“Hope” — an extremely ambitious blockbuster hopeful about an alien invasion in a sleepy South Korean mountain town — jolted the Cannes Film Festival awake on Sunday night with a 6-minute ovation.
Directed by Na Hong-jin, the big-budget epic combined a gritty survival story and an original sci-fi mythology — no one quite knew what to expect from the title, which has domestic distribution through Neon.
It seemed to serve a bit of everything, judging by audience reactions at the Grand Palais premiere. The film’s first 40 minutes brings what feels like a continuous cut of increasingly bloody action, climaxing in the leveling of an entire town. Potty-mouthed police officers and hill people try to cope with a mysterious creature that’s ripped their home to shreds.
As the mystery unfolds, an alien race reveals itself with unclear intentions. The film features one of the wildest moments the Palais has likely ever seen: an elderly man describes encountering the aliens while having a bowel movement in the woods. Attempting not to make noise from either of his ends, he describes to a police officer the measures he takes to keep from having diarrhea. More insane? The crowd loved it, cackling with laughter while clad in black tie and haute couture, sitting inside a theater described as “the temple of Cinema.”
Starring Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, and Hoyeon Jung as well as Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton, “Hope” marks Hong-Jin’s fourth film to bow in Cannes but the first in competition.
Even before Cannes, “Hope” had emerged as one of the buzziest films going into the festival. This was underlined when Neon — currently on a run of six consecutive Palme d’Or winners — acquired rights to the film for North America, the U.K. and Australia. Days later, Mubi swooped on the film for multiple territories, including Latin America, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Turkey.
Hong-Jin first came to Cannes in 2008 with “The Chaser,” which premiered out of competition. He returned in 2011 with the Un Certain Regard entry “The Murderer (The Yellow Sea)” and again with “Goksung,” which screened out of competition in 2016. Of the cast, Fassbender, Vikander and Jung-min have been to the festival multiple times (Fassbender first in 2008 with his breakout “Hunger”), while for Hoyeon, Russell and Britton it’s their first film in the official selection.
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