Cannes 2021: what monsters are we talking about? | africultures

“Who against my sleep / sang the monsters? / Me, the sea at arm's length, what delirium! »Tchicaya U Tam'si (Marines)

Covid-19 has postponed the Cannes Film Festival, postponed from July 6 to 17, in the middle of summer. Significantly fewer festival-goers and a bloodless film market, travel from abroad being difficult, reservations required to avoid queues (an initiative to be kept!), the removal of press lockers and health checks (pass or test) for enter the palace: the usual atmosphere was not there. This did not prevent the festival from taking place, attracting onlookers, fulfilling its role as a showcase and promotion of quality world cinema and above all restoring the viewing of films in theaters in a still uncertain health context. Africa was present in all selections, in various forms. Overview and analysis proposal.

"Now that I have become an adult and a director, I realize that perfection is a dead end and that monstrosity is a weapon, a force, to push back the walls of normativity", declared Julie Ducournau on receiving the Palme d' Gold for Titanium. Remember: in 2019, zombies invaded the festival. Jim Jarmush opened his tragicomic farce The Dead Don't Die and said: "Originally, zombies came from voodoo, entities that we could control, but since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, zombies zombies are us, the very product of the system, the sign that the social order is broken”. Bertrand Bonello, he went back to the Haitian source with Zombi Child while inscribing his film in Napoleonic rituals in France to evoke the tensions between freedom and oppression, between life and death. The fantastic was also summoned by Mati Diop who won the Grand Prix with Atlantique where young people who died at sea demanded justice by possessing the living... Remember again: the critic Pierre Haffner, who accompanied the cinemas of Africa before dying too soon in 2000 at the age of 57, described African cinematography as "monstrous" as they deviated from the norm. From zombies to monsters, it is the transgression of the norm that is targeted. Are African films still monstrous? They do not do so by showing monsters like Freaks or Titane, knowing that the first welcomed them and humanized them while the second put them at a distance, playing above all on the ambiguity of the fascination for the carnival of the extreme. But the characters that films from Africa and its diasporas portray are often marginal, dissident, unexpected, in any case different, in an economy that is itself extraordinary.

Monstrosities To begin with the most radical, Neptune Frost by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman (Directors' Fortnight) explodes the codes to conquer his freedom. The American Saul Williams is a poet and musician and had played the main role of Tey by Alain Gomis. It was on this shoot that he met the Franco-Rwandan actress and playwright Anisia Uzeyman, who tried her hand at experimental cinema. They had the idea of ​​a graphic novel mixed with a musical. Fantastic comics are not far away: scenes and costumes are meant to be Afro-futuristic in an imagined world which is nevertheless not far from current concerns. Without coltan, no computers and mobile phones: Africa could finally decide its future. A love story between an intersex hacker on the run and a coltan miner whose son is going to carry out a collective hack against the superpowers of multinationals, initially thought of as a show for Broadway, this parallel world has its own codes to project itself into the future from an independent African perspective. Elaborated from 2013 and shot in 27 days in Rwanda in March 2020 just before the pandemic closed the borders, in a village entirely decorated with parts of recycled computers, this low-budget film wide breaststroke. "The scavengers won't let go of us": nothing to expect from the powerful. Responding to drums and traditional songs, the music is electronic and repetitive, and the vision dreamlike. “You have to break your heart to open it”. Unity is in the dance, poetry is the answer, on the condition of regaining lucidity (Martyr Loser King) to bring down the market and expose corruption, overthrow the government and resist Google… The didacticism that points in the texts of this psychedelic diversion advocating the alternative does he not tend to adopt the same codes that he denounces? In any case, it's a lot for a film to want to free Africa both from the weight of history and from that of projections to affirm its own dreams.

