Deauville 2021: we saw Nicolas Cage and his truffle pig, Johnny Depp investigates the …

Pig by Michael Sarnoski (Competition)

Metropolitan FilmExport

It is the story of a hermit played by Nicolas Cage, who returns to the city to find his truffle sow which was stolen from him. On paper, Pig has it all to be a vengeful B-series and the scene of its lead actor’s excesses in the wilderness. But no, quite the contrary. Michael Sarnoski’s first feature film makes an impression with its sensitivity and the restraint shown by the actor. We sometimes think of a less dark version of Joe, already presented at Deauville, but the story stands out when it opposes authenticity to supposedly innovative concepts but without soul.

If Pig takes place in the kitchen world in the United States (and in Portland more precisely), his words can easily be transposed to other universes, starting with that of the cinema. While the independent branch struggles to exist in an increasingly cautious industry, Michael Sarnoski reminds us that nuggets are still emerging regularly. And that simplicity is sometimes good, especially since it does not prevent emotion.

City of Lies by Brad Furman (Premiere)

Good Films

Five years after Infiltrator, premiered in 2016, Brad Furman is back in Deauville with City of Lies. Another true story: that of Russell Poole, whose investigation into the death of Notorious BIG (and that of Tupac by extension) revealed the involvement of corrupt Los Angeles police in the case. After JFK L’Enquête, plots animate the weekend of festival-goers on the big screen. Deprived of release in the United States following an incident involving the star and a technician on the set in 2018, the film is also being ported by Forest Whitaker.

Classic but effective, even if a little confused at times with its back and forth in time, City of Lies amazes. Because, in the end, the emphasis is more on corruption within the police than on Notorious BIG, via the cases of three people involved in the case to varying degrees. But this allows him to be in tune with the news and the protests against police violence, or the Black Lives Matter movement, while an end card tells us that 50% of the murders of African-Americans are never resolved in the United States.

Like John F. Kennedy’s, Tupac and Notorious BIG’s may never be either. But this film has the merit of shedding light on them that is no doubt unknown to the general public.

Compartment N ° 6 of Juho Kuosmanen (Première – L’Heure de la Croisette)

High and Short

Director of the much noticed Olli Mäki, the Finnish Juho Kuosmanen makes a stopover on the boards of Deauville, crowned with his Cannes Grand Prix, aboard a train. The one in which Laura (Seidi Haarla) travels to Russia to study the pteroglyphs (drawings on stones) of an archaeological site in the Arctic Sea. Installed in Compartment N ° 6 of the title, she meets a man who appears to be her opposite, but whom events will bring closer together.

Paced, twice, by the famous “Travel Travel” from Desireless, the journey is soft and full of tenderness, so much so that one arrives safely with a light heart. Very feel-good, however, the feature lacks a little something to make a lasting impression. A little more surprises for example, so that the result, which evokes the pursuit of one’s dreams and what one leaves behind to achieve them, is even more exotic.