On the penultimate day of the competition, the Cannes Film Festival presented Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo by Abdellatif Kechiche (France/Tunisia) and The Traitor by Marco Bellocchio (Italy).
Vacuity or fascination?
Six years after La Vie d’Adèle, Abdellatif Kechiche returned to the Croisette with Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, the sequel to his feature film Canto Uno, released last year. If the director was trying to shock La Croisette, he succeeded: whole ranks of spectators left the Grand Auditorium Lumière, offended by this sexual cinema experience of three and a half four hours, three quarters of which taking place in a nightclub. The provocative 13-minute cunilingus scene will have divided moviegoers about the emptiness or fascination of this “ode to desire” and “objectized” woman…
The Traitor, Cosa Nostra against Mafia
“The Mafia does not exist, it’s an invention of journalists!” Tommaso Buscetta explains in his first interview with Judge Falcone. “Since the age of 6 and for life, I am affiliated to the Cosa Nostra.” Buscetta, a Sicilian from Palermo, aka The Boss of the Two Worlds, aka Don Masino, still believes in the ideal of the Cosa Nostra (Our Affair) and the “men of honor” who help the poor people. Il Traditore (The Traitor) by Marco Bellocchio, tells his life from 1980 to 2000. After his extradition from Brazil where he established his fortune, his collaboration with Judge Falcone allowed the Italian police to arrest 475 criminals, thus ending the impunity of the mafia.
The strength of the real of La Mattanza
In a virtuoso staging, Marco Bellocchio tells the Mattanza (the massacre) initiated by Salvatore Riina, said Toto Riina, the most cruel and the most ruthless godfather from the city of Corleone. The quality of Bellocchio’s historical re-enactment gives the strength of the real to the atrocious crimes of this war of godfather, without idealizing the mafia. The Traitor begins with the celebration of an agreement between godfathers for the sharing of the heroin market of which Palermo became the hub. But Toto Riina prefers to eliminate his rivals and all those who do not rally to his family. Tommaso Buscetta (Pierfrancesco Favino) lives in Brazil while in Sicily, revenge killings link up and his close relatives, including his two sons, are murdered one after the other.
Applying his own justice?
Buscetta, who has remained faithful to Cosa Nostra and its values, is deeply outraged with the Corleones who flout the fundamental principles of Cosa Nostra by killing women and children to “eliminate the blood”. Arrested by the Brazilian police and extradited, Don Masino will collaborate with Judge Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi) with, in return for his protection and survival, the will to dismantle a mafia that no longer corresponds to his values. While refusing all his life the name of “repented”, his confession will put an end in 1993 to the bloody career of the “butcher” Toto Riina.
Against the backdrop of Il Traditore, the question of Buscetta’s motives remains: is he seeking redemption to become a new man or has he applied his own justice? In this powerful film, Pierfrancesco Favino is a serious candidate for the Best Actor Award!
The Festival is on YesICannes.com: yesicannes.com/category/festival-de-cannes
The Red Carpet of The Traitor in pictures
Click on pictures to enlarge – ©YesICannes.com – All rights reserved
Recent Comments