Feathers by the Egyptian Omar El Zohairy , which won the Critics' Week prize and the prize for first film from the international press jury, is also close to the comic strip, progressing from box to box in a setting restricted, except that everything is sordid and monochromatic. This assistant director to Yousry Nasrallah , was already exploring dark humor in La Suite de l'inauguration des toilets publics au kilometer 375, which had been selected by the Cinéfondation in Cannes in 2014. He described a Kafkaesque society where a civil servant seeks too to apologize for sneezing during an inauguration and ended up getting fired. Based on The Death of a Civil Servant by Anton Chekov, it evoked the icy universe of Eastern Europe in the dusty gray of the administrations...In the same monstrous line, produced by Mohamed Hefzy, the essential promoter of the auteur cinema in Egypt, depressing but incredibly believable thanks to the magic of the sets, the setting and the staging, the absurd and narrow theatrical universe à la Kaurismäki in Feathers (the feathers) is apocalyptic. Everything is dirty and stuffy, but are we far from the agonizing reality of the dictatorship? A conjurer transforms a contemptuous and authoritarian head of the family into a hen but cannot make him reappear, leaving his bewildered wife to find an unexpected space and the film becomes a surreal comedy. Here again, the form is radical so that the metaphor sets in, but if the bet is won, it's because the cork hasn't been pushed any further, without pretension other than the cold development of the stuffing.

An anachronistic figure in a foreign environment is US-based Frenchman Down with the King hit rapper Diego Ongaro . (ACID) He rents a house on a farm in the mountains of New England to write a new album and finds himself confronted with the life of the lumberjack-farmer and the local reactions. He is in a way the monster fallen from the sky, himself jostled by what he discovers when he is at a loss for creativity. Taking advantage of the confinement which prevented him from going on tour, Freddie Gibs lent himself to the game and understood Ongaro's concern to avoid the clichés (money, bling-bling, machismo) of gangsta rap to camp Money Merc , a character destabilized by a futile world whose retreat from retirement allows him to perceive the inanity and who burns out. This political dimension is not induced by the dialogues but by a wealth of details and anecdotes related to the nature and the work of the farmer but also the manipulations of his manager and the behavior of his friends. Of course, the complexity will be there, which circumvents the ready-made ideas and the facilities to give this character a nice thickness. Harmony is possible in this immense country with very separated communities, but it is not a fairy tale, not even a utopia: "those who wander are not all lost", repeats Freddie's flow, like a manifesto for a different position in a world where you have to situate yourself without freezing. You can't escape yourself, but you're not alone. Endearing, captivating, sensitive and unpretentious, the film is one of the best gifts of the festival.

It's as if you had to move away from what you are to negotiate the turns of life. "The ghostly subject must each time escape from itself and let itself be carried away by the flow of time and accidents", writes Achille Mbembe in a chapter entitled "Requiem for the slave". "It is in this unexpected and this absolute instability that he creates and invents himself , " he continues. Haider Rashid (Directors' Fortnight), confronted with these virile "hunters of migrants" who take up arms on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria to hunt like game those whom the smugglers make cross the border through the woods? This Count Zaroff Hunt, unfortunately too real, shows both the energy for survival and the inventiveness of a hunted man, without dialogue and most often filmed from behind to the point of hiding what he sees from us, reminiscent of the Son of Saul de László Nemes. There too, a requiem: “the only way to stay alive is to live in zigzags”, also notes Mbembe. However, like the maroon slaves, the migrants do not lose hope and go to the end of their flight. the film, let us hear him blow or moan, listen to his steps, follow his journey close to the football player who makes his way on the ground evoked by his T-shirt Salah! In this silent cinema, the soundtrack is essential: it follows the camera, going so far as to operate rotations with it. Kamal says a common sura while giving a burial to a Christian: on the road, openings and solidarity are built. But if he is above all alone in the film, he is for all of us who attempt the passage, attacking fortress Europe. The team remained in the forest throughout the filming, for total immersion and to facilitate ours.

