“Hope” — an extremely ambitious blockbuster hopeful about an alien invasion in a sleepy South Korean mountain town — jolted the Cannes Film Festival awake on Sunday night with a 6-minute ovation.
Directed by Na Hong-jin, the big-budget epic combined a gritty survival story and an original sci-fi mythology — no one quite knew what to expect from the title, which has domestic distribution through Neon.
It seemed to serve a bit of everything, judging by audience reactions at the Grand Palais premiere. The film’s first 40 minutes brings what feels like a continuous cut of increasingly bloody action, climaxing in the leveling of an entire town. Potty-mouthed police officers and hill people try to cope with a mysterious creature that’s ripped their home to shreds.
As the mystery unfolds, an alien race reveals itself with unclear intentions. The film features one of the wildest moments the Palais has likely ever seen: an elderly man describes encountering the aliens while having a bowel movement in the woods. Attempting not to make noise from either of his ends, he describes to a police officer the measures he takes to keep from having diarrhea. More insane? The crowd loved it, cackling with laughter while clad in black tie and haute couture, sitting inside a theater described as “the temple of Cinema.”
