Steve McQueen’s marathon documentary divides Cannes

By AFP

CANNES: Eyelids grew heavy and bums numb on Thursday at a four-and-a-half-hour screening of Steve McQueen’s documentary on Amsterdam all through World War II, which Cannes critics each adored or suffered by means of.

The director of Oscar-winning ‘Twelve Years a Slave,’ tells the story of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, a metropolis the place he now lives and never utilizing a single shot of archival footage.

Instead, he motion pictures of us of their homes and scenes throughout the metropolis, whereas a narrator recounts, with out emotion, the horrors that occurred in that spot when the Netherlands suffered one among many highest fees of Jewish deaths in Europe.

Much of the documentary, ‘Occupied City’, was filmed all through the Covid lockdown, and footage of boarded-up retailers, an announcement of a curfew, and protests, at cases play as a backdrop to the World War II narration.

The disconnect between the earlier and the present is purposeful.

“It’s about living with ghosts and about the past and the present sort of merging,” McQueen knowledgeable Variety journal.

However, the extended museum-installation-style documentary had a variety of viewers members nodding off. More than two dozen left sooner than the 15-minute intermission, with others not returning for the second half.

Some critics gushed over the monumental problem and its novel technique, with Deadline calling it one among many “great WWII-themed films,” whereas others slammed it as “numbing.”

“The film is a trial to sit through, and you feel that from almost the opening moments,” talked about Variety.

“It’s more like listening to 150 encyclopedia entries in a row. Who did McQueen think he was making this movie for? If it plays in theatres, it seems all but designed to provoke walk-outs.”

“Occupied City” is impressed by a e book written by McQueen’s historian companion Bianca Stigter:  “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945).”

McQueen shot 36 hours of film for the problem over three years.

“It wasn’t a case of wanting to do something long,” McQueen talked about in an interview with IndieWire. “It was a case of wanting to do something right.”

“As much as it is about the past, this film is extremely about the present,” McQueen talked about.

“Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from the past. Things sort of overtake us,” he talked about, referring to the rise of the far-right in trendy cases.

CANNES: Eyelids grew heavy and bums numb on Thursday at a four-and-a-half-hour screening of Steve McQueen’s documentary on Amsterdam all through World War II, which Cannes critics each adored or suffered by means of.

The director of Oscar-winning ‘Twelve Years a Slave,’ tells the story of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, a metropolis the place he now lives and never utilizing a single shot of archival footage.

Instead, he motion pictures of us of their homes and scenes throughout the metropolis, whereas a narrator recounts, with out emotion, the horrors that occurred in that spot when the Netherlands suffered one among many highest fees of Jewish deaths in Europe.googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.present(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );

Much of the documentary, ‘Occupied City’, was filmed all through the Covid lockdown, and footage of boarded-up retailers, an announcement of a curfew, and protests, at cases play as a backdrop to the World War II narration.

The disconnect between the earlier and the present is purposeful.

“It’s about living with ghosts and about the past and the present sort of merging,” McQueen knowledgeable Variety journal.

However, the extended museum-installation-style documentary had a variety of viewers members nodding off. More than two dozen left sooner than the 15-minute intermission, with others not returning for the second half.

Some critics gushed over the monumental problem and its novel technique, with Deadline calling it one among many “great WWII-themed films,” whereas others slammed it as “numbing.”

“The film is a trial to sit through, and you feel that from almost the opening moments,” talked about Variety.

“It’s more like listening to 150 encyclopedia entries in a row. Who did McQueen think he was making this movie for? If it plays in theatres, it seems all but designed to provoke walk-outs.”

“Occupied City” is impressed by a e book written by McQueen’s historian companion Bianca Stigter:  “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945).”

McQueen shot 36 hours of film for the problem over three years.

“It wasn’t a case of wanting to do something long,” McQueen talked about in an interview with IndieWire. “It was a case of wanting to do something right.”

“As much as it is about the past, this film is extremely about the present,” McQueen talked about.

“Unfortunately, we never seem to learn from the past. Things sort of overtake us,” he talked about, referring to the rise of the far-right in trendy cases.