If you got that headline (translation: if you are a film snob), you may be interested in my dispatches from Cannes during the next couple of weeks. Will put up links here as they appear on Film Companion.
Au Revoir les Enfants. (See, I did it again!)
Dispatch 1:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/the-caste-system-and-phantoms-from-the-past-cannes-2017
Dispatch 2:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-a-family-at-war-cultures-at-peace
Dispatch 3:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-timelines-and-animal-rights-faces-and-places
Dispatch 4:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-a-superpower-a-transition-a-saffron-revolution
Dispatch 5:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-godard-aids-and-frail-fathers
Dispatch 6:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-early-palme-dor-buzz-barbara-and-elvis-presley
Dispatch 7:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-clockwork-toys-existential-thrillersDispatch 8:
Dispatch 8:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-a-workshop-an-experiment-a-bit-of-interpretation
Dispatch 9:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-fairy-tales-and-fluttering-curtains
Dispatch 10:
https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-a-mouse-in-a-maze-and-a-wish-list
Copyright ©2017 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
vishal yogin
May 14, 2017
I hope you choose to see Before We Vanish, the Japanese movie. And in general, korean and japanese movies. I am intrigued. The Wailing from last year really made me sit up. I’m saying this as a big fan of good scifi and closely related genres 🙂
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vishal yogin
May 14, 2017
Forgot the apt term for scifi, horror, supernatural, etc….the “fantastic” genre !
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lakshmi
May 14, 2017
Yay! So you’re going to send one everyday? Please say yes.
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venkat1926
May 14, 2017
eagerly waiting for your daily depatches
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Anu Warrier
May 14, 2017
Show off! 🙂
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Jyoti S Kumar
May 14, 2017
Saar, mannikkanum! It should be «Au revoir mes enfants» and «l’âge ( de la Palme) d’or» (running and hiding!)
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A Wise Crackpot
May 14, 2017
les enfants?!! 😂😂
Au revoir monsieur!
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sanjana
May 14, 2017
I thought Cannes is owned by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Cannes is Ash!
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brangan
May 15, 2017
So those were the names of films by bunuel and malle. Given Cannes and all that…
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Jyoti S Kumar
May 15, 2017
Aaah! I stand corrected!
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Anu Warrier
May 15, 2017
So those were the names of films by bunuel and malle. Given Cannes and all that…
Yes, my dear BR, but as Jyoti points out, the movies’ names are Au Revoir Mes Enfants (not ‘les’) and L’Âge (de le Palme) d’Or where you missed the accent above ‘Age’ and ‘de la palme’ since the d (apostrophe) is used only when ‘de’ comes before vowels.
Ducking and running to join Jyoti in hiding
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Anu Warrier
May 15, 2017
And I stand corrected – it is Au Revoir Les Enfants. 🙂
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Vikram s
May 15, 2017
BR, have a great time in Cannes…we will look forward to your despatches from the trenches😃
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Radhika
May 15, 2017
This whole exchange reminds me of :
Here, you would have said, watching them, were two strong, silent Frenchmen.
Mr Carlisle was the first to rally from the shock.
‘Parfaitement,’ he said.
‘Alors,’ said Packy.
‘Parbleu!’
‘Nom d’une pipe!’
There was another pause. It was as if some theme of deep interest had been exhausted.
Packy indicated the sky, as if something to which he felt the visitor’s attention should be directed.
‘Le soleil!’
‘Mais oui!’
‘Beau!’
‘Parbleu!’ said Mr Carlisle, rather meanly falling back on old stuff.
They paused again. Packy, except for ‘Oo la la’ which he did not quite know how to bring in, had now shot his bolt.
But Mr Carlisle was made of sterner stuff….after what he would have been the first to confess a bad two minutes, was his resourceful self once more.
‘But really, my dear fellow,’ he said, with a light laugh, ‘all this is vairy delightful, but you must not tempt me, no. My English is not good, and I promise my instructeur that always I would speak it only. You understand?’
The interval of silence had enabled Packy to dig up a really hot one.
‘C’est vrai,’ he said, with a glance at Miss Putnam which suggested that, in his opinion, would hold her for awhile. ‘Mais, c’est vrai, mon vieux. Oo lá lá, c’est vrai! I also, study the English and do not want to speak the French.’