Immersion again, in another type of trafficking, with Ouistreham (opening of the Directors' Fortnight), free adaptation of the book by Florence Aubenas Le quai de Ouistreham. If the writer-journalist tackled the moral problems before and after the story, the writer-director Emmanuel Carrère integrates a dramatic dimension which makes it possible to pose in a sensitive way the ethical question of a writer in immersion in a specific environment which is outside. Social barriers remain in the face of precariousness and hellish speeds, and betrayal points to the end of the road, opening up to debate but also to the transformation of beings. The documentary, however, takes over because, in addition to the strong presence of Juliette Binoche who wanted to make this film and associated herself with the production, the actors and actresses are non-professionals: they play their own role in life, employees of 'a cleaning company, and are stunningly truthful. It was not won in advance and it is of course one of the great strengths of this moving and pathos-free film which knows how to transform documentary into fiction in the manner of Ken Loach while retaining the anchor, brilliantly linking the social and human.

"Le temps nègre" Rats meet to know how to alert each other when the cat approaches. The solution would be to put a bell around his neck, but who will put it? It is with this monstrous story shot in Somali in 2019 in Djibouti that The Gravedigger's Wife (Critics' Week) begins, by the Finnish born in Somalia Khadar Ayderus Ahmed : who will have the courage? The gravediggers gathered to dig a grave laugh but that is the theme of the film as much as of their lives. With their shovels, they crowd around the hospital waiting for the dead to be buried. We don't die enough in Djibouti: work is rare and there is a lack of money so that Guled can buy medicine for his wife, with whom he has a good connection but who suffers from a serious kidney disease (played by the top model Canadian Yasmin Warsame…!). He offers his services as a carrier at the market, but it doesn't bring anything substantial either. When it has to be operated on, a large sum is requested. Their son Mahar washes the cars, the friends too, while Guled returns to the village to sell his herd. But they had left to escape a forced marriage, nothing is simple... The story, developed during a residency at the Cinéfondation in Cannes in 2015, thus unfolds according to the classic scheme of the impossible problem to solve, of the gearing of precariousness, of energy deployed despite the obstacles, of multiple solidarities and of a miraculous end safeguarding hope. It's not a film with a message, it's a tonic film to find the strength to move forward. His selection at Critics' Week where he won the main prize is due to his aesthetic choices. The interiors are in luminous chiaroscuro, the exteriors embrace the urban environment then, broadening the focus, the harshness of the desert. The story spares ellipses, favors action over dialogue, pays attention to detail, benefits from a sensitive camera, precise unfolding and parallel editing that develops tension. If the music were less insistent, this sketch would fully achieve its goal: an ode to courage.

The Gravedigger's Wife could have been called The Gravedigger's Body. His wife suffers but it is he who will be severely tested and it is his surviving body that we keep in memory. There is a dominant here that we find abundantly in African literature: its survival is only temporary. As in Feathers, she escapes time. Even if the story is built on a parallel between the efforts of the children and those of the father to save the woman, according to a very scripted model of repeated suspense, uncertainty continues to dominate it. Bodies confronted with brutality are collectively subjected to what Mbembe calls “negro time”: “there is no time in itself. Time is born from the contingent, ambiguous and contradictory relationship we have with things. ""Participating in time is always, in part, no longer knowing what to expect with regard to one's own self," writes Mbembe again. This is Freda 's experience (Un certain regard). In the beautiful film by Gessica Généus , uncertainty dominates, this time less rooted in the story than in daily life. The dance of the dead on which the film begins punctuates the imagination and the sensitivity of the characters, all confronted with unspeakable but very present traumas, memories of wounded bodies which must survive to move forward in a land of chaos. (see review no. 15140)

This sensitivity and this uncertainty also characterize Karim Aïnouz 's magnificent documentary Marin des Montagnes (special screening), a dive into this paradoxical time where past, present and future mingle without any one really dominating. Discovering an unknown part of himself (his Kabyle origin through his father), the director (known for Madama Sata and The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão) delivers an introspection that is both personal, human, political and historical as disturbing that fascinating where the form guides the bottom rather than the reverse, so that the film shines with openness and originality. (cf. review 15141) The poetic incursions of the film make me think of St John Perse: “poetry is the animator of the dreams of the living and the surest guardian of the heritage of the dead”.

