Teetering on a ledge overlooking the Ottauquechee River in Quechee, Vermont, sits the house of the famend glassware firm Simon Pearce. As you maneuver your means alongside the aisles, holding your breath to keep away from touching completely something, phrases spur into being: whimsical. Gentle. Reflective. Refractive. Crafted. And sure, additionally costly. We query how we’d work together with it. Do we dare choose it up? Do we marvel at how daylight goes by way of it? Are we “Blown Away?” Do we glance alongside it, round it, or by way of it, like an aquarium?
The official theme of the Cannes Film Festival is certainly “Aquarium,” from the Carnival of the Animals. It serenades expertise on the steps of the Grand Lumiere. It is met with applause because the “Festival de Cannes” brand seems through the opening credit of every movie. For so lengthy, I seemed into this aquarium from afar, holding my breath to keep away from touching completely something, making an attempt to see what life seemed like from afar. And this time, leaping into the oceanic enchantment of the movie competition, I did my finest to outlive within the tank.
The home windows featured within the Cannes movies, whether or not the view of the ocean by way of a porthole in “Romeria,” the time-lapse surprise by way of a window in “Resurrection,” the angled and expansive home windows of “Splitsville,” the dusty windshields of “Sirat,” or the pueblo desert views in “Eddington,” current themselves as alternatives, not as mirrors. Even “Nouvelle Vague,” a film about French “cinemaniacs” at Cannes that debuted for French cinemaniacs at Cannes, is extra of a window into the filmmaking course of than a mirrored image again. This is what occurs when artists head into the Cannes “hot shop” with a novel thought, visible storytelling, and audio parts. Add warmth, and magic occurs.
Glass itself may be sculpted. Or at the very least, tried to. On the underside flooring of Simon Pearce, one can view proper into the glass blowing course of, no window required. You’re enveloped by the warmth. Sand, lime, and warmth flip thousands and thousands of items into glass.
The furnace of Cannes, too, shapes artists. The uniqueness of Cannes is the million totally different moments and experiences, like items of sand, that may flip right into a fragile, stunning factor that’s distinctive to you.
During the 2025 Pierre Angénieux Tribute, Dion Beebe reminded us of the connection between sand and glass, ceaselessly becoming on this beachside competition, sharing that he needed to thank “Pierre Angénieux for taking those grains of sand and creating extraordinary glass.”
“Sentimental Value,” this 12 months’s Grand Prix winner, is equally constructed up of beautiful little moments, like items of sand. It sticks to you and stays with you, like sand and glass. In a primary take a look at “Sentimental Value” shared by NEON, the undisputed current king of Palm d’Or winners, our primary character, Nora, makes an attempt to again away from a window, knocks a vase, after which miraculously saves it from its destiny of being smashed on the ground.
In the Grand Lumiere, we collectively held our breath as that vase shook precariously on the desk and was finally retrieved, saved from its destiny. It’s a second that solidifies all the themes in Sentimental Value, nonetheless fleeting they’ll really feel for us at any given second: imaginative and prescient, household dynamics, recollections, locations, movement, and relationships. From the opening scenes that happen in a theater to a home effectively lived in, “Sentimental Value” facilities on breath and foundations, even when the breath is misplaced or the foundations are cracked. Every basis, regardless of whether it is splintered, centered, or classic, gives a novel viewpoint. The Cannes movies this 12 months are not any totally different.
Whether we’re swaying within the backside of boats (“Romeria”), compressed into small rooms and vans (“Love On Trial”), seeing vistas from pueblos (“Eddington”), tenting in automobiles within the desert (“Sirat”, or constructing a brand new life in a cabin in the midst of nowhere (“Die My Love”),
Cannes itself is a basis, nay, an establishment. It supplies, nay, invitations you to a window to view each scene as significant, such because the falling vase. Beauty is present in each scene, such because the analysis sequence within the library for “Sentimental Value.” Fingers thumb by way of data. A piano rating performs. Moments like that, seemingly small, might maintain sentimental worth to us.
A movie like “Sentimental Value” might need been heavy-handed in one other pair of arms. “Splitsville,” too, if taken on by a director not as dedicated to cinematic comedy as Michael Angelo Covino, might have been held wildly in a different way and fewer efficiently. But right here, you may maintain the story in your arms. We look alongside it, round it, or by way of it. Cannes is the largest movie competition on the planet, and but, not like Simon Pearce, it’s a stunning factor you may cup in your individual arms like glass. Or a movie. After all, as we’re reminded in Nouvelle Vague, “editing is where we hold the past, present, and future in our hands.” A movie is created by way of warmth and imaginative and prescient. It goes into the oven in a technique, and comes out one other.
In order for us to be “Blown Away,” even by ourselves and our personal work, it must be uniquely yours. That is a sentiment echoed by the panelists at The American Pavilion’s occasion on Short movies. Your initiatives ought to be one thing private and a challenge that takes dangers.
But, glass is inevitable: it breaks. Characters bounce proper by way of it in a number of Cannes movies (names omitted to keep away from any spoilers or key moments). “Sirat” itself, like glass, is precarious. Through the complete movie, we’re by no means fairly certain the place it would change or break or be shattered. And shatter you’ll. While your nerves flip to glass, the movie loudly asks the place the top of the world begins for you. At what level will you, or your eardrums, shatter? It is a reminder that your life and every thing in it are as fragile as glass. And then follows up questioning if you happen to’re ready with your individual grounding methods.
And in the midst of that have, by some means, think about the Grand Lumiere’s lights spontaneously come on, smacking your already shocked system. Prompted by an influence outage that took out the remainder of the realm, we glance round at everybody’s equally illuminated, shocked faces, once more seeking to discover our breath. Our personal fragility, and I assume the town’s confirmed in a single second.
Are we so fragile that we will fall? Perhaps, just like the poster of “Eddington,” careening off the cliff in pursuit of a false conspiracy? Is “Eddington” a mirror, a magnifying glass, a kaleidoscope, or a distorted filter? Perhaps it’s a break up diopter, lovingly and creatively deployed in Bi Gan’s cinematic reflection dream “Resurrection,” decided to maintain two issues in focus on the similar time, however within the case of Eddington, failing to return to a grand conclusion. The artifacts of the 2020 lockdown, dutifully recrafted in Eddington all the way down to the hoarding of bathroom paper and dinners to go, briefly (although maybe for too lengthy) place us again in that precarious time. It reminded us of our personal fragility (and sure, watching Eddington whereas a number of within the viewers coughed away was a novel expertise).
Throughout the competition, it’s unclear which a part of you’ll break or shatter first. Will it’s your sleep schedule? Your eardrums on the Agnes Varda, the place the combo on “Die My Love” was so loud, it pulsated by way of you and the ground (mockingly, in a cause I’m not right here to spoil, it’s becoming that I noticed “Resurrection” there too).
And then, in a comforting means, you notice that it doesn’t matter. Even if you happen to broke someplace, had some form of blemish, there are nonetheless, after all, Seconds: Simon Pearce’s second line of “still handmade,” “still fully functional,” and nonetheless “distinctly Simon Pearce” glass. Uniquely yours.
The mark of a superb director, I feel, is whether or not we will establish and inform that their mark is left on the movie. You don’t should benefit from the product or agree with the alternatives, however if you happen to can respect the distinctive viewpoint, then the director has finished their job.
In the glass artwork world, there are these recognizable by title and product, like Chihuly glass. Or Simon Pearce. They are identified for making one thing uniquely theirs and instantly identifiable.
Cannes dares you to do the identical. With care. And with your individual arms.
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