"El ser querido', a superb film aiming for the Palme d'Or

Sorogoyen had already demonstrated his talent in television series such as '10 New Years' and in films such as 'As bestas', but with this film he definitively enters the ranks of the greatest auteurs in activity.

The possible salvific power of art is also one of the themes of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 'All of a Sudden', another of the most interesting films in competition at Cannes to date.

It can be described as his French-language debut, although the languages mingle in this work that recalls some of the dynamics of his famous 'Drive My Car', both in terms of the theme of communication and the reflections in which theatre is intertwined with life.

Set mainly in Paris, the film tells the story of Marie-Lou, the director of an old people's home, who is determined to introduce avant-garde solutions to improve the well-being of the elderly residents in the institution. One day, by chance, she meets Mari, a Japanese theatre director who is fighting cancer and who will lead her to reflect on her life and society in general.

Loosely based on the real-life exchange of letters between philosopher Makiko Miyano and medical anthropologist Maho Isono, published in the book 'You and I - The Illness Suddenly Gets Worse', the film is an intimate drama that mixes personal traumas with collective reasoning in which the relationship between the individual and the surrounding capitalist society is discussed.

There is a lot of meat in the fire, but Hamaguchi gives a perfect balance to the ingredients, dividing his film into three acts, inherent in the relationship that develops between the two leading women. In a film that speaks explicitly of old age, death and illness, Hamaguchi miraculously succeeds in never being rhetorical and manages to emote without using any cleverness, but relying only on the power of words and images.

In more than three hours of viewing, 'All of a Sudden' has essentially no sags and the rigour of the direction of the Japanese author, one of the most crystalline talents of contemporary Asian cinema, is impressive.

Another Japanese film presented in competition is 'Sheep In the Box', a new feature by Hirokazu Kore-Eda, director who won the Palme d'Or in 2018 with the unforgettable 'A Family Affair'.

Here it tells the story of a couple who, after losing their son, comes to replace him with an android that looks exactly like him and retains all his memories.

Kore-Eda retains his classic elegant style and the themes - on the sense of family, first and foremost - typical of his cinema are all there, but in this case the result falls victim to a starting subject that smacks too much of the familiar and a narrative progression that is too erratic.

The latter is also a limitation of Marie Kreutzer's 'Gentle Monster', another title in the running for the Palme d'Or, starring Léa Seydoux.

The French actress plays an internationally renowned pianist who has recently moved to the countryside with her son and her husband, a filmmaker who has suffered from severe burnout. As the family tries to regain equilibrium, a sudden visit from the police disrupts their lives yet again.

There is an ethical dilemma at the heart of this film that takes the female protagonist's point of view: to still trust the husband she is in love with or to believe the heavy-handed words of the police who accuse him of being at the centre of a traffic in child pornography? Engaging in the first part, the film gives way at a distance due to an excessive need to explain didactically what has happened, thus losing that sense of mystery that had enveloped the initial sequences. Very good, in any case, Léa Seydoux in a film that ends up being only halfway incisive.