Monday night belonged to Nicolas Winding Refn at Cannes and though his trippy psychedelic female ensemble pic, Her Private Hell, is playing out of competition, it spiced up the Grand Theatre Lumiere with a 12-minute standing ovation, the second such of the night after Fjord.
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Those are the longest plaudits of the festival, though Refn and cast were doing some cheerleading and pumping the crowd up after the lights went up, which likely prolonged the celebration. Note, we begin timing ovations at the start of clapping when the credits roll all the way until the end.
The runners-up ovation-wise at this point in the festival are James Gray’s Paper Tiger, which last night got a 10-minute salute, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, which on Friday had them clapping for 11 minutes.
The movie stars Sophie Thatcher, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth and Charles Melton in a tale that begins at a swanky futuristic LA-like metropolis hotel. A group of model-esque women congregate, about to make a Barbarella-like sci-fi movie. But a killer by the name of Leather Man lurks.
Refn won Best Director in his Cannes debut for his 2011 Ryan Gosling Hollywood heist movie Drive which starred Albert Brooks playing against type as a villain, Carey Mulligan and a fresh-face Oscar Isaac. Pete Hammond reported at the time that Drive clocked an epic near 15-minute standing ovation.
NEON has domestic on Her Private Hell. A trailer dropped today for the pic which hits theaters on July 24.