Resistance of reality If he was again called upon to represent black Africa in the official competition this year (jury prize in 2010 for A Screaming Man and selection in competition in 2013 for Grigris), it is undoubtedly because the Chadian Mahamat-Saleh Haroun remains faithful to what he told me during an interview in 2004: “We can no longer produce to raise awareness, etc. It is no longer enough. It takes this humility to bring the debate to the field of cinema itself as an artistic creation in itself and not only to advance causes”. From film to film, he develops a cinema, as indicated during his masterclass in Tunis, "far from the spectacular and far from entertainment". With Lingui (the sacred bonds) , he celebrates the resilience of women in a patriarchal society with impressive mastery (cf. critique 15132). If, despite the ovation at the end of the screening, the international critics have rather awarded it marks of esteem and if the jury (yet sensitive to Africa under the presidency of Spike Lee and with the presence of Mati Diop) does not has not won, is it not that, in the Cannes context of the accumulation (135 films selected in the different sections this year), the film precisely plays neither the card of the spectacular nor that of entertainment?

The real is not given and reconstructing it without reproducing it to make it visible is an art which requires, as Haroun himself suggested, cinematic work. This is the problem of Haut et fort, of the Moroccan Nabil Ayouch, also in official competition (price of the Institute of positive economy chaired by Jacques Attali). Anas, a former rapper, comes to lead a workshop in Sidi Moumen, a popular district of Casablanca where Nabil Ayouch had already filmed Les Chevaux de Dieu and where his foundation created the cultural center in which the film takes place. It destabilizes the participants by its requirement of work and anchoring but leads them to structure themselves around a "positive school" of hip-hop including rap, dance and graffiti. Each composes his own rap, often in conflict with his family, and refrains emerge as the group discusses the issues of the texts, up to a final krump reminiscent of Les Indes galantes by Clément Cogitore (cf. The power of krump, article n° 14263). Nothing spontaneous, however: all of this was set to music by brothers Mike and Fabien Kourtzer (White & Spirit), authors of numerous film scores, who came to compose on site. It could have been fascinating, but this choral film holds rather from the voluntarist catalog, aligning the inclinations of expression of young people, the reactions of families, the overcoming of limits, questions of censorship. Social inequalities, traditions, freedom of dress, oppression of women and religion are thus tackled. At first aggressive then benevolent, Anas remains enigmatic without his relationship with young people becoming clearer or the creative process he accompanies taking shape. This does not prevent social criticism from unfolding and beautiful moments of enthusiasm from young people due to their generosity, but it is the multiplication of disparate scenes that struggles to convince.

In terms of leaving the norm, it is symptomatic that the famous actress Aïssa Maïga, who went on to direct with a short documentary film (Let them grow) as part of the Collective of filmmakers for undocumented migrants and the documentary Regard noir with Isabelle Simeoni on the place of blacks in the cinema, author of the resounding autobiographical book Noire n'est pas mon profession, returns to the cinema with Marcher sur l'eau, by Aïssa Maïga (special programming session "films for the climate"). His gaze is no less committed than in these previous approaches: to accompany Africans deprived of everything, subjected to the deterioration of their living environment in general indifference. Another factor is that Aïssa Maïga's grandmother was Peuhl and that she loved him very much. Here she focuses on a young Peuhl woodabe from northern Niger, Houlaye, her daily life and her problems which essentially revolve around the consequences of the lack of water. We feel the concern of the director to collect the words of women and to report on their experiences. Speaking at the village council, they demanded the drilling which would relieve their work, save the animals and allow the men not to have to go into exile from this desert region. They have to leave for a long time to look for better pastures and the women are also absent in Nigeria or Togo for domestic work. Houlaye finds herself on her own to manage the children and the daily tasks. She dreams of broadening her horizons but her attempts remain in vain. Rhythmed by the seasons, the story of Houlaye is a story of survival but also of loneliness: “I'm 14 years old and I don't know anything! she exclaims, having never left her village of Tatiste, not even for Abalak, the nearest town. One hope is represented by the dynamic schoolmaster who struggles to safeguard both culture and life in this end of the world – and insists on the importance of education for girls, but also is above all by men. and women who fight to exist. Filmed in difficult conditions and supported by the NGO which drilled the water, Walking on Water at times reaches spaces of rare emotion and beauty. But in the imbroglio of global warming, the fate of these isolated populations remains a terrible challenge.

