My 2025 Cannes Film Festival Experience - DAY TWO

Alpha - Julia Ducournau

★★★★

Now I have been a fan of Ducournau's work for a while now and consider her to be one of my favourite directors currently working today. This is to say that when initial reviews of Alpha were unveiled to widespread criticism, I was not at all surprised. Her films have always been divisive and will continue to be.

We open with Alpha (our 13-year-old protagonist) as she returns home from a party with a carelessly tattooed A on her arm. It's through this that we are introduced to a contagious virus wherein those who are infected metamorphose into white marble. This evidently bears similarities to the Aids epidemic, Alpha's mother (working as a nurse) at one point struggling to let a crowd of infected into the hospital. Regarding the effectiveness of the metaphor, while the film does a great job presenting the family's journey as they tackle the hysteria and uncertainty of their lives, I don't believe Alpha offers anything particularly new surrounding the complexity of the disease.

What struck me the most about Alpha is Ducournau's ability to construct a new emotional landscape to her work whilst keeping her unsettling body horror approach alive. As someone with a chronic illness, I found the imagery of a person turning to marble strikingly relatable. The use of stone presented to me, a loss of autonomy, which, with a heart-breaking performance by Tahar Rahim, made me feel even more for hurting family.

Summer Beats - Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret

★★★

A group of young adults sign up to be assistant teachers on a school camping trip, each of them struggle with circumstances in their own lives whilst looking after the chaotic group of children. This film is undoubtedly carried by how natural the kids interact amongst each other, it's incredibly refreshing to watch a film and feel as though the dialogue captured how children actually talk. They were easily the most engaging aspect of Summer Beats and were what I believe made the heart-warming tone of this film most effective.

Sadly, I didn't find the leading narrative - based around Shaï - compelling. This for me, is also exemplified by how much more interested I was in her best friend Djeneba's struggles. I don't believe Shaï's journey she goes through throughout the three acts is properly developed to encapsulate a degree of change in her character. Unfortunately, I found her character incredibly infuriating and that didn't dissipate toward the climax.

Die My love - Lynne Ramsay

★★★

There's no denying that this film has great performances by Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson paired with some magical cinematography. However, sadly this did not work for me.

Die My Love suffers from terrible pacing that is incredibly noticeable in the third act, at one point I had started to count how many times I thought the film was about to end. It is also not helped by the lack of depth I believe was presented in relation to the primary theme of pregnancy. The nightmare that overwhelms our protagonist, Grace, felt as though it were executed by throwing shocking scenes at the audience with no real emotional depth added to the journey Grace experiences as a mother. Sadly, this also impacted how the 'shocking' scenes came off to me in my screening, feeling more underwhelmed than overwhelmed. After enjoying other watches from Lynne Ramsay, I can't help but feel disappointed by this specific release.