‘Holy Spider’ Review: Ali Abbasi’s Iranian True Crime Procedural Underwhelms [Cannes]

As a procedural drama centrally interested in the radicalization of a young Muslim boy in Belgium, Adil & Bilall’s “Rebel” pulsates with terrible inevitability. Falling behind at school, with an adored older brother already having made the trip to Syria and a trafficker whispering in his ear, it’s less a question of if Nassim (Amir El Arbi, another tremendous kid actor for Cannes ’22 to tick off) is going to find himself on the Jihadist frontline, but when.

The 75th Cannes Film Festival is coming to a close on Saturday afternoon, and after much speculation as to what would take home the top prize, it was a familiar winner striking gold again. For the second time in five years, director Ruben Östlund won the coveted Palme d’Or for his English-language debut film, “Triangle of Sadness.” Östlund first won the prize back in 2017 for “The Square” and beat out eighteen other films to win this year’s top prize.

Though shot and set prior to the Russian invasion, by dint of being a Ukrainian picture detailing the aftermath of a woman soldier’s assault in the Donbas, “Butterfly Vision” lays claim to uniquely wretched timeliness at this year’s Cannes. What is an impressive if formally flawed first film from Maksym Nakonechnyi earns some emotional weight vis-a-vis present events: the Ukrainian flags of blue and white, flown with unsparing pride across Nakonechnyi’s images, bear the immediate frisson of beleaguered resistance, and that women Stateside presently face unprecedented threats to their bodily autonomy only compounds the miserable resonance.

The 75th Cannes Film Festival is coming to a close on Saturday afternoon, and after much speculation as to what would take home the top prize, it was familair winner striking gold again. For his second time in five year, director Ruben Östlund won the coveted Palme d’Or for his English-laungage debut film, “Triangle of Sadness.” Östlund first won the prize back in 2017 for “The Square,” and beat out eighteen other films to win this years top prize.

The 75th Cannes Film Festival is coming to a close. The two-week festival saw some of the biggest stars and most anticipated films of the year come together to celebrate cinema.

s’il vous plaît!Over at the French film festival on the Cote d’Azur, which wraps up this weekend, it’s long been popular to give comical and undeserved standing ovations to just about anything that could be feasibly called a film. Next year the Claudes and Claudettes will be hopping to their feet for a dancing toad on TikTok (more deserving, honestly, than Lars von Trier.)The trade publications time these performative participation prizes like they’re Olympic runners.

Michelle Williams is glowing in Cannes! On Friday, the 41-year-old actress stepped out to attend the premiere of her latest film, , at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and proudly displayed her baby bump on the red carpet.Williams, who's currently in the midst of her third pregnancy, stunned in an all Chanel look, wearing a white and midnight blue lace long dress with embroidered top from the fashion house's Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2022 collection.Two hundred and seventy hours were spent embroidering 15,000 elements, including a floral motif embroidery composed of strass, glass beads and sequins, on the gown.She paired the dress with white shoes, along with a white gold and diamond ring and coordinating necklace, all which were designed by Chanel.Williams' Cannes appearance came the same month that she confirmed she and her husband, Tony-winning director Thomas Kail, are expecting their second child together.The couple also shares a son, Hart, whom they welcomed in 2020, the same year they tied the knot. Williams is also mom to Matilda, 16, the daughter she shares with the late Heath Ledger.«It’s totally joyous,» Williams told  of her third pregnancy.

75th annual Cannes Film Festival kicked off this year on May 17th to celebrate and preview highly-anticipated, soon-to-be-released films, along with honoring renowned actors and actresses. And of course, the invite-only event brings the most famous celebrities and actors from around the world to Cannes, France for the special occasion.

Filmmakers seeking to denounce the crushing effects of capitalism often seem to rely on the excuse that if their films aren’t subtle, it’s because capitalism itself isn’t either. But such systems of exploitation probably wouldn’t still be around if, on top of having (very visible, obvious, violent) power on their side, the powers that be didn’t perniciously plant their hooks into the minds and hearts of their victims, making them do most of the work for them.

This year’s dark horse in competition at Cannes is easily “Leila’s Brothers,” Iranian writer-director Saeed Roustaee’s third feature and worthy follow-up to his intense 2019 cop thriller “Just 6.5.” With hints of “The Godfather” and Arthur Miller evident throughout, the drama is a sprawling tale exploring dysfunctional family dynamics, economic hardships, and generational wealth. READ MORE: Cannes Film Festival 2022 Preview: 25 Must-See Films To Watch “Leila’s Brothers” follows the lives of a Tehran family as they struggle to stay afloat amidst financial hardships and complicated familial relationships.

The exquisite and sublime journeys of Oregon-based filmmaker Kelly Reichardt are arguably, more or less, incidental or oblique political statements about survival in America, often focusing on two or more friends, usually outsiders, and their struggle to endure. “Wendy And Lucy,” about a destitute woman and her soulmate canine companion, was overt about human inequity and hardship; “Meek’s Cutoff” depicted the unbearable burden of living off a hostile, unforgiving land; and “First Cow” presented the warm, but sad futility of two friends trying to sustain themselves under the grueling rigors of nascent American capitalism.