Disappearance is also what threatens the strip of land of Lahou between river, lagoon and ocean in Côte d'Ivoire in the Grands-Ponts region, eaten away by coastal erosion. It has been considered lost for years. The last inhabitants move to the mainland, the tombs of the cemetery are broken so that the bodies can be moved, their objects carefully stored... Aya , the first feature film by Belgian Simon Coulibaly Gillard (ACID closing) who also developed Boli Bana in his medium-length film on the Peuhls of Burkina Faso a certain taste for the fantastical, exploits this context of the end of the world to follow a young teenager who attaches herself to her land and her way of life against all evidence. She lives with her mother, smokes fish, takes care of her younger brother and enjoys going out with a friend who shyly kisses her in the mangroves. In the evening, she listens to the sea, approaches the cemetery... The quasi-documentary approach of the film is both the limit and the strength of this passage to adulthood, the anchoring in reality restricting its evocations while at the same time making it believable. It is when it becomes fictional, basing itself on the hallucination of the houses that are moved on canoes to the accompaniment of music or on the work of the waves and the wind against what is still stable, that the film finds the mythical dimension. "To return, you must first leave": how will this determined young woman have to grow up and integrate the necessary departure towards elsewhere? The epilogue dispenses with dialogue, between nostalgia for the origin and plunge into modernity. But this origin dissolves in the great environmental disintegration: what memory will this youth cling to without even the traces of the structures of its childhood? They can only be imaginary if art, especially cinema, preserves the memory of them. Aya's reflection therefore transcends the young teenager to think about the future of our world.

Non-standard For her second feature film (after You deserve a love), the actress of Algerian-Tunisian descent Hafsia Herzi obtained the “overall prize” at Un certain regard. Good Mother is indeed a family film. Everything revolves around Nora, a courageous mother who tries to hold this family in dignity against all odds, but it remains choral and largely feminine: the sisters and their friends hold the upper hand while the eldest son is in prison and the benjamin is an inactive Narcissus. However, it is on her sons that this mother is counting to ensure the future... As in Ibrahim by Samir Guesmi, her savings for bridge are at stake, which would allow her to bite into life otherwise, but "as long as I am standing, I will stay strong,” she said. The film was shot in the northern districts of Marseille in conditions that the drift towards drug trafficking makes difficult, where Hafsia Herzi grew up. He is penetrated by the sounds and the light of the place, and is inspired by his own mother, a widow who does housework, played by Halima Benhamed, a non-professional met during the casting of her daughter Sabrina who will have the role of his daughter Sabrah in the film! The flow of verbal exchanges, a kind of morning battle of tenderness where we constantly cut each other off, vocal but also physical expression, irrigates this anchoring in lived experience, but in a realism that does not get bogged down in reality. . Nothing is forced, dramatic or excessive, the humor making up for the pathos. From meals to cigarettes on the balcony, everyday life often gives way to resourcefulness and bad plans. The family is united and worker solidarity does the rest, giving the film a great humanity.

With You deserve a love, Hafsia Herzi dared to stage herself in the complexity and contradictions of her love meanderings, echoing roles where she openly assumes her sexuality. With A Story of Love and Desire , presented at the close of Critics' Week, Tunisian Leyla Bouzid is part of this movement of young female directors of Arab descent to tackle sexuality head-on and offer a feminine perspective. on the awakening in love of a young Arab while emphasizing the cultural denials that prevent Arab men from opening up to romantic relationships. It's a success: delicate and sensual, the film is a real call to love (see review no. 15154).

