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This review originally ran during Cannes 2021.
We are republishing it on the occasion ofAnnettes Amazon Prime Video release.
But I suspect that, if nothing else, this astoundingly beautiful picture will stand the test of time.
The film sprinkles the strangest gags in the middle of its most earnest moments.
It is both blunt and baffling, undercutting itself repeatedly.
But the film already takes place in a world that doesnt make sense.
This horrid urge to look below, Henry sings.
Half-horrified, half-relieved, I cast my eyes towards the abyss.
Darkness, depression, disgust are monsters, yes, but theyre seductive monsters.
Carax has never not made a personal film, but even by his standards,Annetteis strikingly naked.
Anne so often seems to be in just a slip.
The cosmic membrane separating their lives from total public exposure seems so fragile.
Almost as if he and his movie have said too much.
It goes even deeper than that, however.
(Holy Motorswas all about this conflict,among other things.)
Annes art, meanwhile, is elegant, genteel, redemptive.
After their respective shows, when Anne asks Henry how his act went, he says he killed them.
When he asks howherswent, she says she saved them.
AndAnnettethe movie, like Annette the child, is caught in the middle.
Does the artist want to hurt the audience or to redeem them?
What better way to contemplate that question than with a film that does both?
