Virgule
France

The odious anti-RN clip by the “rappers of fear”

They have taken hostage the beautiful rallying cry of the Spanish Republicans during the civil war from 1936 to 1939: “No pasaran” (“They shall not pass”). That's the title a score of rappers dared to give to an infamous video intended to mobilise against the National Rally. Under the guise of calling young people to their duty as citizens, these brilliant artists, anxious - they tell the gogos - to “get back to the essence of rap”, pour out ten minutes of calls for hatred, murder, rape and pogroms. As unbearable as it is to even mention these rants, here are a few that are more akin to the courts than to a “rather exciting variety of angles”, as Libération swoons.

Exclusive | Salman Rushdie: “Words stronger than the knife”

20 months after a 33-year-old fatwa issued against him by Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989, accusing him of blasphemy against Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie is back. Stronger and more alive than ever. And, good news, he has lost none of his legendary sense of humour.

Cannes Film festival | “The zone of interest” by Jonathan Glazer: The “banality of evil” transposed to Auschwitz!

Many films dedicated to Nazi horror and the Holocaust have been welcomed, celebrated and rewarded by the Cannes Film Festival. There was, in particular, the tragicomic ‘‘Life is Beautiful’’ by Roberto Benigni (Grand Prix - 1997), the moving and masterful ‘‘The Pianist’’ by Roman Polanski (Palme d’Or - 2002 ), the dark and poignant ‘‘White Ribbon’’ by Michael Haneke (Palme d’Or - 2009) and the atypical and dazzling ‘‘The son of Saul’’ by Laszlo Nemes (Grand Prix - 2015).

Cinema | 76th Cannes Film Festival: The Palm of suspicion and guilt!

At the end of a selection marked by a majority of films dealing with the duality of suspicion / guilt, the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival went to ‘‘Anatomy of a Fall’’, a French family drama which dissects the mechanisms of suspicion (and the resulting guilt) weighing on a wife after the (accidental?) defenestration of her husband.

Cannes Film festival | “Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismäki A burlesque and melancholy masterpiece

After a six-year absence and seventeen years of sobriety (feigned or real?), the great Finnish master of zany comedy, Aki Kaurismäki, is back in the footsteps of his famous “losers' trilogy” (“Drifting Clouds” - 1996 , “The Man Without a Past” - 2002 , “Lights in the Dusk” - 2006). Presented in the Official Competition, his latest opus “Fallen Leaves” won the Jury Prize and dazzled the Croisette with its offbeat, minimalist aesthetic.

Cannes Film festival | “Four Daughters” by Kaouther Ben Hania: How does Islamist brainwashing work?

Based on the true story of a family tragedy that shook Tunisia in 2014: that of Olfa Hamrouni and her 4 daughters, two of whom were indoctrinated by ISIS, Kaouther Ben Hania's “Olfa’s Daughters” brilliantly and insightfully dissects the indoctrination process through which Islamists brainwash the socially and psychologically fragile.