Postcard from Cannes #2 : If I could turn back time
There was high emotion at the Cannes Film Festival with Harrison Ford receiving an honorary Palme d’Or award on Thursday. The 80-year-old American actor was in town for the premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny". As with several films in Cannes, it takes the notion of time travel very seriously.
Issued on:
The Hollywood star admitted he was moved by the tribute and surprise award organised by the Cannes Film Festival. "I just saw my life flash before my eyes," he said, following a collage of clips from his many hit movies.
It seems like yesterday that the first Indiana Jones film ("Raiders of the Lost Ark") came out in 1981, the first of four directed by Stephen Spielberg.
The spanking new $294 million budget film, the first to be directed by James Mangold, begins in flashback mode. Ford is “de-aged” digitally, to fit in with a storyline set in World War II in an action scene on a Nazi train.
The story then flashes forward to 1969 with professor Jones on the brink of retirement and needing a fresh adventure.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Indy caper without a crazy race across Tangiers, Sicily and New York in pursuit of a former Nazi scientist, played by Mads Mikkelsen.
They’re after the Archimedes’s Antikythera – the Dial of Destiny of the title – that makes time travel possible. Ah, if we could only turn back time and get more Harrison Ford into films!
In the cast, Ford is also joined by British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge who plays Jones's gutsy goddaughter and Antonio Banderas is back as Renaldo, Indy’s old buddy.
The last installment is Ford’s 5th and final role as the fedora-wearing adventurer and is no exception when it comes to daring stunts and dry whip-cracking wit. So diehard fans won't be disappointed.
But some of the first reviews were mixed with the Telegraph in the UK describing it as a “counterfeit of priceless treasure”.
“Ford gives it his all – but while the three original films moved like page-turners, this fifth instalment is painfully short of spark..." it says.
But Britain's Radio Times gave it four stars, saying it was "a little safe, but it's an enjoyable, old-school action-adventure".
As for the box office, only time will tell
Elsewhere in Cannes festival news, spectators were served a dose of heart-warming family drama with Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film “Monster” (Kaibutsu), presented in competition.
Far from the swashbuckling excitement of the Indiana Jones franchise, it fits in to Kore-eda’s own personal franchise of zeroing in on the humble, intimate issues of daily life, especially with regards to children and families.
The question of time, timing and even reincarnation enter the picture as the lead characters grapple with events that snowball out of hand.
Set in a provincial Japanese city, the story starts off with a simple ‘he said she said’, around a banal incident between a teacher and a student in a primary school.
Kore-eda, who won the Palme d'Or for "Shoplifters" in 2018, delivers a quiet haunting story centred on two school kids, one of whom is taunted and bullied and the other who wants a friendship but is afraid of rebuke from the others.
As the story progresses, another layer is added to Kore-eda’s study of society, the issue of domestic violence is also tackled.
Vortex of emotions
From the perspective of a single mother, it rewinds so the story, written by Sakamoto Yuji, is seen from three very different perspectives.
Each one pulls the spectator into a vortex of emotions and doubts, poignantly carried by an original score by the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Both young kids talk about reincarnation, and whether it is possible. While a childhood fantasy, it also provides a way for them to escape reality and the demands of parents and teachers.
There is an underlying question of what would we do if we could start over? Turn back time? Tell people we loved them? How would we do things differently?
The cinema world offers not only a look at human foibles in close details, it allows us to dream, transcend our earthly bodies and imagine life in someone else’s shoes. And thanks to the magic of technology, we can also travel through time.
Catch RFI's coverage of the Cannes Film Festival here
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