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The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
On the road to somewhere … Cannes film festival reminds us world cinema and ‘globalism' are not the same
If Donald Trump really wants to save Hollywood, maybe he needs to venture outside his comfort zone and watch more European art house cinema. The Cannes film festival, which closes on Saturday, is in many ways the very definition of the 'globalism' that the American president's Maga movement despises. Walk past the queues snaking alongside the Palais des Festivals and you hear languages and accents from every corner of the globe. The Marché du Film, where industry professionals strike their deals, is brimming with smart people from all over the world beckoning US producers with irresistible tax incentives – resulting in the kind of movies 'produced in foreign lands' that the US president earlier this month proposed punishing with 100% tariffs. At the opening gala, Cannes gave Trump arch-enemy Robert De Niro a platform to rally the world of cinema against the US president, 'without violence, but with great passion and determination'. But then you sit down in a dark screening room at the Palais, the piano strains of Camille Saint-Saëns' Aquarius trickle over the Cannes trailer, and that distinction is not so clear any more. In French director Amélie Bonnin's opening film Partir un Jour, driven-but-stressed celebrity chef Cécile is preparing for the opening of her new haute cuisine diner in Paris when news reaches her of the ill health of her father, who runs a run-of-the-mill roadside restaurant called Pit Stop out in the sticks. Cécile's father ribs his daughter about her disdain for the unsophisticated palates of the 'yokels', but it's apparent from the outset that the film's sympathies lie a lorry-ride away from France's cosmopolitan centre. If at the heart of the culture war waged by Trump and his populist allies in Europe runs a divide between locally rooted 'somewheres' and cosmopolitan 'anywheres', Partir un Jour is very much a 'somewhere film'. It ultimately rejects shiso-flavoured lobster, roquefort panna cotta and Michelin stars in favour of boeuf bourguignon, hotdogs and Michelin tires. At Cannes, it turned out to be less of a duff note than the beginning of a theme. Everywhere you looked, there were stories with a very specific sense of place: of people who are stuck in remote locations (Palme d'Or-buzzy The Sound of Falling by German newcomer Mascha Schilinski, Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay's Die, My Love) or return to them (French director's Dominik Moll's yellow-vests drama Dossier 137). The thrill of big-city living was rarely glimpsed on any of the festival's many screens. Turkish-German director Fatih Akin, who burst on the international scene 20 years ago with explosive urban drama Head-On, came to the Riviera with Amrum, a film set entirely on a remote North Sea island at the end of the second world war. Even Spanish director Oliver Laxe's techno-infused mystery drama Sirât is not set in a Barcelona night club but a desert rave. The left-behinds? They were not so much ignored as put centre-stage and armed with automatic rifles in 'elevated horror' director Ari Aster's Eddington, a Covid satire so even-handed in its mockery of pandemic follies that it has earned criticism of striving for 'Maga compatibility'. A more lenient view would be that film-makers should have no truck with the binaries conjured up by politicians in the first place, because art at its best dissolves them anyway. Some of the most interesting films at Cannes were somewhere-anywhere films, rooted in a place but allowed to grow outwards. Finnish film-maker Lauri-Matti Parppei's A Light That Never Goes Out, about a prodigy flautist who returns to his coastal family home after suffering a breakdown, sets out like Bonnin's but turns a familiar plot on its head: in rural Rauma, protagonist Pauli finds meaning not in folksy simplicity but in joining an experimental noise-core band. Akin's Amrum prods the eternal German subject of Heimat ('homeland') and comes up with unusual answers. What makes someone belong to Amrum, wonders the film's child protagonist at one point. His schoolmates reckon it requires one to be born there, while his Nazi mother believes it runs in the blood. But the island's oldest inhabitants tell him that's all nonsense: real Amrumers, they reckon, are those who leave the island at the first opportunity. 'Anywhere' films at Cannes were few and far between, but it's perhaps no coincidence that those that fit the tag were the ones with most box office potential: Christopher McQuarrie's eighth instalment of the globe-racing Mission Impossible franchise, and Wes Anderson's latest all-star ensemble piece The Phoenician Scheme, whose shady industrialist protagonist Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) doesn't even need a passport, because 'I live anywhere'. They are anywhere films in terms of their production: M:I 8's big action set-pieces were filmed in London, Norway and thin air over South Africa, while The Phoenician Scheme is set in the fictional Middle Eastern-looking country of Phoenicia but was shot entirely in a studio in Babelsberg, outside Berlin, Germany. That may be expected of escapist films tilted at the box office, but also applied to two art-house productions with Hollywood involvement: Jennifer Lawrence-starring Die, My Love and Kristen Stewart's directorial debut The Chronology of Water are set in Montana, California, Texas and Oregon – and filmed in Canada, Latvia and Malta. These are clearly the kind of 'movies made in foreign lands' that Trump wants to see the back of. Yet over the course of the festival the consensus gradually shifted to the assumption that tariffs won't be the way it's done, because it would be unworkable. As Anderson asked sarcastically when questioned about the presidential film tariffs: 'Can you hold up the movie in customs?' 