The Cannes Film Festival continues to be in full swing before returning its awards, but two films are already standing out in the press and could win a prize on Saturday evening.
The Cannes Film Festival continues to punctuate the cinematographic news, before returning its prize list. If there are still several films from the competition to be screened in front of the jury chaired by Ruben Östlund, two films already seem to stand out according to the specialized press and have a good chance of winning a prize (and, perhaps, a Palme d’ gold). Of course, these predictions are subject to the appreciation of the jury of this 76th Cannes Film Festival, which debates in secret and whose opinion alone matters for the development of the winners.
The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, has been qualified as the first shock film of this 2023 Cannes Film Festival. This feature film tells the family life of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, who lives in a house with a garden next door of the concentration and extermination camp. It is the adaptation of the novel of the same name by Martin Amis, which draws a parallel between a quiet daily life and the indescribable horror, separated by only a wall. “Deafeningly powerful” for journalist Marie Serale, “a chilling device” for critic Philippe Rouyer, The Zone of Interest is one of the big favorites to win the Palme d’Or on Saturday.
It will have to compete with a second feature film which marked the Croisette. Anatomy of a Fall, by French director Justine Triet, is a trial film that dissects the life of a couple after the suspicious death of their husband. There too, the press is dithyrambic: it is “a beautifully written complex thriller” for the editor of Paris Match Yannick Vély, a “venomous and relentless thriller which reinvents a very codified genre” for the journalist Nathanaël Bentura , or even “a dense and unclassifiable work” for Slate journalist Anaïs Bordage.
Sufficiently rare to be noted, these two favorite films on the Cannes charts are carried by the same actress, the German Sandra Hüller, who had already upset the Croisette in Toni Erdmann in 2016. If you want to discover these films on the big screen, The Zone of Interest does not yet have a release date in France. Conversely, Anatomy of a Fall will be available in cinemas on August 23, 2023. You will also have to wait until Saturday May 27 to discover the complete winners of this Cannes Film Festival.