Cannes 2023

Cannes 2023: the revelation of dark, dangerous and violent women

And the Palme d'Or was awarded to... A woman. Much has been written about the record number of female directors in competition, the now sacrosanct parity of the jury, the fact that the most beautiful roles were given to actresses. What if the most profound change lay elsewhere? For the first time, a significant number of films have staged women not only in an emancipatory impulse, but also destructive, violent, cynical, inhuman, ruthless, selfish, macho ... dark sides hitherto often reserved for men.

Sandra Hüller in "Anatomy of a Fall", film directed by Justine Triet, Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2023. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

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Violence by women made a spectacular debut at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The most publicized example does not concern a fictional character, but the actress and director Maïwenn. The latter had herself admitted to having assaulted the journalist Edwy Plenel. Despite this, she was invited to show her film Jeanne du Barry at the opening of the largest film festival in the world. And this without the slightest hostile demonstration when climbing the steps on the famous red carpet.

A surprising counter-offensive

It remains to be seen whether this is a kind of "tolerance" towards violence by a woman. For the time being, this is an exceptional case. On the other hand, on the big screen, the dubious privilege of violent characters often reserved for men faced during this edition a surprising female counter-offensive.

In Firebrand, by Brazilian director Karim Aïzouz, Catherine Parr (beautifully played by Alicia Vikander), the sixth wife of King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), is ready to assassinate the king with her own hands to allow herself, but also the country, a better future.

Fifteen years after the German film The Wave, directed by Dennis Gansel, where a teacher manipulates his students to install in his classroom a totalitarian system with students ready to commit crimes, Austrian director Jessica Hausner presented Club Zero in competition. At home, it is not a man, but a woman, Miss Novak, a specialist in "conscious nutrition", who manipulates her students ready to stop eating to access immortality.

"Club Zero", directed by Jessica Hausner. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

The case of Hedwig Höss, "the Queen of Auschwitz"

The most chilling example comes from the center of absolute horror, the Auschwitz extermination camp. In his experimental film The Zone of Interest, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, British director Jonathan Glazer evokes the indescribable with a screen left in black and places the wife of the extermination camp commander at the heart of the story of absolute evil. Hedwig Höss, played by Sandra Hüller with a chilling naturalness surpasses her husband in terms of inhumanity. During Rudolf Höss calculates the number of Jews to be gassed in the new crematorium, his wife mistreats his servants recruited among the deportees, dresses happily in fur coat stolen from a murdered Jewish woman a few meters from his bedroom. With love and tenderness, Mrs. Höss raises her four children in Hitler's ideology. She takes care of her vegetable garden in the shade of crematoria and whose vegetables growing in the black ashes of the dead feed the family. With this modern house, separated by a wall from the camp, she realized her dream, created her paradise where she can reign as "Queen of Auschwitz". When her husband is transferred in accordance with the Führer's order, she persists in staying in Auschwitz with her children. This woman is guided neither by obedience, nor by obligation or blindness, but by a conscious, determined monstrosity, appearing in broad daylight when her mother visits her. But in her room overlooking the smoke of the crematoriums, the mother who once gave birth to the monster does not even last a night to miss the noise and smell of the death camp.

"The Zone of Interest", directed by Jonathan Glazer, Grand Prix at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

"Anatomy of a Woman"

In a film of a completely different register, Sandra Hüller embodies in a completely different way another type of woman capable of anything. In Justine Triet's Palme d'Or-winning Anatomie d'une chute, she first established herself as an intellectual figure, a successful author, and the loving mother of her disabled son. Then came this fall that shattered her husband's skull: accident, suicide, murder? During the judicial investigation, Sophie becomes the space of projection of all the possible and especially the dark sides. All the witnesses and experts at the trial fantasize about her as guilty, because she quarreled with her husband, hit him, had for his best-selling novel piqued ideas from him, made him jealous with his bisexuality and selfishness assumed and claimed.

When a woman adopts the codes of patriarchy

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, who was also in competition with Les filles d'Olfa, which won the Golden Eye for best documentary, examines violence against women in another way. Her film explores from the inside how two of the four daughters of a Tunisian mother with no history were able to become jihadists and join ISIS in Libya after the Arab Spring of 2011. Ben Hania questions the transmission from mother to daughter of trauma, but also of violence. It is rather the mother who beat and humiliates her husband than the other way around. She was the one who oppressed her four daughters. Despite this, Olfa never appears guilty. She simply explains that she adopted the codes of patriarchy and "turned into a man to defend my mother and sisters." And no one finds it surprising or shocking that she beats her daughters even in front of the camera by justifying herself: "I did to my daughters everything I suffered when I was their age.