MUBI has acquired rights to Cannes hit Holy Spider for the UK, Ireland, LatAm and Malaysia.

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” a group of small-time thieves forms their own makeshift family, living every day not only through pure survival instinct but a genuine love for each other. For his first film set in Korea, the Japanese filmmaker reflects on similar themes in “Broker,” a road trip odyssey reflecting on the family we choose and the family we tearfully let go of.

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night.

Directed by Louis Garrel, son of revered arthouse director Philippe, “The Innocent” is a quintessentially French comedy whose principle aim is to be a fun time. Though this may seem a relatively modest ambition, we all know it isn’t easy to do well, and Garrel certainly does not make things any simpler for himself as the film repeatedly leaves the realm of the bon mot to veer on the farcical.

“The Stars at Noon” finds the French filmmaker Claire Denis shooting in Panama doubling for Nicaragua; directing a cast of Yanks, Brits, and assorted Central Americans; and working from a script switching between Spanish and English. Internationally coproduced Towers of Babel such as this aren’t at all uncommon at the Cannes Film Festival, but the errors in translation all over this disappointing foreign-relations drama run deeper than simple differences of ethnicity or language.

There’s really no overstating the sociocultural impact of Elvis Aaron Presley, whose music and celebrity cleaved the twentieth century in half as an Ozymandias colossus foretelling the future of fame: merchandising, overexposure, descent into self-parody. That’s all in Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic “Elvis,” though mostly because he’s jammed everything he possibly can into its million-millennia run time.

It’s a Cannes Film Festival legend. Supposedly, at the 1999 festival, when David Cronenberg headed the competition jury, he swayed his jury cohorts to award the Palme d’Or to the Dardennes’ “Rosetta” over Pedro Almodóvar‘s festival favorite, “All About My Mother.” Now, at this year’s festival, “Crimes Of The Future” star Viggo Mortensen put the myth to bed, stating that it’s a “bullshit” rumor and that the jury’s choice for “Rosetta” was unanimous.

Anne Hathaway is being crowned the haute couture queen of the Cannes Film Festival. And fans of the brunette bombshell are digitally reveling over the early-2000s diva’s fashionable resurgence. “Can we all take a moment to appreciate Anne Hathaway looking like a goddess in Cannes,” tweeted an admirer of the Oscar winner, alongside a snapshot of her in a sequin, floral-print two-piece ensemble by Schiaparelli. “I love this Anne Hathaway renaissance we’re going through,” chimed another. Making her debut at the annual silver screen soirée over the weekend, Hathaway, 39, repeatedly turned heads in high-fashion finery for the premiere of her feature flick “Armageddon Time,” starring Anthony Hopkins, 84, and Jeremy Strong, 43. And immediately after touching down in France on Wednesday, the blockbuster beauty transformed the Nice Côte d’Azur Airport into a virtual runway, sashaying through in a chic, loose-fitting pantsuit.  From there, Hathaway ditched her trendy traveling togs to don a white strapless Armani Privé gown, reminiscent of her “Princess Diaries” glamor, on the film festival’s star-studded red carpet Thursday. The flawless fashion plate continued to outdo herself throughout the duration of the weekend, rocking a blue mini dress by Gucci Friday, stunning in a coffee-colored Louis Vuitton number Saturday and beaming in a hot pink piece by Valentino Sunday. And the luxe looks sent Hathaway enthusiasts into a full-on Twitter tizzy. “Anne Hathaway at the cannes film festival.

Cannes Film Festival.Members of the production team for “Butterly Vision,” by Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechni, protested the ongoing war in Ukraine while on the red carpet Wednesday.In front of Salle Debussy, the second-largest theater in Cannes, the team — including producers Darya Bassel and Yelizaveta Smit, plus actress Rita Burkovska — held a banner that read, “Russians kill Ukrainians. Do you find it offensive or disturbing to talk about this genocide?”The sirens heard on the red carpet stairs were meant to symbolize air raids in Ukraine, while the protestors held signs that read “sensitive content” over their faces.Not only were they demonstrating the ongoing devastation in Ukraine, but they were also attempting to show the extent of Russian censorship.The film “Butterfly Vision” explores a similar idea, albeit in a fictional world.

In the late 19th century, two French psychiatrists coined the term “folie à deux,” literally translated as madness for two, to describe what is now widely referred to as shared psychotic disorder, or when two — or more — people transmit delusional beliefs and occasional hallucinations to one another. The condition is most common in people closely related, who live in intimate proximity, and has been lengthily dissected by academics.

As countries go, Iceland is probably one of the most fast-changing in terms of its biological make up, its intense volcanic activities reshaping its surface and contours at a speed fast enough to be perceived within a single generation. Paradoxically, it is also a place where time appears to stand still, with the sun omnipresent for half the year and absent for the rest.