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ini
May 15, 2017
This is great news, and what a line-up to savor! I would kill to see the new Haneke. You better plan your days to a T and make sure you don’t miss anything, mild malnutrition doesn’t hurt.
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Naveen
May 15, 2017
@Sanjana, nowadays it is more of PC and DP. Sangamitra is going to be shown off too, hope it is not too embarrassing for BR to be there ! that too when Bahubali fever is yet to subside. and I hope BR gets to interact with the Hasan Sr.
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brangan
May 17, 2017
The first Cannes dispatch is up. (Link above.)
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rothrocks
May 18, 2017
@ Aditi Oh, I am aware that some women willingly choose to stay at home, even if in fact their husband would rather they work. My friend’s wife is a CA. She could make a few grand just sitting at home certifying documents and she is not interested. At the same time, when I say ‘made to’ it doesn’t mean that I think the man coerced the woman into staying at home. If the woman badly wants to marry him, she may compromise on her career. But a man’s expectation that ‘after marriage you should stay at home’ is fundamentally unfair. I don’t say force your wife to work but if you put a pre condition she may well buy peace by compromising. I read an interview of Shalini just after she announced she was quitting films and she said she saw the man as the breadwinner of the family and thought the idea of a house husband baloney (though she didn’t use that word). I am saying she was already very comfortable with the patriarchal mindset. So even free will may be influenced by social conditioning.
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rothrocks
May 18, 2017
Whoops! No idea how my above comment got posted in this thread! Put it down to the hazards of typing a long post on mobile.
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Prashila
May 18, 2017
@rothrocks, wrong thread? Or am I losing my mind…
BR, Look forward to this series, having always loved your Film festivals coverage. I would have possibly never watched 45 years(and then read the short story it is based on), had I not read about it on this blog first. And “But this process of discovery would be better if the audience was similarly engaged.”, sort of sums up my experience of many French movies I have watched in the last decade or so. Great looking people who can bloody well perform whatever it is that they are trying to do, but it never really comes together. Even people like Charlotte G. and Marion C., I far prefer to watch in Hollywood movies. I really hope too that you write about the new Haneke movie. That should do, till I get a chance to watch it in like another century.
Have a good time .
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
May 18, 2017
Thats okay Rothrocks – Interesting views !
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brangan
May 18, 2017
The second Cannes dispatch is up. (Link above.)
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 18, 2017
Damn it! Ever since I read your second dispatch from Cannes, I can’t for the life of me get Loveless out of my head… What happens in the end? What? What? What?
‘Zvyagintsev is only interested in taking his title to its most logical extreme. The result is positively chilling.’ Does that mean since neither of them wanted poor Aloysha, since he was the only thing preventing them from making a clean break from each other, they get their wish in the end? So they find his corpse on a slab in the morgue and they are like Hell yeah!? What happens?
Damn it BR!! you build more tension with your words than whathisname probably managed in his Loveless…
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Rahul
May 19, 2017
BR, talking about Zvyagintsev, I do not want to read anything about Loveless before watching it, but wondering if you have seen his 2003 film , Vozvrashcheniye (The return) Its scary good, Leviathan is not half as good as it is
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brangan
May 19, 2017
The third Cannes dispatch is up. (Link above.)
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
May 20, 2017
I hope you are writing something on the Netflix-Cannes issue (or maybe later, after you return). Would love to hear thoughts. I am mostly undecided and keep vacillating between opinions. One one hand, I am still a purist, would love to see every film on the big screen as much as I can while I also love the platform Netflix et al are creating, for stories and storytellers that otherwise wouldn’t get a platform.
While at the same time, I can see the point made by this splendid Ehrlich piece:
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/04/netflix-bad-for-movies-theaters-okja-tramps-1201806272/
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Madan
May 20, 2017
@ Aditya: That was a very interesting read. My question is if it is so difficult for the audience to simply get to know of a particular film and retrieve it from Netflix, how does Netflix make money from the content they buy? Looking at the numbers, maybe they don’t make a lot of money anyway. They make 2% net on revenues, so in all probability, they are burning through reserves to buy up content. Maybe, like Uber, their strategy is to bankrupt theatres before they go bust.
