“Thank you to the jury for letting the monsters in. » Director Julia Ducournau's speech as she received the Palme d'Or for Titanium at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021, resonates today as the founding key to a new era in the world of so-called “genre” films. In recent years, a new generation of filmmakers, including many women, has unashamedly taken over these films (fantasy, horror, etc.) to bring them up to the taste of the times and their own questions.
Thus, in May, Cannes rewarded another Frenchwoman, Coralie Fargeat, with the screenplay prize for her atomic The Substance (in theaters Wednesday): “I dreamed of this film going to Cannes, because this festival is not afraid of novelty or works that are a little off the rails and shake up.»
Cannes 2024: the prize for audacity is awarded to… Jacques Audiard
The film resurrects 1990s star ( Ghost, Indecent proposal …), aka Elisabeth Sparkle, glory of television aerobics in a low-cut leotard, in conflict with herself and a salacious patriarchy embodied by a vulgar Dennis Quaid at will, who fires her overnight because of the date of expiry: she is 50 years old and, he is convinced, viewers want fresher flesh and plumper buttocks.
Stunned, Elisabeth throws herself headlong into a Faustian pact when she discovers a miraculous, fluorescent substance which, once injected, gives birth to her perfect avatar, the famous “best version of herself”, young and ultra-sexy. (the bombshell Margaret Qualley). But the spell only lasts if each gives way to the other every seven days… Too late, Elisabeth has produced her monster, both her double and her rival, who will drag her into a semi-jubilant abyss semi-sordid of ever gorier transformations.
Director Julia Ducournau received the Palme d'Or for Titanium at the Cannes Film Festival. (Credits: LTD/PAUL GRANDSARD INSTITUT LUMIERE/SAIF IMAGES)
Ce Portrait de Dorian Gray Hollywood and bloody caused talk of the Croisette and caused people to leave and even feel uncomfortable in the middle of the film… Feminist “body horror” had for once not been relegated to midnight screenings reserved for thrill-seekers: the film appeared in official competition, showing that there was indeed a new genre within the “genre”.
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« It is in the process of acquiring its letters of nobility and is becoming what we call in the United States the elevated genre: a more intellectual cinema, with a real porosity between arthouse and horror cinema.estimates Aude Hesbert, director of the Gérardmer International Fantastic Film Festival. If the horror film has always filled theaters (and not just for Halloween), it is evolving, and so is its audience: “ We always underestimated him, thinking he was masculine and a slasher fan [film d’horreur traditionnel]she continues, even though it is a cultured, cinema-loving and curious audience . »
This style of cinema and its many ramifications – slasher gore, fantasy, strange, poetic… – are a hit in theaters: the American killer clown of Terrifier 3like the spider invasion of Vermines by Frenchman Sébastien Vanicek, the fantastic thriller Vincent must die by the Franco-Belgian Stéphan Castang or the zombie films of the platforms. French distributors (The Jokers Films or Capricci) are also trying the adventure, encouraged by the public authorities: the CNC has created an aid fund for genre cinema, and the Grand-Est Region has specialized in aid to these shoots. The genre is attractive because it addresses the anxieties of society in a more current way.
« Fear has always been a social object, and each era has its own, continues Aude Hesbert. During the Cold War, we were afraid of nuclear power and communists. Today, we are afraid of mutations, of changes in the body and the climate, of technology… This cinema plays politics without wanting to. » In 2023, we have also seen this with the enormous success of Animal Kingdom by Thomas Cailley, drawing the parallel between adolescent mutations and those of the planet.
A loud disturbing and jubilant cry
The directors also fully embrace the explosive feminist significance of their words. Far from the submissive woman of old horror films, today's heroine takes her revenge on society. “ There is a new generation in a genre which has long been masculine and where women were mainly victims who ended up in the slaughterhouse, observes Aude Hesbert. The presence of Demi Moore in The Substance carries an important message: she is an icon of genre cinema who manages to overcome the glass ceiling of age, in a film that talks about that!»
The New York Timeseven made a podcast about it… The director, for her part, claims this great disturbing cry, jubilant and full of hemoglobin: “ The Substance is a gesture, totally voluntary, to give this great feminist kick to shake this world and its system, and above all to do it by being loud, not delicate, visible, and above all by not apologizing for being there !» Far from recognizing themselves in the post-New Wave realistic films, these directors saw in the genre a way of talking about the human and the female body, so often eroticized, in a different way.
“I made the decision to remove Ibrahim Maalouf from the jury” (Aude Hesbert, director of the Deauville American Cinema Festival)
« I like these films because they have no rules! We create our own, to finally break free from the shackles, continues Coralie Fargeat. I grew up with Disney princesses, Barbie dolls and the pretty girl who served as a foil to the heroes… I didn't recognize myself in that at all, I even felt monstrous! Finally, today, a new, original and unprecedented imagination appears: we can identify with it and bring a little balance to all of this.»
Already, in his first feature film, Grave (2016), Julia Ducournau portrayed a young vegetarian woman who became hungry for human flesh to address the theme of identity, before portraying a young mutant with murderous impulses and a monstrous pregnancy in Titanium . In Coralie Fargeat's first film,Revengea raped heroine reversed the roles of executioner and victim by violently decimating her attackers.
« The genre allows this extremism and this letting go that we do not allow ourselves in real life, believes the director. It is the antithesis of everyday femininity, always in restraint and corseting.» In the same vein, we were also able to seeMy Beastby Colombian Camila Beltrán, a story of the devil, the full moon and the metamorphosis of an adolescent girl; and we will soon see the feminist revenge movie by Noémie Merlan,Women on the balconyetanimals,by Frenchwoman Emma Benestan, tackling the very macho environment of Camargue bullfighting with a young woman in change and thirsty for revenge.
Coralie Fargeat claims this big, disturbing, jubilant cry full of hemoglobin.(Credits: LTD/PAUL GRANDSARD INSTITUT LUMIERE/SAIF IMAGES)
Hemoglobin and violence would thus be more effective than all the speeches: “The playful and enjoyable experience of the spectator goes hand in hand with the substance of the film, adds Coralie Fargeat. The strong emotions and the visceral and sensory “trip” that I offer are a very powerful vehicle for talking about real political, societal subjects, which for me have been the DNA of genre film since Night of the Living Dead. »
In January 2024, the Gérardmer festival also awarded its prize toHungrya Canadian zombie film with fighting women fighting against the undead, when men were reluctant to become heroes… From January 29 to February 2, 2025, the next edition of the festival, which brings together 40,000 spectators in five days, will decline the theme of ghosts. Because the genre appeals even to “elders”: Steven Soderbergh will be released in 2025Presencea haunted film filmed entirely from the perspective of the specter. We have not finished expiating our fears in dark rooms.
