than 100 new feature films will be screening at the 70th Cannes Film Festival — here’s a small sampling of Cannes premieres that merit attention.
Cannes entries are divided between the main competition, the out-of-competition screenings, the Un Certain Regard section and the Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week sidebars. Here are some of the most promising titles to seek out.