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Aditya (Gradwolf)
May 21, 2017
It’s all about getting content and then increasing user base. Subscription is where money is at for them. So the article is not about a technical difficulty in seeking out a film and watching it on Netflix. It is more psychological at the user’s end. Consider a film like Lens, which everyone says is a must watch and everyone also knows that the next big Friday release is going to push Lens out of theatres. So everyone makes an effort immediately to watch it. Get to the theatres. But when such a film comes to Netflix (or releases directly), I go search and watch because of all the reviews. But now, it can be watched anytime. I don’t have this deadline of before-next-Friday anymore. So I’ll be like, it is always gonna be there I’ll watch it sometime. There is so much content and I decide to watch it late night one day but I suddenly chance upon some other comedy series that people once upon a time recommended. It is too late, I am tired, I’ll watch something light and funny. So a great, exclusive content gets buried. That’s the downside I think Ehrlich is getting at.
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Madan Mohan
May 21, 2017
@ Aditya: I agree that the article as such is more about how difficult it is for a viewer to access a particular film when he feels swamped with so much content and that as a corollary the film does not reach people the way it would with a theatre release. But the logical implication of that is that Netflix doesn’t get enough bang for the buck on all the content it BUYS. If it was merely distributing a film the way Apple distributes music on ITunes, it would be different. Buying over the film is a whole different ballgame. It means that the film cannot get any other kind of release (which Ehrlich was focusing on) but also that Netflix is entirely dependent on adding enough new subscriptions to pay for all the content it has acquired. The numbers suggest that it is growing topline at the expense of bottomline. Possibly this may change going ahead and that’s why I implied that it will eventually be about whether a netflix subscription is the only way you can access a good film or series that you want to watch.
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Madan Mohan
May 21, 2017
Another thing that Netflix could do and may do in the future is offer ad free viewing with subscriptions and free viewing with ads, sort of like YouTube. Given that a TV channel needs both subscription and advertising to be able to make a profit out of producing or acquiring and distributing TV shows, I am not sure how long Netflix can pay for new content with only subscription revenue. As such, it is an unique model in a time where people are reluctant to pay for digital content. If subscription rates have to be increased, suddenly ticket prices at theatres won’t look so exorbitant. In India, getting to a movieplex is not such a big issue nor are tickets so costly which is why paid streaming doesn’t have too many takers.
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praneshp
May 21, 2017
@Madan: Netflix is a profitable, public company (unlike Uber). You can look at their earnings calls here:
https://ir.netflix.com/results.cfm
and Q1 earnings report here:
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/NFLX/4508662732x0x937576/7DAD8A22-F8FE-4339-A534-4A851A5C68E5/Q117ShareholderLetterV2FINAL.pdf.
Netflix will be in trouble when the “total memberships” column stops growing.
Anecdotally speaking, I prefer watching something at home to going to the theater these days. Esp non-masala stuff, where the reaction of the fellow audience doesn’t matter to me. Raised on Sathyam, I find American theaters very bad. Our local Tamil movie theater is right out of the 90s.
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brangan
May 21, 2017
I too do not have a problem with streaming services. It is my JOB to watch all movies, so I get to watch them in a theatre. I am an outlier. Most people watch maybe a movie a week, along with TV shows, YouTube comedy channels, Baradwaj Rangan videos for Film Companion… whatever. So it’s silly to decry the concept of a streaming service, which to me is like a library. Some people go in knowing exactly what book they want. Others like to browse and land on something. It’s all par for the course. And I believe that if someone really wants to watch a movie, they will seek it out. It’s the easiest thing in the world.
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brangan
May 22, 2017
The fourth and fifth Cannes dispatches are up. (Links above.)
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Madan
May 22, 2017
@ praneshp: I didn’t say they are NOT profitable. But their margins have been shrinking. They were making 4.8% net in 2014 (used to be 5.5% net in 2007) which is down to 2.1% net in 2016. Their cost of revenue used to be around 50% in 2007 and is now holding steady at 68%. In short, burning more cash for lower earnings (as a percentage of turnover).
I have nothing against a streaming service as a user. My question is about the sustainability of buying up all this content with subscription as the main revenue stream. Two articles I found which discuss the same problem that I mentioned.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/01/03/netflixs-dumbed-down-algorithms/
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-01-14/netflix-is-caught-between-a-dvd-and-a-hard-place
Just as an exhibitor cannot afford to keep showing films which don’t fill the cash box, a streaming service too cannot afford content which not enough people will watch. Because the content is not free (and in the case of films, very expensive).
