Is it possible the French have lost their appetite for our pro-open borders Hollywood liberals misrepresenting the truth about the inundation of Muslim men into their towns and communities? 

CANNES — Another day, another dud. In its early days, the 69th Cannes Film Festival was one of pleasant surprises, including a three-hour German-language art-house comedy, Toni Erdmann, that had critics applauding during as well as after the film. Then there was Paterson, a Jim Jarmusch creation starring Adam Driver as a bus driver who writes poetry. The well-received film plays out like something of a poem itself. And even if it doesn’t win any official prizes, it has already captured the “Palme Dog” for best canine performance, by a bulldog named Nellie.

But many of cinema’s big names have proven less reliable. Woody Allen’s Café Society and Stephen Spielberg’s The BFG, both opening out of competition, were solid but hardly the directors’ best work. A Thursday night screening of The Neon Demon, written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Elle Fanning, drew jeers for its lurid, over-the-top stew of vampirism, cannibalism and a touch of necrophilia.

That was followed the next morning by The Last Face, Sean Penn’s fifth film as a director and his first since 2007’s Into the Wild. It’s a story of refugee crises and humanitarian aid (subjects with which the activist Penn is intimately familiar) but also, as an opening text explains with a thud: “about the love (pause) … between a man (pause) … and a woman.” You could hear the groans from the crowd.

Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem lead an international cast that includes Britain’s Jared Harris and French star Jean Reno. They are aid workers whose tumultuous love affair plays out over a decade and many explosions – and, lest we doubt their passion, through a variety of slow-motion scenes, soft-focus lenses and choral music.

Penn had little to say about the negative reaction to The Last Face. “I’ve finished the film so it’s not a discussion that I feel I can be of any value to,” he said. “I stand behind the film as it is, and everybody is going to be well entitled to their response.”

Via: National Post