There are very few directors who have made both top-notch narrative films and documentaries, among them Michael Apted, Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and a recent addition to the list, Cannes juror Ava DuVernay. But the German director Wim Wenders, who won the Palme d’Or for the masterful “Paris, Texas” in 1984 and recently was nominated for Oscars for the remarkable documentaries “Pina” and “The Salt of the Earth,” has to be near the top of the list.
And now he’s come to the Cannes Film Festival with “Pope Francis – A Man of His Word,” a modest and prosaically titled film about the Roman Catholic pontiff who has made it his mission to work on behalf of the poorest and most troubled, even if it means veering closer to controversial liberation theology than to the usual priorities of the Church.
The first thing to say about Wenders appearing at Cannes is that it’s probably a good thing that he’s doing so with a documentary. The 72-year-old director’s last few narrative films have been real duds: “Every Thing Will Be Fine,” “The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez” and “Submergence” were clunky and awkward.
Meanwhile, his two prior documentaries were deserving Oscar nominees. 2011’s “Pina” was a bold and magical performance film about the pioneering choreographer Pina Bausch, with a brilliant use of 3D to create the spaces in which Bausch’s art could take place, while 2014’s “The Salt of the Earth” was a lyrical and incisive look at Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, the father of Wenders’ co-director, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.
“Pope Francis,” in many ways, is far closer to “Pina,” which is focused on performances of Bausch’s work, than to “The Salt of the Earth.” In fact, it’s also of a piece with other Wenders films like “Buena Vista Social Club,” because it is, in essence, a performance film.
That’s not to say that the pontiff sings or dances in the movie; his performance lies in conversation. The heart of the movie is Pope Francis sitting in a chair — sometimes a red brocade chair in a room with burnt orange walls, sometimes a pale chair in a garden surrounded by trees, with a church steeple in the distance — and delivering a message.
One of his first comments is, “The world today is mostly deaf,” and from there he spends the early stretches of the film upbraiding the Church for its emphasis on wealth. “I wanted a poor Church for the poor,” he says, and a moment later, “We either serve God or we serve money … As long as the Church is placing its hope on wealth, Jesus is not there.”
From there, we get a veritable Pope Francis’ Greatest Hits: washing the feet of poor South Americans (he himself is Argentinian), saying that it’s the duty of church officials to report pedophilia to the authorities, visiting refugees in Greece, decrying Donald Trump’s border wall and commenting, “If a person is gay and is searching for the Lord, who am I to judge him?”
The whole point of the film, driven home by black-and-white reenactments, is that the pope is a revolutionary in the mold of his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who sought to moderate a truce between Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. But in tone and approach, this is an understated, affectionate film, more reverential than revolutionary; it’s less a portrait of the pope than a recital by him, with the boldness of his ideas undercut by the modesty of their telling.
In one way, that’s a strength of “Pope Francis” because it simply presents the man as he is, with a simplicity befitting the pope’s own demeanor. It’s not going to make converts out of anybody — I was raised Catholic, I’m definitely not one anymore and all the movie did was convince me that the pope is a good man.
Then again, Pope Francis is a healer, not a proselytizer. And Wenders knows enough to stand back and let him say his piece and make his peace.
19 Cannes Movies We're Dying to See, From 'BlacKkKlansman' to 'Solo' (Photos)
The 2018 Cannes Film Festival will showcase 21 films in competition, another 16 out of competition, 18 in Un Certain Regard, more than two dozen in Cannes Classics and others in the independent Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections. Among the riches, here are some that stand out.
“BlacKkKlansman” Spike Lee (Main Competition) The director who some think was robbed of the Palme d’Or for “Do the Right Thing” in 1989 is back in the running with the true story of a black man who infiltrated the KKK in the '70s – but advance footage shows a comic tone, and producer Jason Blum says the goal was “to show what bozos” the Klan is.
“Three Faces” Jafar Panahi (Main Competition) Panahi, who is not allowed to leave Iran and is officially forbidden from making movies, has nonetheless spent the last few years creating a string of wry, smart films about life under totalitarian rule, peaking with “Taxi” in 2015. Any new Panahi film is an event, and his first to land in the main competition in Cannes has already made him the betting favorite for the Palme d’Or.
“The House That Jack Built” Lars von Trier (Out of competition) Matt Dillon as a serial killer over a span of 12 years is intriguing enough. But Lars von Trier returning to the festival that declared him “persona non grata” for his press-conference comments about Hitler in 2011 — that’s a riveting story all its own.
“The Image Book” Jean-Luc Godard (Main Competition) We know the director probably won’t show up, and we know his film will be challenging and elusive. “The Image Book” is reportedly an essay about film that comes exactly 50 years after a politicized Godard helped shut down the 1968 Cannes festival in solidarity with protests throughout France.
