After the extraordinary triple whammy of Emelia Perez, The Substance and Anora, here comes Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes with a blast of cinematic chloroform to calm the Cannes Competition down a touch.
A talky, experimental odyssey through the far east, it deals with issues of colonialism and gender, but in such an oblique way that it’s hard to fathom without referring to the rather cryptic press notes that come with it.
Fans of Gomes’s deadpan style — with which he broke out in 2012 when his film Tabu became an arthouse favorite on the festival circuit — will no doubt respond to its eccentricity, its wry irony and its undoubtedly striking monochrome cinematography.
Less enlightened viewers may wish to take a pillow. The film takes place in two timeframes. The fictional narrative takes place in 1918 and begins with British civil servant Edward Abbot (Gonçalo Waddington) arriving at Mandalay station in Burma.
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