'Most people think it will just lead to the US copying the British model,' said Andreas Pense, a German lawyer who advises international film projects. The UK has by far been the most successful country in Europe at attracting American films, paying out £553m in tax relief to film companies in 2022-23. 'But the US would have to cough up an insane amount of money, and getting that approved won't be easy,' Pense added. 'American productions are just more expensive.' Some European countries with a presence at Cannes sounded surprisingly optimistic about standing their ground in a tax-incentive arms race with the US. Hungary, for example, does not just offer 30% in rebates to foreign producers making films in the central European state, but can also provide crews that are experienced and cheaper than those in the US, because unions pull much less weight in its cinematic sector than in the US. American productions being filmed outside Budapest this year include cold war spy drama Ponies, featuring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, and alien invasion comedy Alpha Gang, starring Cate Blanchett and Channing Tatum. Its trump card, Hungarian film professionals say, is that Budapest can impersonate anywhere in the world: Paris, Buenos Aires, Moscow, even London and New York. If you are making an anywhere film, what's to stop you? Perhaps the US president should take a leaf out of the rulebook of Dogme 95, the notorious Danish avant garde film-making movement. In Cannes, a group of Nordic five film-makers launched a reboot of the self-restricting school of cinema that brought forth Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. They retained only one rule from the original 1995 manifesto: 'The film must be shot where the narrative takes place.' A post on Truth Social, an executive order that binds all American directors to making American films set in America, and Hollywood's problems would be solved in one stroke. Next up: work out whether anyone would still want to watch those films.
CNN
15-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump sheds his MAGA isolationism during Middle East trip
For a leader who campaigned on a promise of 'America First' with deep isolationist strains, the first major overseas trip of President Donald Trump's second term signaled he may be breaking from the foreign policy doctrine of his first term – and emerging as more of a globalist. At least when it suits him. He's already spent his first few months aggressively transforming the role of the US in the world, and his four-day trip through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week has underscored how dramatically he has reimagined traditional alliances and inserted himself into global conflicts. His decision to end sanctions on Syria and become the first US president to meet with a Syrian leader in 25 years signaled an element of risk and engagement that is hardly part of the MAGA credo and does not fit neatly with the viewpoint of some of his most ardent conservative allies. His meeting with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, while behind closed doors, may well be remembered for producing the most important moment of his journey. During the trip, Trump implied he played a leading role in easing the rapidly rising tensions in India and Pakistan. He suggested the Iran nuclear talks could take a 'violent course' if Tehran doesn't adequately respond to 'friendly' negotiations with US officials. He said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would only engage in peace talks if Trump is personally involved. And he talked about the US establishing a 'freedom zone' in war-torn Gaza. 'My priority is to end conflicts, not to start them,' Trump told troops Thursday at the Al Udeid Air Base. 'But I will never hesitate to wield American power, if it's necessary, to defend the United States of America or our partners.' While Trump is hardly turning a new leaf, several moments along the way suggested contradicting views from his first term. The same president who issued a controversial travel ban on seven Muslim countries in 2017 paid a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. The same president who blasted Qatar for ties to terrorism embraced the nation's emir this week. The changes show he's willing to depart from typical GOP and MAGA positions, as Republicans in Congress and elsewhere have shown a repeated reluctance to criticize their party leader. Underscoring that point, a top Democrat praised Trump for his meeting with the interim Syrian president and his general handling of the trip. 