So, on another note, it may be that the writer in that article Aditya linked was crying wolf over nothing. If Netflix was a startup with AI-bhakt investors chasing it like mad, I would be worried about the fate of exhibitors. As it stands, no, I don’t think so. They will have to and probably already are tweaking their business model.
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praneshp
May 22, 2017
@Madan: A big change from 2012 (or so) to now is the number of original shows that Netflix produces. Almost all are high quality (bar Marco Polo), and what people will keep subscribing for. Maybe because I consume aggressively and the collection is quite poor, I’ve not watched a movie on Netflix in a long time. Just shows.
I’m not worried about Netflix precisely because they are not a startup. They already had two major stock price drops in the last 3 years or so (I was happy to pick up at lower prices, it was back up in 6 months); they can play the long game without worrying about VCs wanting to cash out. And their compensation packages are definitely not startup-like 🙂
About Aditya’s link, I thought the article was well-written, but I was happy to put him in the jealous/needs-to-be-in-a-movie-hall/needs-this-to-be-done-his-way buckets after reading this line:
An average American house has much better watching experience than the average American theater. Alamo Drafthouse exists in maybe 10 cities; in other places I need to watch movies in piece of crap theaters with dirty floors, unclean seats, fat plastic popcorn tub sounds, fat person munching popcorn sounds, soda slurping sounds, and big bright smartphone screens.
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
May 22, 2017
Madan ; Excellent analysis ! Spoken like a true Chartered Accountant 🙂
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brangan
May 22, 2017
The sixth Cannes dispatch is up. (Link above.)
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Madan
May 22, 2017
@ praneshp: Right. That’s kind of what those articles indicate. That Netflix may be better off as a TV content provider because for movies the DVD rental service probably works better, lol.
@ sravishanker140: Thanks. That’s a big certificate coming from a seasoned warhorse like you.
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praneshp
May 22, 2017
@sravishanker140: Ah, I didn’t know he was a CA. I should’ve stuck to feelings and avoided data 🙂
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vishal yogin
May 24, 2017
“Among the films I wanted to catch but couldn’t. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha (Before We Vanish) ”
I hope you somehow get to convey to Jongsuk Thomas Nam, the curator for the After Dark section in MAMI, to bring this one to Mumbai in October 🙂
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sanjana
May 24, 2017
Did you meet our divas? Did they impress you?
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vishal yogin
May 27, 2017
“The sadness isn’t just about missing these movies at this festival. It’s the thought that one may never get to see them again outside of one’s laptop.”
This is precisely why we seriously need some model to get movies even if for a single screening to the big screen. I guess, pipe-dream given the $$$ involved sigh.
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GODZ
May 28, 2017
I agree with these articles
http://junkee.com/netflix-cannes-independent-film/105806
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/05/26/would-this-60-million-brad-pitt-war-comedy-have-been-made-without-netflix-its-hard-to-imagine/
and with What BR said…
Bottom line, We the viewers are clear Winners(at least for now). I want Netflix to win this war for one reason only..ripoff these theaters are doing for a long time 900% markup price for a bag of popcorn.
Netflix is not going to stop making new content. They will Try to be self-reliant as much as possible and if they just maintain their current subscription fee, there will not be any massive drops in that area too.
Apart from very few movies, People don’t want to spend $$ amount for watching a movie and by the time they make the decision, they are gone from theaters. So definitely, the current theater model is not a Profitable place for small movies or indie movies or movie with different content considering the price of the ticket and their lifespan in theaters. For these movies, Alternatives like Netflix are good viable options and will support their existence. Unless, Theaters come up with a new subscription model, for unlimited watching of movies(With exception of Big mainstream movies and their premier theaters), I don’t see a better alternative now.
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keshavfound
May 29, 2017
Cannes 2017 Awards Analysis: ‘The Square’ Wins the Palme d’Or, But the Real Winners Are Hollywood Alternatives.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/cannes-2017-awards-analysis-palme-dor-the-square-1201833434/
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vishal yogin
May 29, 2017
We miss your south indian movie reviews, come back soooon 🙂
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Rahul
May 29, 2017
BR how about a collaboration between Film Companion and Netflix , so that FC can curate indian movies for NF?
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