Why Settle for Less?
THERE WAS A MOMENT IN EACH OF THREE VERY DIFFERENT FILMS AT THE 71ST Cannes Film Festival that made me come alive. Form and meaning fused, and suddenly movies were not beside the point. These epiphanies occurred, respectively, in the final seconds (just before the end credits) of Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Livre d’image (The Image Book); at the opening of the coda to Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman; and midway through Lee Chang-dong’s Burning. What more could one want of any film or any film festival—even one as grueling as Cannes—than such epiphanies? Of course, the films in which they occur have to be good enough to allow one to experience not just a shock or a thrill, but rather an aesthetic, philosophical, and political revelation—all of these at once.
As always, it’s a privilege to be at Cannes, especially if you have a good pass (in the upper half of the spectrum of colors), which is an assurance that you won’t get locked out of screenings, provided that you queue at least 45 minutes in advance for “hot” films. (What often accounts for a film’s cachet is that at least half the audience hopes that this will
