Cannes Day 8: Netflix Makes a Splashy Acquisition, While Audiences Visit ‘Fjord’ and ‘Her Private Hell’

Welcome to another day in the whirlwind Cannes Film Festival ecosystem, where movies are bought and booed (if not in the theater than at least online and not necessarily in that order) and each new press conference brings a new flurry of quotes and controversies.

Netflix Makes a Splash

One of the more high-profile acquisitions of this year’s festival just went down, as Netflix has purchased “In Waves,” an animated French/Belgian coming-of-age film, that the streamer will debut later this year in most global categories (outside of France). Netflix is also planning a Best Animated Feature Oscar campaign for the movie, which has been warmly reviewed out of Cannes.

Our critic Steve Pond, like most who saw the film, was one of its many fans. Pond wrote in his review, “The director/animator’s style changes and morphs as the film goes on; she uses Dungo’s drawings but also turns waves into bedsheets and a hospital bed into the setting for fantasy. But for all the virtuoso hand-drawn animation, at heart this is an emotional story – and, make no mistake, a major tearjerker of a rom-dram.” He also compared it to similarly moving coming-of-age films like “The Fault in Our Stars,” efforts that mix tragedy and pathos.

Strangely, “Tangles,” a similar animated based-on-a-true-story story, this time about Alzheimer’s, has yet to be picked up even with a starrier cast and Seth Rogen being attached as a star and producer.

Netflix ”In Waves” acquisition comes on the heels of “Club Kid,” one of the buzzier titles of the festival, getting picked up by A24 for a whopping $17 million after a heated bidding war that included several studios (Netflix, Focus Features, Searchlight Pictures and MUBI were among the suitors).

But shouldn’t, at this point, there be more deals?

We know the festival still has a ways to go but somebody needs to turn up the heat. Maybe the festival suffered from NEON having pre-purchased most of the interesting movies. Or maybe this year was full of duds. It’s not exactly clear. But a bigger picture should emerge as the festival rolls on and more films are screened.

Welcome to the “Fjord”

One of the most anticipated movies of this year’s festival was Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s latest film “Fjord,” which is vying for the Palme d’Or in competition and was already picked up by NEON. Mungiu had previously won the Palme d’Or in 2007 for his “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a searing abortion drama that’s structured and staged like a white-knuckle thriller. (If you haven’t seen it, correct that mistake soon; Criterion put out a beautiful, features-laden disc a few years ago.)

Mungiu’s latest concerns a Romanian man (Sebastian Stan) and his Norwegian wife (Renate Reinsve), who move to a remote Norwegian village and are accused of abusing their children, received a 10-minute (!) standing ovation after its premiere. Both Stan and Reinsve, who had previously starred together in A24’s unclassifiable “A Different Man,” reportedly shed tears during the movie’s warm reception.

While “Fjord” left some critics cold, our own Ben Croll was intrigued by the movie as a prospect as much as anything else, describing it as “an object of unusual curiosity, as the project takes him outside his home country, into two new languages, and alongside a pair of recent Oscar nominees who have staked their own claims on the Cannes red carpet.”

But our critic was ultimately beguiled by the movie – and by Mungiu’s slipperiness as a filmmaker.

“The filmmaker is too canny to come down on any single position, though his best instincts emerge more clearly beyond the didactic strictures of the courtroom, and instead in the stifled cries of a father watching his children taken away, or as his once-local wife, gone native in religious rigidity, is made to pay the price. In ‘Fjord,’ as in his best work, he builds entire systems that grind his characters down,” the review read.

At a press conference for “Fjord,” Stan, who is perhaps best known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier, was asked about “The Apprentice,” which debuted at Cannes and where Stan starred as a pre-politics Donald Trump. The controversial film premiered shortly before Trump was reelected.

While the question was asked with a smile, Stan didn’t take it lightly.

“It’s just not a laughing matter, to be honest. It isn’t,” Stan said. “I think we’re in a really, really bad place. I really do. And, to be honest with you, it’s like, when you’re looking at what’s happening, right? Which is, if we’re talking about the consolidation of media, censorships, the threats, the supposed lawsuits that seemingly never end but don’t actually go anywhere, the writing was on the wall.”

Stan continued: “We encountered all that with the movie. To the point where we were, three days before the festival, unsure if the movie was going to play at the festival,” Stan continued. So it’s, you know — maybe people are paying attention more to that film. I think it will stand the test of time for that, but we went through all of it, way before Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert and so on. Wish it wasn’t like that.”

Another Film By “By NWR”

Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish filmmaker behind “Drive” and “Only God Forgives,” was back at Cannes with his first feature in 10 years (since the divisive, highly enjoyable horror movie “The Neon Demon”). And wouldn’t you know it? “Her Private Hell” (another NEON pick-up) elicited some of the strongest sentiment of the festival – on both sides of the aisle. This is perhaps to be expected with a filmmaker with as singular a point-of-view as Refn, who has taken to stamping his projects “By NWR” now – an uncanny bit of branding, if nothing else.

Some found “Her Private Hell,” which is said to mix sci-fi and horror elements, alienated and obtuse. But others were spellbound by its strangeness and beauty.

Our reviewer Chase Hutchinson erred on the side of acceptance (if not outright acclaim), stating, “the director’s return to feature filmmaking is still a captivating cinematic experience all its own, launching us into a loosely connected series of vignettes that are erotic, gruesome and more than a little all over the place.”

At this point, we’ll take it! For the past few years Refn has made ambitious, underseen streaming television (“Too Old to Die Young” for Prime Video and “Copenhagen Cowboy” for Netflix), so at the very least it’s good to have a new movie from him, to get the blood going.

Speaking of blood, at a press conference for “Her Private Hell,” Refn revealed that he died for 25 minutes several years ago, before coming back to life. Before this incident, the filmmaker had given up on making movies.

“Before I died, I had come to the end of my career because I didn’t have anything left in me. So, there was nothing for me to do,” Refn recounted, eventually breaking down into tears. Doctors told him he had a “leaking heart” that had been discovered by happenstance.

“Suddenly, I was told that I would probably not live, but if I did they didn’t know what would happen. So, two weeks later I was operated on,” said Refn. “Thank God the surgeon was Tom Cruise and he could fix me with his hands, and then he brought me back to life with electricity.”

Refn continued through tears: “I realized before I died that I’d been given a gift, I could start over again. Like how many people get a second chance? And I got a second chance from God. And I could use that for good.”

Whether or not “Her Private Hell” is him using his talents “for good” is a matter of debate in the South of France.

Another AI Movie

Because we are incapable of a Cannes report without something AI related, Kling AI has signed on as an exclusive partner on Evolutionary Films’ “Minibots,” which started out life years ago as a traditionally animated feature from “Mulan” director Tony Bancroft, working from a script by Michael Ferris, whose live action work includes “Terminator 3” and “The Game” (both with his frequent creative partner John Brancato). “Minibots” was announced back in the fall of 2024.

The partnership was announced at the Cannes Film Market, during Kling AI’s panel “From Creative Possibility to Production Reality: Kling AI in Cinematic Workflows,”where new writers (Alistair Audsley and Scott Christian Sava) were also revealed. It appears that Bancroft is no longer involved.

Make of this what you will but animation has long been considered one of the areas that companies will see could be simplified (if not straight up relaced) by AI technology. Having studios partner with AI companies on animated projects, like the previously announced “Critterz,” is disheartening in a profound way since animation is so connected with artists and their creative vision, in a way perhaps some other fields are not as closely aligned.