Given the quality of his short films (Fais croquer, Molii, F430), we were impatiently awaiting the first feature by Yassine Qnia, a surveyor-topographer who became a filmmaker after participating in the young jury of the Clermont-Ferrand short film festival in 2010 then thanks to workshops in Aubervilliers, a popular suburb of Paris. This is where he grew up and shoots all his films. Rather than continuing the humorous vein of his shorts, he delivers with De baschaussée a film noir without detective or femme fatale but with an urban thriller atmosphere as dark as in the genre. What is common with his shorts, however, are characters facing failure. Mehdi's wife, Sarah (Souheila Yacoub), had left him, no longer able to live with her mother. He makes crappy heists with a friend and would like to regain his relationship with the mother of his child. He spends his time in his car watching her at her job as a hairdresser and tries to get her to come back with gifts that she returns to him… Without music and without a show, the film develops a harshness that takes it out of the model. The night scenes do not have the stylization of film noir: they are at the limit of lighting to open the imagination, as well as the virtual absence of close-ups and the respect of a distance from the bodies. wants to control everything but loses control, Mehdi (Soufiane Guerrab), in his thirties, hinders what could connect them again, but his gaze evolves thanks to the awareness of the end of an era when his friend prefers to take the tangent when the going gets tough. This is the theme of this intimate film: the concessions that a devalued, overwhelmed man must make, stuck by his social situation and the character instability it entails, in order not to remain on the low end. This on a canvas of changing paradigms of working-class neighborhoods. If he does not turn to drugs and if he manages to get out of the cycle of larceny and his obstinacy in believing that he has no other horizon, he could settle down to live his couple with Sarah and raising their child while leaving illegality… Very open, elliptical, nocturnal, this film-testimony thus brings out a political and moral issue which only appears implicitly, somewhat neutralized by its sentimental intrigue.

In the same desire to thwart the norms, My brothers and me , first feature film by Yohan Manca (Un certain regard), happily inverts the fairy tale of the suburban guy who takes up classical music. If the young Nour is interested in opera singing lessons, it is because his Italian mother liked to hear it while she lies in a coma in the decrepit family apartment where the four brothers take care of her. By dint of passing him La Traviata or Una Furtiva Lagrima (The Elixir of Love) by Gaetano Donizetti, he knows the texts and melodies by heart. This does not escape the lyrical singer (Judith Chemla) who leads the workshop at the MJC during the holidays, where Nour (remarkable Maël Rouin-Berrandou) is stuck for "work of general interest" (penalty proposed following offense). We are certainly in caricature with the brothers (one dealer – Dali Benssalah, the other heavily flirts with the rich – Sofian Khammes, the third is rather stupid – Moncef Farfar) but the filming in 16 mm and the static shots allow a solar and poetic approach which contradicts the usual approach of the medium. We don't know where we are or when (no cell phones…): what matters is the improbable and beautiful encounter of a young person with this teacher who devotes herself to offering an unusual animation based on her skills. By betting on the impossible and shifting all the secondary characters towards the burlesque, this film is constantly on the razor's edge and thus wins its bet.