'I'm not in the habit of praising Donald Trump,' House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes said during a conversation with POLITICO Thursday. Himes said he entered the week concerned about the threat of Iran, opportunities for Syria's new leadership and the conflict in Gaza. By the end of the week, Himes said he thought Trump 'played the Middle East pretty darn well.' At each stop along the way, the president presented himself in equal measure as dealmaker and peacemaker – in both cases, transactional. Still, while he embraces more globalist attitudes, many of his lofty foreign policy goals quickly ran into a more difficult reality. 'I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good: Make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,' Trump told business leaders Thursday during a roundtable in Doha. That vision, while always improbable, seemed even more out of reach as nearly 70 people were killed in the latest wave of overnight Israeli strikes on the Palestinian enclave. Trump has yet to show how much pressure he is willing to exert on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he did not visit this week. An Iran nuclear deal has also proven elusive, though Trump appeared to indicate progress has been made after four rounds of talks between special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials. Trump said Thursday they are 'very close' and suggested that Iran has 'sort of agreed' to terms. And Trump repeatedly stated this week that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has warned of violent consequences if they do so – but those comments were met with the ire of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who called Trump 'naive for thinking that he can come to our region, threaten us, and hope that we back down against his demands.' Similarly, Trump frequently pushed on Russia and Ukraine to engage in peace talks in Turkey on Thursday, even saying he was willing to attend. But when it became clear that Putin would not be going personally, Trump's tone changed. 'He was going to go, but he thought I was going. He wasn't going if I wasn't there and I don't believe anything's going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,' Trump said early Thursday. Notably absent from Trump's numerous public musings was any focus on human rights, a theme that his modern predecessors would frequently hit when visiting the region. The topic was not expected to come up publicly ahead of the trip, and Trump has lavished praise on his hosts. During the trip, Trump largely basked in the friendship of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and repeatedly shook his hand, an issue that was heavily spotlighted during former President Joe Biden's visit to the country in 2022 due to certain human rights implications. MBS had been directly linked by the US intelligence community to the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, with a report saying he 'approved' the operation that led to Khashoggi's death. When Biden met with the crown prince after, he was closely watched to see if he would shake MBS' hand. Instead, Biden offered a fist bump – which fellow Democrats criticized as overly familiar. But Trump posited that Biden was not friendly enough to the Saudis or other Arab allies. 'They were starving for love, because our country didn't give them love. … He travels all the way to Saudi Arabia, that case, and he gives him a fist bump. That's not what they want. They don't want a fist bump. They want to shake his hand,' Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. One thing is clear: Trump sets his foreign policy and believes it revolves around him. That was repeatedly illustrated by his emphasis on his role in the Ukraine-Russia talks, the Iran nuclear deal and pausing the India-Pakistan attacks. He said about the latter: 'I don't want to say I did, but I sure as hell helped settle the problem between Pakistan and India last week.' Meanwhile, the trip has also telegraphed a message to world leaders: Business deals and investment in the US, as well as some made-for-TV pomp and circumstance, can lead to favorable outcomes. Trump was the subject of days of flattery from his hosts, complete with Arabian horses, a cavalry of Tesla Cybertrucks and endless handshakes from some of the world's business elite. The White House touted what it described as 'transformative deals secured in Saudi Arabia,' pointing to multibillion-dollar investments in AI data centers, energy infrastructure, and technology. In Doha, Trump highlighted a major investment from Qatar in US-made Boeing airplanes, and ahead of the trip Trump has said he's planning to accept an expensive luxury plane from Qatari officials – despite numerous ethical and security concerns back home. Trump and his team, for their part, signed numerous agreements with both countries to bolster intergovernmental collaboration on a range of defense and energy issues – elevating MBS' global standing in the process despite past concerns about human rights abuses. And Trump's presence in Qatar made history; he was the first sitting president to make a formal state visit.
