May 19--The funniest sight so far at Cannes? Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin miming the difficulty they'd have wearing high heels to a red carpet premiere at the world's dressiest film festival.
The boys went into their weeble-wobble pantomime act midway through the Tuesday press conference for "Sicario." It's a gorgeously photographed (by Roger Deakins) and morally uncertain revenge thriller set along both sides of the U.S./Mexico drug war.
The writer is Taylor Sheridan; the director, in his first appearance as one of the main competition slate invitees, is the French-Canadian Denis Villeneuve, whose previous work includes "Incendies" and, more akin to the sleek pulp of "Sicario," the Hugh Jackman/Jake Gyllenhaal kidnapping revenge drama "Prisoners."
Del Toro and Brolin play shadowy free agents under U.S. government jurisdiction, out to get a cartel boss. Blunt is the outsider, an FBI agent along for an increasingly troubling ride. The script, Villeneuve said at the press conference, kicked around for years while the writer was encouraged to make his FBI protagonist male instead of a female.
The through-line in this year's festival is simple. It's the word "enough." Enough. Enough with all the exhausted, exhausting sexism and gender inequity. Enough with social norms that don't play fair. The most ardently praised film of the festival so far, Todd Haynes' lesbian drama "Carol," may be conservative and careful in terms of craft but its themes of societal rigidity and conformity have struck a chord here.
As has a certain incident Sunday evening at the formal "Carol" premiere. Several women, according to various reports, were denied access to the Grand Theatre Lumiere (a.k.a., the big room) because they wore flats instead of high heels. Mention of this incident at the "Sicario" press conference sparked the Del Toro/Brolin interlude. Blunt brought it back to reality.
"No," she said, to one British writer's question regarding whether the heels rule truly applies to a democratic society in 2015. After the press conference, to another writer, she said the fashion protocol was "appalling." She did, however, imply that she'd be wearing heels herself to the "Sicario" premiere Tuesday evening . For now, even as festival officials attempt a crackdown on selfies on the red carpet, fashion rules are fashion rules and they will stand. Until they don't.
