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I don't read the synopses in advance during the festival because I don’t want to know what the films are supposed to be about. I like the element of surprise. And this was definitely the biggest surprise of the main competition. A trans-cartel musical? Throughout the film I was wondering how on earth they thought to put this together, and in the end I have to say that as unexpected as it was, the final product is really a very unconventional and original combination that I'm careful to say really won't suit everyone. But I liked it, the film has a flow, the songs are melodic, the choreography is impressive. The story is unpredictable, at times very dramatic, at times funny and entertaining, at times touching to the point of pathetic... I think it has everything a musical should have. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Oh, Canada starts off very promisingly, with our last interview with Leonard Fife (Richard Gere), a famous documentary filmmaker who fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War. It's very important for him to have his wife present for the interview because he wants to share what he hasn't shared yet. And so he begins to tell his life story. What we gradually learn about him is actually not entirely flattering, and his wife doesn't like the new revelations either, so he blames it all on his medical condition and the side effects of his medication. What's true, what's fabricated, what's distorted, what does Fife himself remember differently than it really was? It's all done quite engagingly, with a great soundtrack and great actors, but gradually the pace somehow slows down, the ideas become more and more obscure, the questions mount, and suddenly it all fizzles out into a bland, unfinished ending... and I don't know what the poet was trying to say. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

The Apprentice offers a dispassionate look at the rise of Donald Trump and his transformation from a naive and bland underdog to an egotistical, spineless, narcissistic monster. Sebastian Stan, as Trump, is absolutely superb in his role, but perhaps even a hair better is Jeremy Strong as the lawyer Roy Cohn, to whom Donald objectively owes his rise, even though he is probably a stranger to the word "owed". Jeremy Strong was a great choice, this type of role suits him, as we could see already in Succession. The film is engaging and doesn't bore for a second, but I do have one huge complaint, and that is the choice of actress Maria Bakalova for the role of Ivana Zelníčková. I understand that we all sound the same to westerners from the east, and probably look the same... but I just found her Russian accent and appearance off-putting. And it was so confusing at times, I was like, wait a minute, is that supposed to be Ivana? Don't tell me it couldn't have been otherwise... [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Having parents as famous as Chiara Mastroianni has can't be easy for life. She herself has a successful career, but one day during filming, the director asks her if she could play a scene more like Marcello Mastroianni than Catherine Deneuve, which awakens an identity crisis in Chiara... Marcello mio is an entertaining comedy full of famous French actors playing themselves, or rather their alter egos. There is no shortage of humour or touching scenes that seemingly let you see into the souls of these actors when they are not in front of the camera... who are they and what should they be? [Festival de Cannes 2024]

