How the Cannes 2025 festival rang
How did the seventy -eight edition of the Cannes Film Festival play? Definitely good for music fans, given that the number of films focused on strictly musical themes It was much higher than usual, in some cases to also touch the topics and reflections relevant to the world of music industry in its contemporary dynamics dominated by streaming, social visibility and fandom.
More than unforgettable soundtracks, this Cannes gave us films that reflect on the cultural identity of groups which are recognized precisely through a specific musical type; From the folk of the early twentieth century US to pounding music to the center of the Rave Culture. In the endless selection of the French Festival then there are two musical sui generis between the film in competition for the golden palm and news presented in the collateral sections.
Cinema tells the difficulties of contemporary cultural industry
It was Apple TV+ he brought the two most relevant music films to Croisette, confirming the great attention given to the theme of his catalog. The first and probably most awaited is “Bono: stories of surrender”, The elegant black and white documentary directed by Andrew Dominik. Stellar production on an audiovisual level and a great talent director elevate the usual musical biopic in which an artist tells himself through his discography in a sort of theatrical music monologue in which a more honest bono than expected also proves to be an excellent interpreter, capable of supporting a monologue halfway between the musical and theatrical, which also stops at the San Carlo in Naples. We have already told you about it in the dedicated review.
It is always Apple TV+ that produces a really surprising musical theme film. Spike Lee has in fact presented “Highest 2 Lowest”, the surprising in Croisette “Highest 2 Refurbishment of a classic of Akira Kurosawa filmography set in the world of music business American. Denzel Washington plays a record who became the King Mida of the Industry after leaving the Bronx. David King has launched big musical names of rap but finds himself citing the transformation of his multidenkine African American record label into a machine to squeeze the artists and dilute their cultural identity and belonging to precise imaginary to grind great numbers on social networks. As anticipated in the dedicated review is A very funny but also cynical movie on how much money and privilege reign on the musical industry today.
Also noteworthy Love Trial of the Japanese Koji Fukada; A legal drama that tells how a J-pop star ended up on trial for having broken a clause of her contract that prevented her from having sentimental relationships. In fact, in the world of oriental light music remain very morbid relationships between fandoms and artists, With the latter forced to sell not only music, but also a romantic imagination of purity, with dramatic repercussions on personal life. The film is based on many cases of judicial news in which the artists have been forced to give up their private life or to hide it in order not to break their record contract and the dream of fans of a romantic and emotional availability of their darling on stage.
Music as a cultural identity is the protagonist of two films in competition for the golden palm, one of which is also a sort of musical. In the drama of Oliver Hermanus “The History of Sound” two musician scholars travel to North America to engrave on wax cylinders examples of popular songs spread in the remote regions of the countrybetween isolated groups, often marginalized, which will give Po iil away to the American folk. The protagonists Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal then perform firsthand in the interpretation of about ten aforementioned ballads. The French opening film “Partir a Jour” by Amélie Bonnin tells the return to the French outskirts of a chef in search of a Michelin star and who finds himself wondering how his life would have been if his love of youth had materialized. All in a musical at the “Moulin Rouge” or “Mamma mia!”, whose plot is built precisely starting from the texts of famous French pop successes.
Among the most memorable films of the edition there is “Sirât” by Oliver Laxe, who follows a father and son still a boy who begin with their old Seat a follow a group of participants in Rave Party in the middle of the Moroccan desert, With the civil war that urges and the difficulties of moving to such an extreme natural environment. At the musical and narrative level, the film is obviously imbued with the pounding beats of a music “which is designed to be ballad”, but it is not the usual condescending and hopeful portrait of a group of people on the margins united by the passion for music, indeed: it was one of the most shocking films of the entire edition.
The musical choices of two of the Italian delegation films are very refined. For “outside”, his biographical film on the turbulent post prison years of the writer Goliarda Sapienza, Mario Martone managed to obtain from Robert Wyatt of the soft machines permission to use five of the historical pieces of its catalog. Instead in “Le Città di Pianura” by Francesco Sossai – a sort of road movie set in the small forgotten towns of the Venetian plain – the US country music and the traditional Venetian one merge into the Unpublished written in local dialect composed of Krano for the film.
As for the memorable use of songs in individual films, there are at least a couple of honorable mentions to do. The first is for the unsettling use that ari aster from the catchphrase “Fireworks” by Kary Perry, whose item punctures one of the most tense moment of the contemporary western film “Eddington”.
Very tender and hopeful instead e the karaoke moment of “Urchin”, Director’s debut of actor Harry Dickinson, in UI the ex -homeless protagonist and two colleagues tell dance and sing on the notes of “Whole Again” by Atomic Kitten. “Stranger” by Anna von Hausswolff is instead the song that the two protagonists of “Sound of Falling” listen to in the summer on which they know each other.
Then deserves the version of “Prisencolinensinaveniusol” by Adriano Celentano, That Spike Lee wanted to the tail qualifications of his latest film by entrusting the interpretation to Aiyana-Lee.