Double-Shot of Cannes Catch-Up (Patreon)

Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2018)

I would have expected to be providing a full-length entry on this one, but the truth is, it's surprisingly thin. Now to be fair, not every film is going to match the depth and expansiveness of Happy Hour. But in a lot of ways, Asako I & II is a gimmick looking for a story, or at least a compelling treatment. In fact, this film is like if a director decided to take the premise from a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film and, just for grins, play it as straight as possible, eliminating any sense of menace or mystery. 

Asako (Erika Karata) works at a coffee store, and although she does not seem like much of a free spirit, I guess she might be considered a variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She is winsome and wide-eyed, and has the overly quiet mien of someone who either has no romantic experience or has been very badly hurt. She falls in love with Baku (Masahiro Higashide), an equally quiet, mysterious type, and they have a brief relationship until he ghosts her one day. Then, by chance in the street, Asako thinks she sees Baku several years later, but in fact it is Ryôhei (Higashide), a sake executive who looks exactly like Baku.

He takes a shine to her and, she being naturally curious because of his resemblance to her former lover, goes along with it. They end up falling in love, but their relationship is haunted (somewhat) by this ever-present ghost of Asako's past. Hamaguchi introduces some significant incidents (including an earthquake right before Asako and Ryôhei are about to watch their friend Maya (Rio Yamashita) perform in A Doll's House), but Asako I & II never really rises above the merely interesting. Hamaguchi does get at something fundamental about the ways that one's romantic past can cloud trust and openness in the present, by making the "replacement" concept incredibly literal. But if there are weightier matters at work, I fear they flew over my head.

Dogman (Matteo Garrone, 2018)

A film that is much more in the vein of Garrone's small-scale character studies, like The Embalmer and First Love, than his wider-ranging films (Gomorrah, Reality), Dogman didn't make much of an impression with critics at Cannes. But then, it's an easy film to dislike. At its center is Marcello (Marcello Fonte), an indecisive nebbish who becomes a magnet for all manner of abuse. But I submit that this isn't one of those mean-spirited art films where an innocent is kicked for the delectation of an audience. Marcello has a weird kind of agency, and that's what makes Dogman a perverse kind of pleasure.

He is a dog groomer in a run-down strip mall, where he and the other proprietors are constantly harassed by a gigantic thug named Simone (Edoardo Pesce). Marcello gets it the worst because somehow Simone picked him to be his coke connection. But watching this monster terrorize a community with fists alone is a reminder that a nation with absolute gun control isn't all it's cracked up to be. 

Through a set of random circumstances, Marcello not only saves Simone's life, but ends up doing a year in the joint for Simone. All of this goes directly against his best interests, especially since the other store owners want to go in together to put out a hit on the guy. But the engine that drives Dogman is masculine envy. Marcello is a swell guy, but something inside him makes him suck up to the town bully in hopes of edging into the penumbra of his "respect." This is a maddening film, but an astute one, since it articulates the psychology of the toady, which it goes without saying is a crucial political issue of our day.

The Cannes of Catch-Up