I'm not a big expert on westerns, because I'm not really into this genre, but recently I've had the opportunity to see some interesting films that have made me gradually grow fond of the wild west theme. I'm glad that Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga is one of a very narratively and visually engaging film. And most importantly, you can feel and see how lovingly the director approaches the theme, and that he does everything as honestly and sensitively as he can. I think Horizon is his life project and he gives it his all (including his money and possessions). Of course, there is no shortage of great shootouts and nerve-wracking "who'll come out of this alive" scenes, but at the same time the film is full of unusual and simple scenes that bring the everyday life of the settlers to life. How, for example, people newly arrived in the wild west had to get used to the different mood, different routines, discomfort and danger that this inhospitable environment brings. This may seem boring or unnecessary to many, but I appreciate this aspect of the film because it is simply human. For me personally, it helped me to become even more immersed and empathetic to the stories of the mostly female protagonists, who are given a huge amount of space here, which again is very unusual and endearing, as up until now the classic western has been a predominantly male affair. The first part of Horizon sets up several plot lines, introduces a myriad of interesting characters that I assume will intertwine in the later parts, and I'm looking forward to that. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Touda is a bold, principled and above all very talented singer who longs for a better life for herself and her son. In a small town, she is confronted with meanness, rude behaviour, harassment and humiliation. She dreams of earning admiration and respect in a big city like Casablanca with her truly amazing voice, which makes the film's finale all the more impressive... because people are the same everywhere. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most distinctive directors of our time and his unconventional work entertains, shocks and divides into two camps. I'm a huge fan of his recent Poor Things and probably less of a fan of Kinds of Kindness. I really like the concept of three different stories with the same and excellent actors in different roles, but it lacks more coherence between them, and as a result it's just three more or less bizarre stories side by side. I'm not saying it’s bad, I think there's a lot of truth in the absurdity too, and some scenes are chilling in their realism, others are shocking in their rawness and cruelty, while there's a lot of humour, but as a whole it's kind of disjointed. The film is accompanied by the now very typical and recognisable soundtrack (if you can call it that) by Jerskin Fendrix, which adds to the bizarre and mysterious atmosphere. Despite the fact that I wasn't as impressed with this Lanthimos film as some of his previous ones, I will always look forward to his future work. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Holy Cow is in my opinion a very successful feature film debut of director Louise Courvoisier, which immerses us in the environment from which the director herself comes. It depicts the ordinary lives of young farmers, teenagers and the everyday worries they have to deal with, whether it's the daily grind, love troubles, hangovers or the loss of a loved one. A great thing in the the film for me is that the protagonists are real-life, hitherto non-actors, farmers, chicken and cow keepers, which adds a certain authenticity to the story. The most endearing thing about the film is how ordinary and real the story is. There is plenty of injustice and despair, but also truth, love and tenderness, so that the viewer is left with a warm feeling at the end of the film. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis brings us to a futuristic, decadent and antiquely stylized New York, New Rome. I found this combination of ancient culture (clothes, names, entertainment) with a futuristic vision of the world very appealing, and the entire film is punctuated with quotes from ancient thinkers, which only underscore their timelessness in how they still apply to today. They highlight the absurdity of certain aspects of modern times, especially the fact that we are still the same people (animals) as in the days of ancient Rome, we are just playing at being a civilized and advanced society. This is portrayed brilliantly in the film, but that's probably the end of all the pros of this "masterpiece". I should also mention that although my favourite of the entire cast is Adam Driver (who was excellent as usual), the biggest praise should go to Shia LaBeouf, who once again shows something completely new, and proves that he can still surprise. Megalopolis had a lot of potential, a lot of great ideas that deserved to be fleshed out more. The huge disappointment for me was that the main character may have the power to stop time, but he doesn't make any use of it, I thought that would have been much more meaningful or impactful to the development of the film. As it is, the whole thing just comes across as a critique of society hoping for a brighter tomorrow, coupled with a simple family drama without much transcendence, which I find very insufficient. At the end of the film, I wondered if I had accidentally fallen asleep during the screening, that I must have missed something... Or maybe I just didn't understand the whole thing. [Festival de Cannes 2024]

Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix are names that will always automatically raise expectations. I definitely can't say I was bored because the production design, the battlefield scenes are very engaging. But less is sometimes more, and Ridley, to his detriment, tried harder. Napoleon is such a bloated montage of Bonaparte's most pivotal battles and campaigns, interspersed with a "romantic" line with Josephine. I would have appreciated a lot more focus on one or two specific periods and battles, and I would have especially packed in a lot more psychology and politics to go much more in depth in the characters, because honestly I found Napoleon presented this way to be terribly flat and soulless, despite Joaquin's standard good acting. I would have delved more into his motives and complexes. The relationship with Josephine feels terribly underdeveloped, because on the one hand we have mutual love letters full of respect, and on the other, in front of the camera, we see a kind of cold relationship where love and respect are not visible even from a distant express train. It's a shame, I think the audience would have been much more interested in a deeper analysis of the character of Napoleon himself, to take something we've seen hundreds of times and present it in a slightly different way as we saw in, for example, Todd Phillips' Joker. I just don't see any added value here. But I'm also quite interested in the Director's Cut, because I only just realised that I saw French actress Ludivine Sagnier in the opening credits, who is not in this cinema version at all So what is the Director's Cut hiding?