Film Festivals

2015 Cannes Critics’ Panel Day 7: Donzelli’s “Marguerite & Julien” is “Small Change”

Published on May 19, 2015

I’ve been there before. One week into the strenuous daily grind that is Cannes and the tired journalist/critic might think twice about a project featuring 15th century incest from a filmmaker whose only break out film was the Critics’ Week selected Declaration of War back in 2011. The byline you’ll read every review is the fact the film’s (partly) based on a screenplay that Jean Gruault wrote for Francois Truffaut in the 70s and that he it never materialized until now. Since 2009’s The Queen of Hearts, creative pairing Valerie Donzelli and JeremieElkaïm are on a film per year pace (add Hand in Hand (2012) and Just Love! (2013) to the filmography) and their In Comp debut tackles taboo in fairy tale mode. Starring Elkaïm and Anaïs Demoustier as brother and sister, the film is being called beautiful to look at by some, but in our critics grid we find this drowning to the bottom of our Palme d’Or list.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).