The 2019 Cannes Film Festival begins on a disappointing note

Despite the prestigious names on the list, such as the Spanish giant Pedro Almodovar, the British legend Ken Loach, Elia Suleiman, Quentin Tarantino, Terrence Malick and Marco Bellocchio, the Cannes Film Festival has opened two of its most important sections – Competition and A Certain Regard – with disappointing rate.

American author Jim Jarmusch had offered us a great cinema like Broken Flowers and Patterson, but his first film, The Dead Don's Die, made no sense. Regarded as political – at least that was what the festival's leader, Thierry Fremaux said during his opening press conference – and even anxious about the environment, participation in the contest was strange. If it was political, it was plainly with one of the characters wearing a hat with the words: Keep America White Again. Clearly, Trump bashing. And as the earth comes off and the work of Jarmusch speaks, there are allusions to the imminent environmental crisis.

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The Dead Don's Die, located in a fictional American town of Centerville, tells of how strange events have submerged the place. The moon is low, the night does not fall and the television reports that the Earth has escaped from its axis. The result could not have been more strange with the dead resurrected from the graves. They literally dug themselves up and, looking hideous, begin to wander through the city, throwing themselves on the living, sucking their blood (like vampires) and eating their flesh. Ugh! Really, this is not the ideal title to launch a 12 day event.
The three Centerville police officers – Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray), Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) and Mindy Morrison (Chloe Sevigny) – are on their guard. Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton) helps them in their mission. She behaves like a Japanese samurai and uses her huge sword to cut the heads of these monstrous zombies. This is the only way to silence them. Many heads roll, some trenches, some slaughtered and beheaded.

As the city begins to struggle with this ghostly invasion that threatens to wipe Centerville off the map – and with news of new disasters in other parts of the world – that sounds like the end of civilization. The cops absolutely do not know how to handle this supernatural event and Robertson has never seen anything like it in his long career. And, as usual, he tries to attack the zombies.

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It is clear that The dead do not die is not the kind of film that Cannes should have. open with; Jarmusch's work was not even worth a place in the competition. The film did not go anywhere, and despite all the flesh that spread all over the screen, the story itself had little flesh and seemed flat, as neutral as Murray's expression.

And when the curtain fell, the ovation was as quiet as possible, which is clearly a huge failure. Many felt that the festival had opened its 72nd edition with a work inappropriate for the occasion.

Similarly, the festival could not have made a more inappropriate choice to be part of the section A Certain Regard – the second largest category after the competition. A brother Monia Chokri's love focuses on the platonic affections of a sister for his brother. And that leads to a lot of delicate situations when the man starts dating a girl. The sister, Sophia (Anne-Elisabeth Bosse), is 35, but did very little after graduating.

While she is trying to find a job, she is completely mowed and decides to share the space with her brother, Karim (Patrick Hivon). Her relationship with her sister is very strong and it becomes obvious when they visit their parents in the suburbs. Family dynamics play here. The parents are divorced, but the father remains very close to his ex-wife and the two bicker like an old married couple. Chokri uses it to express Sophia's relationship with Karim. And when the doctor, who helps Sophia to abort her child, falls in love with Karim, confusion and confusion begin to emerge.

The love of a brother, despite his provocative theme and jokes, is meaningless, and most scenes seem laborious and forced. The performances are not great, and the work winds along a trail of boredom. A Brother's Love is certainly not the kind of work that will appeal to a representative group of the population.

(Gautaman Bhaskaran, author, commentator and film critic, covers the Cannes Film Festival for many years)

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