For my final screening in Cannes, I thought I would attempt to fit in one more Palme d’Or contender. Fresh off a high of finally catching the greatly anticipated Emilia Pérez, I snagged a ticket to the animated holocaust picture directed by Academy Award winner Michel Hazanavicius, The Most Precious of Cargoes. The film, having premiered last in the festival, had flown somewhat under the radar, as I’m sure was a slight relief to the team behind it, as it received the lowest jury grid rating by far, an astounding 1.2. This film was so poorly received that there were rumors floating that it had pro-Holocaust values. I heard this all after getting my ticket, and although I was saddened by the prospect that my final movie at Cannes would likely be terrible, I was nevertheless intrigued. The film was the first animated feature to contend for the Palme since Persepolis in 2007— maybe it would be good. The critics aren’t always right…
Tragically, with this one, they were. Cargoes is a tight 80 minutes, and thank God for that! The film spends its brief runtime in intense turmoil, perpetually searching for a thematic center or even a consistent tone. Its animation style is as simple as one can get, invoking storybook illustration accompanied by a gentle narration that comes and goes arbitrarily. The film is scored by Alexandre Desplat, and although the music itself is good, its style and tone often clash with the story unfolding onscreen. The plot itself changes focus often, first following a poor woodcutter and his wife who discover an abandoned baby by the train tracks leading to Auschwitz. The woodcutter has a rapid moral arc, going from violently antisemitic to intensely empathetic in a matter of minutes after discovering the heartbeat of the child he initially deems to be “heartless”. About halfway through the movie, we shift perspective to the father of the abandoned child, as he goes through the horrors of a concentration camp. In a bizarre directorial choice, the film cuts away from its animation to a Ken Burns-esque montage of pencil drawings of screaming abstract faces, apparently in an attempt to depict the pains of the Holocaust, yet only succeeding in disengaging the audience from an already weak story. The film then builds into a somewhat baffling climax in which the newly freed Auschwitz survivor terrifies his own child with his haggard appearance.
What is the ultimate message of The Most Precious of Cargoes? It is never made entirely clear. When it comes to subject matters like the Holocaust, one can hardly afford to be diplomatic. There is a clear right and wrong, and vagueness and tiptoeing around the subject is the kind of thing that gets your movie saddled with pro-Holocaust allegations. However, Cargoes does exactly this. The unexplainable shifts in tone throughout undercut the seriousness of the subject matter to a point of offense, and the film never once mentions the words “Jew”, “Hitler”, “Nazi”, “Auschwitz”, or anything of the like. By centering the story around the heroics of a woman brave enough to raise a Jewish child, any semblance of compassion is lost (although Cargoes does regain some of that when we cut to the father’s storyline).
I don’t believe that it’s too much of a stretch to say that, after its premiere at Cannes last year, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest fundamentally changed the landscape of Holocaust movies. It is no longer enough to portray the pain and suffering of the victims— we know the tragedies that unfolded all too well. A mere depiction of such pain feels easy and cheap. For a film to be compelling, it must take a strong stance with regards to the history. It must open its audience’s eyes to some new perspective. The Most Precious of Cargoes does nothing of the sort, even going so far as to repeatedly state itself that its story is a fiction (rendering what little importance its story may have ever had pointless). Its position in competition is shameful to Cannes, and I am relieved that hardly anyone saw it at the festival. When it doubtlessly hits some obscure streaming service in a few months, heed my advice, and skip it.