This is Palme d’Or 2024: Why fall under Anora’s spell?

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Anora, a young stripper from Brooklyn, is transformed into a modern-day Cinderella when she meets the son of a Russian oligarch. Without thinking, she enthusiastically marries her prince charming; But when the news reaches Russia, the fairy tale is quickly threatened: the young man’s parents travel to New York with the firm intention of annulling the marriage…

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It’s a little before evening this Saturday, May 25, 2024, when Sean Baker’s life and career are turned upside down. A few days before the presentation of Anora, the American director, well-placed among the favorites, becomes equal to Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant or Quentin Tarantino by winning the Palme d’Or.

Five months after Greta Gerwig’s jury win, here she is ready to face the public in the status she now holds. But Anora has what it takes to make it big and do better than The Florida Project’s 167,914 viewers, her biggest result in France so far.

palm of the general public

A perennial cliché is that the Palme d’Or is only awarded to films “boring”. strict. Radicals. which are more marked by their subject matter than by their availability. If it is true that winners like Titane, The Square, Without filter, Uncle Boonmee or Under Satan’s Sun can be divided beyond their qualities, this view is clearly reduced.

Especially since, between Fall’s Anatomy, Family Affair, Parasite, and I, Daniel Blake, most recent releases have ended up with a consensus Palme d’Or. In the good sense of the term, that is, the films that attracted the most people, from the jury to the critics and festival-goers.

Anora clearly belongs to the second category. Scheduled for the second half of the 77th Cannes Film Festival in the afternoon, its presentation was a triumph, eliciting hearty laughter and loud applause. And it’s hard not to get used to this re-reading of Cinderella (and by extension Pretty Woman) which is heading towards a plot worthy of a second half Sopranos episode.

If comedy has no place in the competition, we laugh a lot at Anora and her main character. Before being shocked at the end of the story, which does not lack energy and even confirms euphoria. And accessible to everyone, because the story of this stripper, under the guise of peeling off the veneer of the American dream, touches everyone’s aspirations and doubts. The desire to change our lives and the means we give ourselves to do so.

An instantly likable heroine, a supporting character that develops in a surprising way (like the film itself) and an absolutely insane central sequence.

Mike Madison, brilliant revelation

You may have seen her in the movie Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (alongside Austin Butler, Sydney Sweeney or Margaret Cowell, a sign that Quentin Tarantino had a hollow nose when it came to choosing Charles Manson’s followers). Then appears in the fifth scream. But Mikey Madison’s real revelation is today. Because the actor doesn’t just smash the screen: he makes confetti and then sets it on fire.

So much so that, according to the press and festival goers, the prize for female interpretation quickly became the minimum that Anora could claim in the list of winners of the recent Cannes Film Festival. Sean Baker’s film finally received the highest award, to the delight of its main actor, who will remember his first visit to France and its result, a new stage of a specific project for him.

“I didn’t get to audition for the project for the first time, so I was really excited,” Sean Baker told us on the second day of the Scream session, enthralled by his performance. “From there, we worked together for a year before shooting to figure out what kind of character and movie we wanted to be. I often feel like I’m playing very different characters than I am in real life. But Anora is the furthest thing from me that I’ve ever played.”

Anora is the furthest character from me that I’ve played

“Just in terms of the physicality and the voice, it’s really very different. Her sensibility and how she presents herself to the world is unlike anything I’ve ever done. I felt like I was constantly stepping out of comfort zones that I might have. Before I had to play this character every day I felt like I was kind of challenged to be true to the character, but it was also interesting.

A total performance for someone who is in almost every shot of the film and who also went through an intense prep phase: “I read a lot of books and memoirs from sex workers. I also talked to a lot of consultants who live Anora’s life and I practiced dance for about three months just because of that little twenty-second brilliance that appeared on the screen. All the stunts and dances are me and I wanted them to be realistic. , that’s why I worked with a dialect teacher, a Russian teacher. An investment that has more than paid off, for what we’re talking about now at the Oscars.

Blessing of Sean Baker

If you’re one of those who’s been closely following her filmography since 2015 and the release of Tangerine (or The Florida Project , which was a bit more revealing), you’ll probably have to wait for Anora to go see her at least. He did not receive the Palme d’Or. But for many, this film marks the discovery of Sean Baker’s cinema. And we advise those viewers to hurry up for her previous opus, especially since it hits theaters for the first time since October 23, with the starlet in the lead.

Because it was with this feature film released in 2012 that the American director found his favorite subject: sex workers. What we find are Tangerine trans whores, Red Rocket porn actress and Anora the stripper among others. Without the slightest desire to demand, but to carve out marginal characters, both in American society and in its mainstream cinema.

“For a long time I wanted to tell a story about the Russian community in Brighton Beach and Coney Island”– the director told us in Cannes, on the second day of the film’s triumphant presentation. “Even before the idea of ​​following a sex worker, it was our idea Karen Karaguliani who plays Taurus and has connections to this world because his wife is Russian. So I knew he would be able to open doors for me, introduce me to people.”

“We had the opportunity to find a story together, but it took a long time. And I came across this marriage story that involved the mafia. At first it was going to be a gangster movie, but I really didn’t want to. One, even though I wanted his marriage to be To include wealth, and it was during brainstorming that we thought she might marry the son of a Russian oligarch, which made us laugh and realized we had a good idea.

At first it was going to be a gangster film, but I really didn’t want to make it

This is where the aforementioned central sequence comes from, which takes the film into a different territory and reminds us that Sean Baker is a master of the art of juggling tones. Like the Mandarin and his retelling of Cinderella with the story of the lost shoe, the end of The Florida Project or the dream sequences of Red Rocket, the director relies on elements of the fairy tale to dynamite the American dream by revising Pretty Woman (so again, Cinderella). in its own way.

His eighth feature film is funny, sexy, energetic, euphoric, moving. Despite being both realistic and stylized. And the general public too. and worn by an actor in a state of gratitude. Sean Baker, the new leader of American independent cinema until now, thanks to this Palme d’Or, will move to another field, which, as he promised us when he returned to France in September, will not prevent him from continuing what he already is. does

On the contrary, he sees this award as a confirmation and recognition of his work. What happens after he delivers his best film to date (and one of the highlights of the film year) is proof that life is sometimes done well. And it can be even more beautiful if you give Anora the success she fully deserves.

Comments collected by Maximilien Pierret in Cannes on May 22, 2024