'Eddington', contemporary American disintegration according to Ari Aster

Aster puts a lot (too much?) of meat on the fire to explain how his nation has returned to the arms of Donald Trump, starting from the divisions generated by the use of masks during the pandemic to the political manipulation through social networks, passing through the murder of George Floyd, movements such as Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo: the ingredients are many to give life to an overview that is at times indigestible, but also capable of stimulating numerous reflections and incorporating in the vision many insights that concern the whole of contemporary society.

The director sometimes delays himself by following somewhat specious subplots (primarily that of a kind of guru played by Austin Butler), but at the same time he never loses the reins of a product of considerable originality and which will give rise to numerous interpretations.

Despite its duration of around 150 minutes, 'Eddington' is a film that has very few lapses, keeps the pace high and also offers several moments of very high tension, reminiscent of the early part of Ari Aster's career, a director who made his debut with two horror films such as 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar'.

After the two aforementioned films, Aster had directed another controversial feature film, 'Beau ha paura', in which the grotesque side dominated, which is taken up here in several passages that make 'Eddington' a kind of black comedy that has our present and its most farcical and disturbing aspects as its absolute protagonist.

Perhaps the most incisive side of this film, however, is the western, with many references even going back to classics of the genre such as 'High Noon'.

If from the very beginning in the film there is a real challenge worthy of a Wild West duel, it is however in the concluding part that the film grows a lot in this respect in a long night sequence, completely silent, where the talent of the 1986-born director emerges at its best.

A film that has fallen victim to some obvious (and, perhaps, ruinous) downfalls, 'Eddington' is, however, for many reasons a work to be defended and one that deserves to be viewed with great care. It is worth mentioning that the cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

Also in competition was 'La petite dernière', the third directorial film by Hafsia Herzi, an actress (known for having often worked with Abdellatif Kechiche) who had made her debut behind the camera in 2019 with 'You deserve a love'.

For the first time selected in the main competition at Cannes, Herzi chose to tell the story of Fatima, a 17-year-old girl who lives with her family in a Parisian banlieue. It is time for her to really understand who she is, exploring her sexuality and trying to emancipate herself from her family traditions.

This film opens with the protagonist in the mirror, reasoning about the identity of the main character in a manner that is, as the opening shows, a little too scholastic and didactic.

Herzi has a good hand and the film is elegantly shot, but it lacks a hint of incisiveness to be able to remain imprinted at the end of the viewing. There are many titles with similar themes passing through the festivals in recent years and the risk is that 'La petite dernière', despite its good overall staging, will end up being forgotten in a hurry.