“Whitney” Kevin Macdonald (Midnight Screenings) The director of fact-based narrative films (“The Last King of Scotland”) and documentaries (“One Day in September”) turns his sights to the glorious art and tragic life of Whitney Houston for one of a small number of documentaries in the Cannes lineup.
“Yomeddine” A.B. Shawky (Main Competition) The last time a director’s debut feature was chosen for Cannes’ main competition was 2015, when Laszlo Nemes’ “Son of Saul” made the cut and ended up winning Cannes’ Grand Prize and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Hoping to follow that daunting path: Shawky’s crowd-funded coming-of-age drama about a young man leaving the leper colony where he was left as a child.
“Cold War” Pawel Pawlikowski (Main Competition) Pawlikowski’s last film, “Ida,” won the foreign-language Oscar, and stills from this film have the same gorgeous black-and-white look and disconcerting, nearly square aspect ratio. It’s a romance set in post-World War II Europe.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” Ron Howard (Out of Competition) No, it has almost nothing to do with the kind of films that are the heart of this festival. But c’mon, who doesn’t want to see this?
“Girls of the Sun” Eva Husson (Main Competition) Golshifteh Farahani, last seen in Cannes with Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson,” plays the head of a Kurdish female battalion, and past Cannes best-actress winner Emmanuelle Bercot is an embedded journalist in the Cannes debut from “Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)” director Husson.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” Stanley Kubrick (Cannes Classics) It may be a 50-year-old movie we’ve all seen many times before, but Christopher Nolan’s presentation of this “unrestored” 70mm print will be looking to prove that a classic film can find a new way to resonate half a century later.
“Burning” Lee Chang-dong (Main Competition) Lee Chang-dong’s films “Poetry” and “Secret Sunshine” both won awards at Cannes, which puts the pressure on for this mystery based on a story by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. It’s the first film in eight years for the Korean auteur.
“Under the Silver Lake” David Robert Mitchell (Main Competition) Mitchell landed in the Critics’ Week section with his last film, the widely praised horror flick “It Follows,” and this time he’s crafted a film noir drama that finds Andrew Garfield searching for a missing neighbor (Riley Keough) through the underbelly of Los Angeles.
“Fugue” Agnieszka Smoczynska (Critics’ Week) Smoczynska’s first film, “The Lure,” transplanted “The Little Mermaid” to a Polish metal nightclub; her next one, “Deranged,” will be a sci-fi opera set to David Bowie music. In between she made “Fugue,” about a woman who has lost her memory, and how could it not be intriguing?
“Climax” Gaspar Noe (Directors’ Fortnight) In a rich year for provocateurs (Godard, von Trier … ), Argentinian director Noe might be the most provocative of all, typically stirring up adulation and outrage in equal measure. And given his penchant for forthright sexuality and hallucinatory imagery, a Noe film titled “Climax” is bound to cause a stir.
“Pope Francis – A Man of His Word” Wim Wenders (Special Screenings) The title sounds too reverential, maybe even boring. But Wenders, who won the Palme d’Or for “Paris, Texas” more than 30 years ago, is a probing and sensitive director who aimed to make a film with the pontiff, not about him.
“Arctic” Joe Penna (Midnight Screenings) You might know the Brazilian director as YouTube’s MysteryGuitarMan, but he’s making his feature debut with an icebound adventure story that star Mads Mikkelsen called the toughest shoot he’s ever been on.
“Rafiki” Wanuri Kahiu (Un Certain Regard) A couple of weeks after Kahiu’s film became the first Kenyan movie to land a Cannes premiere, it was banned in its home country because of the lesbian relationship it depicts. The ban ought to make it even more of a must-see.
“Dead Souls” Wang Bing (Special Screenings) To borrow a phrase from Eugene O’Neill and from a Bi Gan film playing in Un Certain Regard this year, this one is a real long day’s journey into night. Chinese director Wang Bing is known for his epic-length documentaries, and Dead Souls is an 8-hour-and-15-minute exploration of China’s Cultural Revolution, more than double the length of anything else in the official selection.
“The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” Terry Gilliam (Closing night) A strife-ridden 19 years in the making, this may well be the most troubled film production in history -- and more of a must-see than any recent closing-night film, assuming its screening isn’t killed by a lawsuit.
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This year’s festival will bring controversial films, auteurs at the top of their game and at least one mega-blockbuster to the Croisette
The 2018 Cannes Film Festival will showcase 21 films in competition, another 16 out of competition, 18 in Un Certain Regard, more than two dozen in Cannes Classics and others in the independent Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections. Among the riches, here are some that stand out.
