The 78th Cannes Film Festival kicked off this week, bringing with it all the usual conversations about international politics, the use of “counting how long people are standing and clapping” as a metric for cinematic appreciation, and even, sometimes, some actual films. Organizers of the festival tried to make some of the tinsel surrounding the festival a little less distracting this year, issuing new red carpet rules banning nudity and excessively sized dresses, but they left out what have turned out to be some pretty major distractions from their list. Like “No guys in condor suits.” Or “No giant palm trees falling on a guy, seriously injuring them.” Or “No Ezra Miller jumpscares.”
The condor thing, at least, happened on purpose, as French actor Raphaël Quenard brought a guy in a big bird suit (not that one) with him to Saturday’s red carpet for Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson’s Die, My Love. (See, Quenard is exhibiting his documentary I Love Peru at the festival, and condors are important in Peruvian culture, so…) The guy in the giant turkey cosplay managed to not be the most distracting element of the film’s red carpet, though, on account of quick-eyed viewers noticing the Flash himself, Ezra Miller, racing his way toward the premiere. (Miller, who’s been almost entirely absent from the limelight since doing some extremely light movie promotion work for The Flash in 2023, wasn’t quite running—but he was going at a fast enough clip that none of the photographers covering the red carpet were able to capture a shot.) Miller was, presumably, there to support Die, My Love director Lynne Ramsay, who directed him 14 years ago in We Need To Talk About Kevin; his appearance at Cannes comes years after his career pretty much dissolved into a series of increasingly lurid headlines related to his personal behavior circa 2022, after which he basically vanished.
It’s all enough to make the palm tree thing seem kind of banal, although pictures from the incident make it clear that this was a pretty big fucking tree to have fall on you. The man in question (per Reuters) is apparently an agent for one of the actors in Japanese film Brand New Landscape, and was struck by the tree after a strong wind blew it over. The man is reportedly still in the hospital, and is reportedly being checked for injuries to his nose and vertebrae.
Cannes is less than halfway through its run, which concludes on May 24. God knows what’ll happen next.
