Cannes wouldn’t be Cannes without the Dardenne brothers. The Belgian pair posed with the star of their latest film “Deux Jours, Une Nuit” Marion Cotillard. Later in the evening, their film had its premier in Cannes, just one day before it goes on nationwide release in France.
The redoubtable brothers have consistently shown how you can make remarkable and engaging films about ordinary people treating everyday subjects with very little money. This is the first time that they’ve brought anyone with such star quality (on both sides of the Atlantic) as Marion Cotillard to one of their projects.
Cotillard gives a superb performance that anyone who has seen her physically transform herself in “La Vie en Rose” or “Rust and Bone” won’t be surprised at. In fact, her best performances are definitely in her native language and she should probably not bother with those over-blown Hollywood films any more. Critics are less sure of the film itself. The title (two days, one night) refers to the time left to Cotillard’s character Sandra to convince 14 of her 16 fellow-factory-workers to forego their bonus by allowing her to keep her job. It’s a Western tale of an innocent caught up in a cruel capitalist world fighting against the odds, with shades of Twelve Angry Men thrown in – all in the usual Dardennes neo-realist style. Many loved the whole thing, but there were those who though that the anti-capitalist message a bit too repetitive. In any case, it remains a strong contender to bag the Dardennes their third Palme d’Or.
Blue skies returned after a sombre evening the night before and Magnum ice-cream had their own photo-shoot on the promenade and the beach using model/actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to mark 20 years of the large expensive and delicious ice-cream.
Another film of note on photo-call duty today was the international cast of Ryan Gosling’s first film as a director “Lost River”. These include our own Saoirse Ronan (who was absent from the photo-call today) and French actor Reda Kateb.
Meanwhile, Justin Bieber turned teeny-bopper heads when he went for a shirt-less stroll along the Croisette surrounded by a forest of minders.