THE 31 minutes of Extraña forma de vida, Massacre Way of Life in the international title, were they worth the hour of waiting in the rain that has begun to pour in Cannes and which it seems will not abandon us for the next few days? Maybe not. But it is moving to see how the director of la Mancha arouses enthusiasm in the festival audience, many young people in line without umbrellas who were soaked in the Debussy room chanted Pedro’s name with football chants.
Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.
Strange Way of Life try to answer a question left unanswered by the cowboys of Broadback MountainAng Lee film from 2005: What can two men do on a ranch? The answer is given on the final Pedro Pascal to Ethan Hawkeafter having loved him in his youth, found him 25 years later, and after having shot him to let his son escape accused of the murder of a woman (Hawke’s sister-in-law, who being a sheriff cannot let the suspect slip away).
The answer says a lot about which phase of life the director is going through, who made his debut in 1980 with Pepi, Luci, Bom and the other girls of the bunch: “keep company”.
Ethan Hawke in Strange Way of Life.
Produced by Anthony Vaccarello, for Saint Laurent Productions, Strange Way of Life corresponds – explained the director in the Q/A that was held at the end of the screening – to his idea of success: «While many of my colleagues when asked about future projects declare that they will do a series, I said I would make a short film and I did». It’s not the first The Human Voice with Tilda Swinton based on the stage monologue The human voice Of Jean Cocteau is from 2020. «Success is being able to choose at any moment what you want to do and now I wanted to do this, not a long one, not a series. I wanted to make a short”.
Desire in the Wild West
And in this regard, continued Almodóvar, «the western I had in mind was a classic western, not a European one, but a western where two men can desire each other. After Broadback Mountain desire had been left out of bounds. In The Power of the Dog Jane Campion doesn’t talk about it and of course she doesn’t fuck. Yellowstone? Classic Western yes, but in the worst sense of the word».
Ethan Hawke for his part (“Ethan is Texan, so he’s very American and can ride horses, but he’s not a typical American actor, he’s an adventurer, he can be cold, distant, hermetic. And I knew he could embody authority”) he said he was blessed when he received a proposal and a script: «I went for a walk and I came to the conclusion that if that email had arrived that day I must have done something good in my life». Applause.
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