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For years, perhaps decades,

Kelly Reichardt

has maintained a silent fight against any of the forms adopted by the commonplace, the set phrase or the simple outburst.

Each one of her films, even before the masterful and painful

'Old Joy'

(2006), is a refutation of both the industrial way of making movies and the worn-out schemes of the genres.

The elegant way in which she reformulated the keys to the western in two films (

'Meek's Cutoff'

and

'First Cow'

)

have already earned her an exceptional place in the important part of film manuals: the still not written.

That is why it is surprising that his first participation in the author's cinema manual par excellence (that is the official section of Cannes) is precisely now.

Let's say that the festival with a square on the Croisset arrives very late.

But whatever it is, you are welcome.

Perhaps for this reason, the

Directors' Fortnight

has not been able to do less this year than awarding him the precious

Golden Chariot

while treating the aforementioned

'Meek's Cutoff' as a modern classic.

From this perspective, if you want maximalist, the fact that the Miami-born filmmaker has chosen (or has been chosen) a film like '

Showing up'

may seem like a disappointment.

'Showing up'

is from the first of its seconds a minimal, minimalist film, perhaps only a miniature.

It would seem that before anything else it is a fun essay than one of those works so loaded with intentions, subtexts and devices that entertain conspicuous critics so much.

And yet, it seems very difficult not to surrender to its charm, to its precisely tiny brilliance.

Not everything has to be '

Top Gun on fire'.

The film recounts in the form of a fable the crisis of an artist whom Michelle Williams

brings to life with the usual unusual precision .

Always her.

This is the actress's fourth collaboration with the director after

'Wendy and Lucy'

(2008), the twice-mentioned

'Meek's Cutoff'

(2010) and '

Certain Women'

(2016).

Just before an exhibition, the protagonist, who is a potter, is confronted with a daily and excessive chaos that includes a pigeon with a broken wing, a possessive and neurotic mother, a brother with serious mental problems, a cheeky father and a neighbor. unbearably happy.

It's not like she's feeling too good either.

With these pieces, Reichardt returns to compose a cross-border and very transgender film (which is also a puzzle).

It is comedy without giving up the tragedy of a burning porcelain;

it is as much moral, but shamelessly libertine, and, above all, it is a fable of animals that, after being attacked by a cat, end up being cured.

That's what it's all about: life is an incurable disease that, from time to time, takes flight.

That said and to summarize, it's not Kelly Reichardt's biggest and most overwhelming movie, but who cares?

In a word:

a beautiful miniature.

Well, in two words.

And at his side, and as a partner at the end of the festival,

'Un Petit Frère'

, by

Léonor Serraille.

The director of '

Welcome to Montparnasse (Jeune Femme)'

, awarded the Golden Camera in 2017, launches into a triptych on French immigration in the body of a mother and two children from the 80s to the present day, from Costa from Ivory to Paris.

Let's say, and if we put the work of the French next to that of the American, Serraille wants more.

Generations pass through her films, sorrows, the racism of the colonial empire and the persistent pain of a woman (in addition to that of the rule) in the midst of patriarchy.

The grace and virtue are that, despite the great aspiration, the film remains at all times at ground level, on the surface, well attached to the retinas.

Failed at times, erratic and incomprehensible others, but always provocative and unclassifiable.

It is big cinema from the awareness of how small we are.

The result is a daring, surreal, crazy and, above all, free film.

Now all that remains is for '

Close

', by

Lukas Dhont,

to win the Palme d'Or ever awarded, or almost, to such a young director.

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