CANNES, France — As the 76th Cannes Film Festival draws to a close, Los Angeles Times film critic Justin Chang and culture critic Mary McNamara got together to discuss their highlights (and lowlights) from this year’s event.
Justin Chang: We’re more than halfway through the Cannes Film Festival, and by this point, as usual, a certain tension has set in: I’m torn between the desire to go home at once — to see my family, to sleep in my own bed, or just to sleep, period — and the desire to stick around, to squeeze in as many movies as I can and make sure I don’t miss that hot under-the-radar title people are buzzing about (like “The Delinquents,” a critical favorite in the festival’s Un Certain Regard section).
This appetite for catch-up and discovery usually kicks in once we’re over the hump, and this year’s festival was humpier than most, what with those two hyped-up Hollywood behemoths, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” plus similarly buzzy titles like Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” and the first two episodes of HBO’s scandal-ridden series “The Idol.”
