Despite the summer temperatures in Cannes, a cold wave fell on the Festival: with several films in competition, Nordic directors stormed the Croisette, with a more “minimalist” cinema but loaded with emotions.
"We have the impression that it is a movement, an earthquake!"
, enthuses with AFP the Swedish Noomi Rapace, revealed in the film
Millenium
which plays in the film
Lamb
by Valdimar Jóhannsson, presented in the section Un certain regard.
Shot in Iceland, the film tells the story of a couple of farmers who are raising a baby like no other.
At the same time, three other Nordic films - a Finnish, a Norwegian, and a French filmed in Sweden, on the island of director Ingmar Bergman - are in the running for the Palme d'Or.
Tutelary figure of Scandinavian cinema, Bergman (
The seventh seal
,
Scenes of conjugal life
) known and admired worldwide, had received in 1997 the palm of the palm of the Festival de Cannes.
But while the Swedes and Danes have won awards on several occasions in the history of the Festival - Swedish director Alf Sjöberg has even won the supreme award twice - the Finns and Norwegians have never won an award. *
"I believe that in our style, we are very minimalist, we are not in the grandiloquent"
Actress Noémie Rapace
In the running with
Compartment n ° 6
, his second feature film, shot in a train in the Russian Arctic, the director of
Olli Mäki
(2016) Juho Kuosmanen, does not hide his emotion.
“Without exaggerating, this festival means everything to me
,” he said in an interview with AFP.
It may sound silly but I feel very comfortable here. Even if the festival is huge, in the heart of the reactor, we are really supported because the people on the team are passionate about cinema. It's not just a place where films are shown
”.
Erected in the great hope of Finnish cinema from its beginnings and compared to his compatriot Aki Kaurismäki, in contention for the Palme d'Or four times between 1996 and 2011, Juho Kuosmanen, defends a minimalist cinema with little effusion and which takes the time to unfold his story.
“If I exaggerated the emotions of my characters, this wouldn't be my film. I put the pedal soft, I don't like adding more, ”he
explains.
“We Finns are not Scandinavians but Slavs.
We, the people of the forest, are not very sophisticated, ”he
quipped.
Full of details, its staging demands the viewer's constant attention.
Unable to catch up with the bandwagon when the film has already started.
"You have to be there from the start of the film,"
he says, acknowledging that the viewer has to
"
make
an effort"
to follow him.
"I believe that in our style, we are very minimalist, we are not in the grandiloquent"
, opines the actress of
Lamb
Noomi Rapace.
To read also:
Julie (in 12 chapters)
, woman of the 2020s
Slower films, but not devoid of feelings for all that, insists to AFP Sofia Norlin a Swedish director based in Paris. The one who directed
Broken Hill Blues
(2013) believes that Nordic cinema has a
“softer and more discreet look at the world”
, but imbued with emotion.
“It's a bit of a door that opens slowly and whose light reveals the shadows of life,” she
explains. Films also imbued with an aesthetic apart, very focused on nature, the great outdoors, and on sunlight.
“To shoot in Oslo was a gift. Watching the sunset in June with this light ... It reminded me of my childhood, ”
told AFP the director of
Julie (in 12 chapters)
, the Norwegian Joachim Trier, whose film delivers with accuracy and without excess a subtle critique of post- # MeToo society.