Suprêmes by Audrey Estrougo (out of competition) has the merit of tracing the journey of the Suprêmes – NTM group from an intimate point of view. The biopic vein allows us to enter into the complexity of JoeyStarr (in particular his efforts to promote his father who violently rejects his crazy side) and Kool Shen (with a sharp pen), who participated in the screenplay. Le film dresse aussi le portrait d'une époque, lorsque les banlieues abandonnées à leur sort se révoltaient via la musique et les émeutes. Les textes de rap expriment la rage des jeunes et leurs rythmes enfiévrés finissent par galvaniser les foules, ce qui agace les autorités qui cherchent à les contrôler.Les deux acteurs, Théo Christine et Sandor Funker, sont remarquables, totalement investis dans un biopic parfaitement chronologique (de la création du groupe en 1988 et ses essais pathétiques de sortir du lot au premier concert au Zénith en 1992, donc pas jusqu'à la séparation du groupe en 1999), quelque peu appliqué dans sa mise en scène mais qui se muscle quand il s'agit de rendre compte du talent sur scène des deux rappeurs. On sent comment ces deux jeunes de Seine Saint-Denis ont pu devenir les porte-parole des révoltes de leur génération. Par contre, même si le duo rejette toute récupération et que le film commence sur des images d'archives de Mitterrand parlant des difficultés des banlieues, le contexte politique (la montée de l'extrême-droite) est pratiquement absent. A voir ce qu'en fera la série coproduite par Arte et Netflix sur le même sujet.

Plongée dans le cliché Présenté hors compétition, Bac Nord de Cédric Jimenez a tout du thriller haletant et trépignant, porté par des acteurs efficaces comme comme Gilles Lellouche ou Karim Leklou. Il vise le succès des Misérables mais la grosse différence est que ça n'est pas le peuple de banlieue qui en est le sujet (lequel est stéréotypé sans nuance) mais les policiers de terrain de la BAC, têtes brûlées sous pression, injustement condamnés pour avoir eu des méthodes peu conventionnelles pour lutter contre le trafic de drogue et qui furent trahis par leur hiérarchie. Le film est inspiré d'une histoire vraie : 18 policiers avaient été mis en cause en 2012 à Marseille pour des faits de racket et de trafic de drogue – une affaire jugée au printemps 2021 dans le sens du film mais encore en cours puisque le parquet a fait appel. Dans cette célébration du dévouement policier (qui n'est a priori pas à remettre en cause, seulement les violences inutiles), la complexité de la banlieue est étouffée dans un constat qui ne peut conduire qu'à une plus grande demande sécuritaire. De même, l'IGPN (la « police des polices ») est elle-même caricaturée en une sorte d'organe cynique et inutile, alors que cette inspection est essentielle au contrôle des comportements policiers.

En compétition officielle, Les Olympiades de Jacques Audiard (Palme d'Or en 2015 pour Dheepan, que nous avions vertement critiqué pour ses clichés sur la banlieue) suit en noir et blanc les amitiés ou amours croisés de trois jeunes femmes et de Camille, un Noir, dans le 13e arrondissement de Paris, le quartier des Olympiades. Pour ce nouveau registre, le scénario est coécrit avec Céline Sciamma et Lea Mysius, inspiré de trois nouvelles graphiques du bédéiste et illustrateur américain Adrian Tomine.A l'heure des textos et des sites de rencontre, le film est centré sur le langage, mais ce flot de paroles est marqué par les incertitudes, reflet des solitudes et des désillusions. Le discours amoureux prend la plus grande place, non sans renoncer à l'efficacité d'une mise en scène savamment éclairée et les liens établis par la bande originale de Rone, une musique tantôt électronique tantôt organique, violoncelle et piano. Elle remplit les non-dits mais vient aussi donner une texture aux paysages.Incarné par Makita Samba, Camille, qui « compense sa frustration professionnelle par une activité sexuelle intense » (dixit) est au rond-point des intrigues et des désirs de ces trentenaires (Lucie Zhang incarne quant à elle la part asiatique de la diversité). Echappe-t-il au rôle racisé ? Le scénario se garde certes d'évoquer sa couleur de peau. Elle est cependant à l'écran, car la rareté des acteurs noirs dans le cinéma français fait que la partition color-blind n'existe pas. Ce n'est jamais indifférent. Cela peut être un geste politique, mais si le stéréotype s'en mêle, on retourne aux vieux schémas. Même si sa couleur a la fonction d'un masque à faire tomber, que son rôle soit celui d'un Don Juan est donc loin d'être neutre, ne manquant pas d'évoquer la supposée hypersexualité africaine. Chacun est bien à sa place dans cette Carte du Tendre qui ne dérange en rien les imaginaires. Pire, en banalisant le cliché, il le renforce.

