Actors-turned-directors are turning heads at Cannes, and in this dispatch. Here are two films, one from Un Certain Regard and another from the Cannes Premieres section, which not only rely on actors moving behind the camera. They’re also queer movies that offer two very different experiences but nonetheless share the common theme of people searching to affirm their identities while finding wisdom in the process.
“Club Kid,” Jordan Firstman’s moving anthem for fatherhood, is a sweet, late-stage coming-of-age narrative that’s among the surprises at Cannes. After several shorts and online skits and impressions lampooning stereotypes of the most annoying people wrought by quarantine, Firstman makes his feature directorial debut, which is now A24’s major purchase of the festival for a stunning $15 million.
This Un Certain Regard film opens in 2016 Brooklyn with a hypnotic barrage of unbridled drug taking, queer sensuality, and steamy strobe lights. At the center of this frenzied space is the gay party promoter, Peter (Firstman, portraying a spin on his online persona), who’s doling out bumps of cocaine to all takers. While partying, two straight, drunken British women proposition Peter for sex. He rejects them. Later, one of them finds him making out with another man and decides to create a threesome in a back room. Though Peter is annoyed, when he hears the voyeuristic man he’s with is turned on by watching him have sex with a woman, Peter relents.
Fast forward ten years, and Peter is still partying hard, but he’s clearly worn out. His business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne), who’s equally troubled, is tired of Peter’s unprofessionalism and decides to cut him from their party company. Nearly broke, with a rent-controlled apartment where Nicky (Eldar Isgandarov), a ne’er-do-well queer philosopher from Azerbaijan, sleeps on his couch—Peter is further shocked when one of those British women arrives with his son, Arlo (Reggie Absolom). His mother is dead, and it’s now up to Peter to raise him.
What follows is an endearing display of how children can often inspire you to be your best self, even when you don’t think that self exists yet. Firstman and Absolom have sincere chemistry, nurturing a closeness that isn’t your prototypical maudlin father-son movie dynamic. There’s genuine trust in every scene between them. Firstman gets further mileage from Diego Calva, who plays Arlo’s stunning social worker. He also manages to pull real figures from his scene into the film, giving it a realist quality.
While Firstman proves his chops as a director—replicating the late-night New York scene with verve and intensity—he is equally impressive as an actor. When Peter and Arlo’s father-son bonding is interrupted by surprising circumstances, Firstman must shoulder a heavy emotional load. He doesn’t waver. One never gets the sense that he’s overreaching or manufacturing expression and feelings; instead, they arrive with a force as natural as the film’s side-splitting comedy. And though the film is about a man searching for equilibrium for the sake of his son, “Club Kid” is so insatiably fun, you hope the party never ends.
Another queer film, this one from Haiti, is Gessica Généus’ rhapsodic religious interrogation “Marie Madeleine.” Beginning on an aesthetically daring note: a dreamlike dawn sees a red-headed Black woman sauntering by the sea. She will awaken hours later, and through her, we will see, via a blurred, fisheye POV, Joseph (Béonard Kervens Monteau) approaching to rescue her. He takes her to the hospital as a whore who’s having a miscarriage, hence the red streak running down her pink dress. The woman, Mary Magdalene (Généus), is a sex worker; Joseph is the preacher’s son. The latter’s father is opening a church across the street from Mary’s brothel, a geographical landmine that leads to explosive confrontations between the highly religious parishioners and these carefree sex workers.
Though Joseph holds God and the Bible in high regard, he doesn’t condemn Mary. She encourages his passion for photography and brings him into her eclectic friend group, which includes a gay man intrigued by the shy Joseph. Mary and Joseph are also connected by losing their mothers at early ages and being generally misunderstood by those around them. Both Généus and Monteau deeply understand their respective characters, particularly Monteau—whose frame is so closed off from the world that he possesses the rigidity of tabernacle.
When it comes to critiquing the viciousness of zealous religiosity, Généus also assuredly marries the visual narrative with the scripted themes. The layout of Joseph’s church is consciously structured and overly composed, while Mary’s brothel is open and airy. The director also develops rapturous sequences that become seared into the spirit, like a queer parade whose revelry turns into a swirling celebration. Sometimes, Généus can rush her film, especially in the film’s first five minutes, which barely give space for the tragedy to settle before neatly tying up loose ends. Nevertheless, “Marie Madeleine” provides such soaring visuals that it’s easy to have an unshakeable faith in this ambitious aim.
