Page - 204 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

Joel Mayward Festival Review 72nd Festival de Cannes Finding Faith in Film While standing in the lengthy queues at the 2019 Festival de Cannes, I would strike up conversations with fellow film critics from around the world to discuss the films we had experienced. During the dialogue, I would express my interests and background: I am both a film critic and a theologian, and thus intrigued by the rich connections between theology and cinema. To which my interlocutor would inevitably raise an eyebrow and reply, “How are those two subjects even related?” Yet every film I saw at Cannes somehow addressed the question of God, religion or spirituality. Indeed, I was struck by how the most famous and most glamorous film festival in the Western world was a God-haunted environ- ment where religion was present both on- and off-screen. As I viewed films in competition for the Palme d’Or, as well as from the Un Certain Regard, Direc- tors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week selections, I offer brief reviews and reflections on the religious dimension of Cannes 2019.1 SUBTLE AND SUPERFLUOUS SPIRITUALITY Sometimes the presence of religion was subtle or superfluous. For example, in the perfectly bonkers Palme d’Or winner, Gisaengchung (Parasite, Bong Joon- Ho, KR 2019), characters joke about delivering pizzas to a megachurch in Seoul. Or there’s Bill Murray’s world-weary police officer crossing himself and exclaim- ing (praying?), “Holy fuck, God help us” as zombie hordes bear down on him and Adam Driver in The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch, US 2019). In contrast to these more gratuitous examples, in the brilliantly funny and tender The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, US 2019), the friendship between two men, Kyle and Mike, is told through a series of seven vignettes exploring adult relationships and romances for the millennial generation. The film displays a remarkable 1 My full film coverage from Cannes 2019 can be found at my website, Cinemayward, www. cinemayward.com, and at Fuller Studio, https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/contributor/joel-mayward/. Some film descriptions have been adapted and re-published in the present review. Special thanks to Stefanie Knauss at JRFM for her encouragement and advocacy, and to Elijah Davidson at Fuller Studio for helping me gain press accreditation for Cannes. DOI: 10.25364/05.05:2019.2.13 204 | Joel Mayward www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 204–213