Troisième volet des aventures d'Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, OSS117, alerte rouge en Afrique noire , de Nicolas Bedos, a fait la clôture officielle du festival, ce qui n'est pas sans gravité, et davantage encore après une affligeante cérémonie de clôture où Spike Lee n'avait clairement pas été correctement initié au vocabulaire et au rituel, signe d'un festival où Thierry Frémaux ne se donne plus la peine de traduire les interventions de ses invités sur scène. Que le pastiche joué par Jean Dujardin, qui a pour mission d'éradiquer les opposants communistes au président Bamba (Habib Dembélé), aligne au premier degré les pires sorties racistes, coloniales et d'extrême-droite comme au temps où on pouvait dire n'importe quoi fait partie, disons, de l'humour franchouillard du personnage, mais il a en face de lui des Africains dont la caricature, elle, ancre bien les clichés. C'est là que l'ambiguïté s'installe : Zéphyrine (Fatou N'Diaye), épouse du président Bamba mais rebelle à sa dictature, torpille elle aussi la résistance africaine en épousant la misogynie et le mépris du peuple de son interlocuteur. 19 millions d'euros pour ça alors que les pays du Sud manquent de vaccins, c'est immoral !

Réponse historique Restauré par la Cinecitta de Bologne, Cannes Classics présentait Murder in Harlem (1935) d' Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951), précédé du documentaire Oscar Micheaux, the Superhero of Black Filmmaking de Francesco Zippel , émouvant hommage au pionnier du cinéma afro-américain. Né de parents esclaves, connu comme « l'inventeur du DIY (do it yourself) », Micheaux fut réalisateur, romancier, écrivain, acteur, scénariste et producteur de cinéma ! Il vendrait ses livres au porte-à-porte pour financer ses films… Il avait publié son premier livre en 1913 mais le racisme exacerbé et l'énorme succès de Naissance d'une Nation de DWGriffith (1915) le poussa à prendre aussi la caméra pour témoigner de l'expérience noire-américaine. Il réalisera 42 films !Membre du mouvement Renaissance de Harlem, son cinéma est politique et a posé les jalons pour ses successeurs. Il n'était pas inutile, avec cette restauration et ce documentaire, de rappeler le long combat des Noirs contre les préjugés et les inégalités entre les hommes. Un combat qui n'a pas de fin.

Lutter contre les inégalités entre les hommes implique de tous les accueillir dans sa vision de l'humanité, à commencer par les différents, les dérangeants, les effrayants, en un mot les monstres. En somme de se laisser troubler par la rencontre. Là est l'enjeu d'un cinéma hors-norme, d'être ainsi monstrueux, non pour effrayer mais pour élargir le champ des communs au-delà des limites historiquement imposées par l'universalisme occidental. Il ne s'agit donc pas dans ces films de révolutionner mais de mettre l'accent sur ce qui, déjà, autour de nous, met en lien et en écoute les humains à travers des remises en causes de ce qui les sépare, des rejets aux clichés.Le rapport à la réalité est à cet égard décisif : la grande difficulté du cinéma est qu'il malaxe cette réalité pour la dépasser afin d'ouvrir les imaginaires. La résistance du réel est terrible : c'est un grand défi d'arriver à émouvoir esthétiquement le spectateur, c'est-à-dire sans pathos ni sentimentalisme. Bienvenus et donc à ne surtout pas proscrire, l'épure risque d'assécher, le lyrisme risque de distancier, la maîtrise risque de chasser l'incertitude et le doute, le spectaculaire risque de dominer le spectateur, le divertissement risque d'artificialiser le propos. L'équation n'existe pas dans les livres mais dans la créativité, singulière pour chaque film, mais elle n'échappe jamais à l'ancrage dans l'expérience et la sensibilité.C'est là que se niche le monstrueux, dans la perception des tremblements de notre monde.