1 of 1 Ethan Hawke and Pedro Almodóvar arrive for the screening of ‘Strange Way of Life’ at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Photo: Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP Ethan Hawke and Pedro Almodóvar arrive for the screening of ‘Strange Way of Life’ at the Cannes Film Festival Cannes Film Festival 2023 Photo: Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP
The 73yearold Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar enchanted the Cannes Film Festival this Wednesday (17th) with his short film “Strange Way of Life”, which was screened outside of the competition.
On the same day, the screening of the films competing for the Palme d’Or, the highest award of the French festival, began.
Almodóvar’s first foray into the Wild West genre, which lasted just 25 minutes, left his adoring fans on the Croisette, where there was some confusion accessing the screening room.
Dozens of people stopped in the rain and could not enter the crowded cinema.
Actors Ethan Hawke, American, and Pedro Pascal, Chilean, are the protagonists of this Almodovarian experiment, filmed in English and with the atmosphere of a rehearsal before moving on to something more ambitious.
In the past, the Spanish director has been repeatedly tried in Hollywood to shoot in the USA.
“It was my first Wild West and I tried not to be anachronistic,” explained Almodóvar.
The short film tells the story of a love meeting between two men, a sheriff and a cowboy.
“It’s the discussion of two lovers who react completely differently to an orgy night,” the director explained, among other things, about “Tie Me Up”.
The filmmaker has a special connection with Cannes, where he competed for the top prize six times. The last time happened in 2019 with his most autobiographical film “Pain and Glory”. Although he had won several important awards, he never managed to win the Palme d’Or.
“The secret is in the rehearsals”
Legendary American actor Michael Douglas, who received the Palm of Honor for his career the day before, also had a special meeting with the audience.
Nowadays, “there’s nothing you can do without resorting to intimacy coordinators,” admitted the protagonist of “Basic Instinct” (1992) and “Fatal Attraction” (1987).
But the veteran actor, 78, joked that as an “expert on sex scenes”, “the rehearsal is key”.
“It’s like rehearsing a fight scene, you have to prepare a choreography. It starts out very slow and then picks up a faster pace,” he admitted, eliciting laughter.
“Monster” and “Le retour” in the salon
The Japanese Hirokazu Koreeda presented “Monster”, a story with child protagonists, based on an incident in a school. In 2018, the director won the show’s grand prize with “Family Matters.”
The other film screened this Wednesday was French director Catherine Corsini’s Le Retour, which is up for the Palme d’Or for the third time.
The film, which tells the story of a mother and her two young daughters returning to the island of Corsica they had to leave under tragic circumstances, is also surrounded by controversy.
The production remained without public funding after it was discovered that an explicitly sexual theater scene involving an actress under the age of 16 was not reported to the authorities as required.
Additionally, some employees criticized Corsini for overly harsh directing during the shoot, according to sources cited by the press.
“Catherine has never molested anyone,” the film’s producer, Elisabeth Perez, assured France Presse.
The French director is one of seven filmmakers competing for the Palme d’Or, a record for the show.