InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 21.5

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CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2023 remade and series-ified Dead Ringers. Although Schmitz is unable to build on this tradition’s rich history meaningfully, he’s still able to at least brush against it in a way that’s dynamic and playful. As the film progresses, Gabriel increasingly dissolves into the identity of his twin; he wears his clothes, mimics his grooming, and at one juncture, even sleeps with his brother’s mistress. In a charming twist, even the viewer is left uncertain of which brother they’re watching — our confusion musically converging with that of the characters. This playfully leaves The Other Laurens’ audience with compelling philosophical questions, like whether people assume their identities or their identities assume them — even as the relatively simple nature of Schmitz’s film tends to collapse under the complexity of its own aspired wit. The Other Laurens is chock-full of compelling characters, ranging from a greedy, American wife to an ex-Marine, to a Spanish drug dealer, and even a geriatric, Harley-riding motorbike gang. These characters joltingly orbit a complex, albeit obscured world, without quite breaching its atmosphere. They are clumsily assembled paradoxes that grate in and out of scenes without friction, masses in constant movement with absolutely no emotional weight. Only some of their deficiencies, however, can be blamed on the awkward script. The quality of acting in The Other Laurens ranges from somewhat inspired — first-time actor Louise Leroy deserves credit for buoying the film’s emotional depth — to downright terrible; during various monologue scenes, it appears as if the speaker is being repelled, if not repulsed, by the camera in front of them. This, alongside hurdling dialogue, nonexistent tension, a hodgepodge plot, and a Dadaist sense of causality — 9/11 is forcefully made a symbol of the dissolution of the brothers’ relationship — leaves The Other Laurens swimming against its own current. And still, the film manages to find an ambling sort of rhythm despite itself. To say it’s a success would be wrong; it just isn’t quite a failure. The rich visuals are legitimately beautiful, recalling Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, or fellow Belgian Lukas Dhont’s recent Close, while Thomas Turin’s pulsating electronic score equally enchants, sharing a similar sensibility with that of Dev Hynes’ work on Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener or Daniel Lopatin’s for Uncut Gems. Even the production design is 13
FESTIVAL COVERAGE excellent, creating a hyperreal, uncanny effect that simulates an atmosphere of mystery, surveillance, and discomfort. Despite poor writing and worse direction, everything that’s virtually inanimate at the periphery of The Other Laurens lends the film enough of a strong enough pulse to keep viewers watching till the end, whether or not their collective breaths are held by the non-suspense of the film’s flaccid mystery. — CONOR TRUAX INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL Pham Thien An Newly christened Director’s Fortnight General Delegate Julien Rejl has expressed a desire to highlight new voices with his first programmed slate — not just by selecting filmmakers who are early in their careers, but also films still lacking sales representation. And it’s a gesture toward the success of this strategy that the 2023 Camera d’Or — awarded to the best first film premiering at Cannes overall — went to a work from this section: Pham Thien An’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell. Pham’s film begins with a long shot in which the focal point shifts four separate times. Starting on a soccer game, the camera eventually tracks a mascot (who had been motionless in the foreground) into an open air cafe, then settling on a group of three men discussing faith — one of whom is Thien (Lê Phong Vũ), the film's main character. Though this conversation lasts quite a while, Pham has one more camera move in store for us: soon outside the cafe it begins to rain, and then suddenly, a crash is heard off-camera, before we pan over to the aftermath of a motorcycle accident. As it turns out, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is a film composed almost entirely of long takes like this one; it’s already earned comparisons to those from the likes of Bi Gan and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. But from the beginning, Pham’s film seems uniquely self-aware, intentionally foregrounding the qualities of the long-take school of filmmaking that tend to receive both the most praise and the harshest criticism. Though the plot of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell revolves around Thien taking care of his nephew after a deadly motorcycle crash, it’s not the same crash as the one featured in the film’s first shot, 14
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InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 21.5

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