Based on her own time spent in the acting school Les Amandiers, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s “Forever Young” aims to recreate a very specific time and place both in her life and in France, more than it cares to inform her audience about what, exactly, was so special about this school. Funded in the 1980s by Patrice Chéreau, a successful and daring director of theatre, opera and film, Les Amandiers did not last very long but for a few years it was considered to be one of the most exciting places in France and even Europe for young actors to develop their crafts, and for directors to find new talent.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentDanish-Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s boundary-pushing serial killer thriller “Holy Spider has been acquired by U.S. sales and distribution company Utopia for North America.Based on a real Iranian crime case, “Holy Spider” – which made a major splash when it premiered in the Cannes competition on Sunday – is about a family man named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani) who becomes a serial killer as he embarks on his own religious quest to “cleanse” the holy Iranian city of Mashhad of street prostitutes. Pic chronicles a killing spree in the streets of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer.

Observed in isolation, detached from the body or in extreme close-ups, organs and other vital viscera resemble moist masses of soft tissue plucked from alien landscapes in the unflinchingly immersive medical documentary “De Humani Corporis Fabrica.” Alternating between footage from cameras inserted into patients for the purpose of treating ailments and grisly shots from the operating room, directors Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, the team behind the striking non-fiction film on fishing “Leviathan,” apply their fascination for uncanny imagery with relativist intent to the inner workings of French hospitals and, in turn, the human body.

“Tori and Lokita” opens on a tight close-up on the teenage Lokita (Joely Mbundu) as she struggles with the questions delivered by an immigration officer. She has fabricated a story about how she found her brother, Tori (Pablo Schils) in an orphanage, but no one believes her.

EXCLUSIVE: Utopia has finalized its North American deal for Cannes Competition pic Holy Spider, the noir thriller from Danish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi. We told you the deal was all but there a couple of days ago.

Deadline’s studio at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival kicked off at the American Pavilion by hosting fest-goers such as Joel Edgerton of The Stranger, Jesse Eisenberg and Julianne Moore of When You Finish Saving The World, and many more. Click on the photo above to launch the gallery.

A documentary with no guardrails, “The Natural History of Destruction” (“NHD”) lurches through its 105-minute runtime with no concern for its audience’s bearings or balance. Commendable in its own way, eschewing as it does the omnipresent talking head and clip art formula so pervasive on the documentary scene, it is also devoid of context and narrative challenges.

A balloon shaped like a heart flies from the open window of a taxi. It is late at night and the woman (Leila Hatami) who this gift was bestowed upon simply couldn’t care less about the useless trinket, far more interested in comparing the quality of the accompanying chocolate boxes dispensed by a handful of men who wish to have her as a Valentine.

sickened by horrific scenes in “Crimes of the Future” reportedly walked out of the premiere at Cannes Film Festival on Monday.The film — starring Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen — is filled with scenes of child autopsies, bloody intestines, body mutations and people orgasming while licking open wounds.  The majority of the exits reportedly occurred within the first five minutes of the film but a specifically grotesque scene of Seydoux licking an open wound sent others out the door further along in the film. Both Variety and the Daily Mail reported walkouts, but Entertainment Weekly claimed there were none.New York Times journalist Kyle Buchanan tweeted from the theatre that he counted 15 people who walked out of the cinema during the screening due to “notably gross plot developments.” Despite being too much for some, the movie directed by David Cronenberg received a seven-minute standing ovation from the remaining audience members at the end.

It’s the plight of the plightless: a kid from a comfortable, upper-middle-class background wants to be some manner of artist, except that he’s (and it does seem to be a he more often than not) bereft of the experience, grit, or outsider credibility that define the role models he hopes he could one-day call influences. He ventures out into the big bad world in search of something to put a bit of hair on his creative chest, only to face the spiny question of whether this effort to get real is just class tourism, a jaunt in the gutter that one phone call to Dad could prevent.

It’s the plight of the plightless: a kid from a comfortable, upper-middle-class background wants to be some manner of artist, except that he’s (and it does seem to be a he more often than not) bereft of the experience, grit, or outsider credibility that define the role models he hopes he could one-day call influences. He ventures out into the big bad world in search of something to put a bit of hair on his creative chest, only to face the spiny question of whether this effort to get real is just class tourism, a jaunt in the gutter that one phone call to Dad could prevent.

The 2022 Cannes Film Festival is finally here, and with the event comes many premiers of extraordinary talent. Movies like “Decision To Leave” by Park Chan-Wook or documentaries like “Moonage Daydream” by Brett Morgen have premiered at the event, already sparking good reviews.

The great majority of us could only aspire, before “Moonage Daydream,” to step into the mind of David Bowie — the persona, the artist, the entity not yet proven terrestrial. Eclectic, unashamedly maximalist, and variously philosophical: all true of both the man himself and Brett Morgen’s feature-length docu-odyssey, which borrows its title from the 1976 hit, and just debuted as part of Cannes’ Midnight slate.