“They say that right before you die, life flashes before your eyes. I also just saw most of my life in the video you showed,” self-sarcastically remarked Harrison Fordeliciting laughter from the audience who filled the Lumiere theater in Cannes for the premiere of the new “Indiana Jones“. The evergreen American actor sullenly accepted an honorary Palme d’Or for all his contributions to The Seventh Art and, in a slightly trembling voice, thanked his family and viewers for “giving purpose and meaning” to his life. “But now I want to show you a movie,” he finally said, and the lights went out.

By the way, the fact that the 80-year-old Harrison Ford is still able to bring to Cannes 2023 the most glamorous, and perhaps the most anticipated film of the festival, says something about his legend. “Indiana Jones and the Disc of Destiny” completes the journey of an unforgettable character and with him over 40 years of commercial cinema. From “Raiders of the Lost Ark” from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to the current James Mangold movie (two others are in production), a lot has changed, and certainly not the wry Indy grin that Ford still successfully pulls off.

In the film, the beginning takes place back in 1944, when the hero is also trying to save Antikythera mechanism(!), at least part of it fell into the hands of a rogue Nazi scientist (Mands Mikkelsen). Twenty-five years later, in the late 1960s, Professor Jones is preparing to retire, a space-age remnant from another world, he’s watering down his coffee… whiskey while looking through divorce papers. Until his estranged goddaughter (Phoebe Waller Bridge) shows up at his door to announce that she, too, is on the hunt for a machine that, according to the script, is the work of Archimedes. The heroes even meet the architect of Syracuse in a delightful episode, where a remark is heard in Greek: “Sorry, Archimedes, I’m a fan!” Of course, an old enemy is also on the hunt, who wants to use the magical properties of the device – it has the ability to control the passage of time – for his insidious plans, so Indy and his friends set out to overthrow them.

Ford’s sweet nostalgia and “old school” romance blends with modern action.

The sweet nostalgia and “old school” romance of Harrison Ford’s weathered face (but beautifully reimagined with technology for 1944 scenes) is combined with modern action brought by James Mangold, as the heroes move from one location to another, also passing through Greece. If there’s one theme, it’s the passage of time (“I wanted to see the weight of life on him,” Ford said at a press conference), and the result is certainly interesting, though it lacks that playful, almost otherworldly quality. the feel that the first films of the series exude, and that’s what made most fans fall in love with it in the first place.

film “Greek”

Love in its most impetuous, juvenile version is also the subject of How to Have Sex, this year’s “Greek” film, which premiered yesterday in Un Certain Regard. While director/screenwriter Molly Manning Walker may be British, as are her main characters, the film nevertheless has a Greek co-producer (Heretic), a Greek crew, and of course it was filmed in Malia, Crete. Three girls from England come there for several days of endless alcohol, crazy dancing and sex. But while everything goes according to… plan, one of them will have an unpleasant experience that will mark her vacation. In his debut, Manning Walker creates a cinematic shot of freshness and intoxicating daze, while addressing the serious issue of compliance and the wounds that its absence can leave. As for Greece, it is almost invisible in the film, as it happens in reality with young tourists who come to Crete and other places to have fun.

However, since Cannes basically means the competition section, the excellent documentary Youth by Chinese Wang Bing must be mentioned. The latter sends us for three and a half hours to the famous “sweatshops” – Chinese factories that produce cheap clothes that are worn by billions of the modern human mass. Hundreds of people walk in front of the camera, mostly young people aged 20-25 who come from the Chinese countryside to work 15-hour days, with meager wages and substandard living conditions in squalid workers’ housing estates. However, Bing’s report is more than just a complaint, it’s an observation of an entire generation rallying against the sewing machine at breakneck speed and crumpling under the weight of the need for low-cost production. At the same time – and because life never stops – we see her joking, laughing, fighting and flirting even in the most difficult of circumstances.