Asmae El Moudir, Moroccan director of The Mother of All Lies, Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard section of the official selection, also touches on the issue of transmission. In his narrative set up through figurines and miniature houses, his grandmother occupies a central place. In the documentary, she is described by everyone as a "dictator" who controls everything, scares everyone and spies on neighbors. After the #MeToo movement, where we focused a lot on violence by men, have we arrived at a time when this evolution of the gaze has also freed the vision of women directors to show in films today also the dark and violent sides of women? "Yes, it's true," confirms Asmae El Moudir. It is time to say that there are also tough women, and women who can condemn an entire family.

"The daughters of Olfa", directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

A woman's "male gaze"

For Quebecer Monia Chokry, who has regularly denounced a certain violence that reigns especially in human relations in the film industry, this new vision has also entered the humor of her new film. In Simple as Sylvain, it is Sophie who puts her loving husband in front of the fait accompli in a very violent way. In their new home, she fell in love with a carpenter who is handsome, bearded, muscular, sexy, drives a very powerful pickup, loves hunting and fishing, luscious blondes and loves to "take" women as he sees fit. Despite this accumulation of macho character traits, for Monia Chokry, it is not a male gaze, not a macho film: "Maybe because I am naturally a feminist, because I come from a territory in the world that is one of the most egalitarian in terms of gender relations. Jane Campion [New Zealand director and Palme d'Or winner in 1993, editor's note] said in a documentary that she has the chance to write vast female characters, because she comes from a territory where equality between men and women is very strong. This allows her to have this freedom of speech on the female characters.

Mohamed Kordofani entered with Goodbye Julia in the history of the Cannes Film Festival as the first Sudanese director in the official selection. And it won the Freedom Prize in the Un Certain Regard section. The film is set on the eve of the division of Sudan and tells the story of Mona's hoistra. The former singer from northern Sudan is responsible for a crime, but will never be held accountable, because she cares for the widow and son of the murdered man, without telling them the truth about her benevolence.

"Women's suffering is caused by uneducated men"

The #MeToo movement has clearly changed the imagination around violence by women. And this is also reflected in the characters of men on the screen. Zoljargal Purevdash became with If Only I Could Hibernate the first Mongolian director ever invited to the official selection. She explains why, despite #MeToo, she chose to stage the theme of emancipation from a young man, Ulzi, and not through a young woman:

« In Mongolia, women are the most educated. It may sound odd, but after the fall of the Soviet empire, most families let their daughters go to school, because they thought boys could find something to eat. This is the mindset of many Mongolians. That is why today we have this Mongolian society with many educated women and less educated men. As a woman, I see that all the suffering of women is caused by uneducated men. And in my country, we need to encourage and empower men. I don't want our brothers to give up education anymore. It is also a gender issue. I support gender equality. That's why I want more boys to be encouraged and fight for education in my country. »

Banel and Adama, directed by French-Senegalese Ramata-Toulaye Sy. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

#MeToo and male sexual repression

Kanu Behl was the subject of debate at the Filmmakers' Fortnight. His film Agra is about the sexual frustration of youth in India. The Indian director explains why he did not choose a girl, but a young man as the main role to stage this phenomenon and alert on the very violent consequences that plague society. "I think it's really weird. If we really want to support the #MeToo movement and really achieve women's emancipation, I think it's really important to understand the roots of the origin of male sexuality and male sexual repression. In my opinion, this is the only way to achieve true emancipation, not only for women, but also for both sexes, and to put an end to this problem once and for all.

"Banel and Adama", one against all

The extreme complexity of the issue is evident in Banel and Adama. The first feature film by Franco-Senegalese Ramata-Toulaye Sy tells the story of a love as happy as it is fusional in a Fulani village. But Banel's fierce desire to emancipate himself outside the village and live his life with Adama outside traditions is up against social pressure and the legacy of Adama, destined to succeed his father as village chief. To achieve this, Banel is ready to crush his rival, despise the other villagers and ignore the disasters that befall the village. Even when all the villagers are convinced that the catastrophic drought that threatens the very existence of the village can only be solved with Adama at the head of the village, Benel persists in his idea of emancipation. And Ramata-Toulaye Sy shows her as a woman who, without batting an eyelid, shoots small birds with her slingshot.

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