Tuesday, May 19, 2015 | ARTS & MEDIA | 13 The reality of small happenings on display Last chance to see the Juntos photography exhibit by Bernard Plossu, Françoise Nuñez BY MARJAN GROOTHUIS sive travels, although some were FOR THE HERALD taken in France as well.A roman- tic and poetic approach prevails in French photographers Bernard her work, thus both husband and Plossu and Françoise Nuñez are wife complement each other splen- presenting 25 images each in an didly. All photographs on display exhibition titled Juntos (Together), capture the nobility of each and now on show at the Museo Na- every subject, from very crowded cional de Bellas Artes. They are a trains to a rainy square and row- couple and both have worked as ing men. And last but not least, the photographers for many years now. many hues of black and white and Plossu took his first pictures when notably grey enhance this feeling he travelled to the Sahara in 1958 of being drawn into the picture in- and, although still a child at the stead of being a mere spectator. time, he enjoyed it immensely. Trav- Still, I cannot help but feel that elling was second nature to him; he the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes was born in Vietnam in 1945, al- keeps on treating photography as ways being aware that the world is a not-very-much-loved stepchild: a big place. He lived in Mexico be- virtually all shows are being held tween 1965 and 1966 and took lots on the not so accessible second of photographs, which were later floor and most visitors therefore published in the book Le Voyage never even make it. But photogra- mexicain (The Mexican Trip). phy is here to stay; it is very much During an interview with Paula a discipline in its own right and Kupfer from the New York-based should therefore be paid a rightful Aperture Foundation in October OF MNBA COURTESY tribute. Please don’t let that sec- 2014, Plossu said that it’s not fine An image from Juntos, Bernard Plossu and Françoise Nuñez’s exhibit currently on display at the ond floor deter you because the art book, although it is important Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. works of Plossu and Nuñez really to him: “It was a book on being 20 deserve a closer look. and travelling and going anywhere and doing anything. More than an photographers for a long time now photographs: “I’m more interest- Bellas Artes. There is poetry in small WHERE AND WHEN art style, it was a lifestyle. Many and has well over 15 books to his ed in the non-decisive: the little happenings, a shapely leg, a cer- Bernard Plossu/Françoise Nuñez at young people have told me they name. Interestingly, he still uses nothings that may not be very im- tain look, and arms dangling from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes travelled with the small edition of only a 50 mm lens, a very sober vi- portant, apparently, but that are a car window, two men with hats (AvenidaLibertador 1473). Curat- Le voyage mexicain in their pock- sion and still takes his pictures important, in life and in seeing with seen from the back and so on. ed by Adriana Lestido. Open until et—it was a small paperback. They without gimmicks. He also says that the camera.” And that is something Nuñez took up photography in the end of May. Tuesday to Friday looked to it as a model.” he is more interested in the mood that comes clearly to the fore while 1975 and is, just like her husband, from 12.30pm to 8.30pm, week- Plossu has been widely regard- of the photographs, and not so viewing the photographs now on an avid traveller. The images on ends from 9.30am to 8.30pm. Free ed as one of the leading French much in the composition of the display at the Museo Nacional de show are a tribute to these exten- admission. At a middling Cannes fest, Pixar’s Inside Out is the standout BY ANN HORNADAY singer Amy Winehouse, was shown tuous boos when it screened for crit- THE WASHINGTON POST out of competition, in a special mid- ics Friday night. A marital melodra- @annhornaday night screening, also to nearly uni- ma framed by the story of a man con- versal raves. templating suicide in a vast Japan- CANNES, France — Thank good- By far the most impressive film so ese forest, The Sea of Trees features ness for Pixar. The reliably excellent far — in or out of competition — has a determined lead performance from animation studio offered one of the been Laszlo Nemes’s extraordinary Matthew McConaughey, but finds di- few high points during an otherwise feature debut Saul Fia (Son of Saul), rector Gus Van Sant somewhat at sea ho-hum Cannes Film Festival yes- a drama about an Auschwitz pris- himself, as he grapples with a fatally terday, when the new animated fea- oner who is determined to give an mawkish, sentimental script. ture Inside Out screened at the Grand exterminated boy a Jewish burial. Cannes has become known in Theatre Lumière. Directed by Pete Filmed in an extraordinary series of years past for the ruthlessness of its Docter, the wildly inventive, deeply long, unbroken takes, carefully staged audiences, but the boos for The Sea felt exploration of the complicated and framed to render Nazi atrocities of Trees seemed to be directed less way feelings, memories and dreams both obliquely and with unflinching at the movie than at a filmmaker who inform our personalities won over realism, and dominated by a ground- is clearly capable of more discipline nearly everyone who packed the el- breaking performance by Geza and rigor, and at festival program- egant main venue at the Grand Palais, Rohrig, Son of Saul re-defines the mers who have wasted precious real bringing the crowd to cheers, tears Holocaust-drama genre, infusing it estate in the competition on a film and more cheers during an excep- with new urgency, visual energy and that belonged, at best, in a sidebar or tionally witty end credits sequence. moral meaning. one-off screening. (That’s exactly Inside Out was one of just a few AP Not surprisingly, Son of Saul has what they did with Woody Allen’s sat- unqualified hits in what most veter- Actress Amy Poehler laughs as Pixar chief creative officer John become the mid-festival favourite for isfactory but unexceptional Irrational ans agree is a lacklustre year at Lasseter poses before the screening of Inside Out in Cannes. the coveted Palme d’Or and, as was Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a Cannes. Continuing a disappointing also expected, it was acquired — af- blocked philosophy professor and trend of late, the opening night film ter an all-night bidding war — by Emma Stone as his adoring student; was instantly forgettable — in this dacious procedural Polisse. Unfor- novel The Price of Salt directed by Sony Pictures Classics, which will cer- the film is strictly middling Allen, but case the earnest but unremarkable tunately, Mon Roi, which co-stars Todd Haynes, the film stars Cate tainly give it the Oscar push it clear- nonetheless received a two-minute La Tete Haute (Standing Tall), a dra- Vincent Cassel, didn’t have nearly the Blanchett and Rooney Mara as ly deserves (no word yet on whether standing ovation at its gala premiere ma about a wayward boy and the bu- rueful grit or nerve of the earlier film, women embarking on a tentative love that will be in 2015 or 2016). here on Friday.) reaucrats who try to save him, di- hewing to a familiar template of long- affair in New York in the early 1950s. With the exception of Carol, Amy For his part, McConaughey was rected by actress Emmanuelle Bercot. ing, loss, passion and recrimination. Carol has so far been one of the few and especially Son of Saul, very little unfazed the next day. “Anyone has as She appeared a few days later in Mon Those emotions were deployed films in official competition to re- has stood out in a festival that seems much right to boo as they do to ovate,” Roi (My King), a highly-anticipated with finer craft in Carol, which played ceive resounding praise from critics. to be coasting along in the mushy he said at a press conference follow- romance from the director Maiwenn, to rapturous audiences when it made The documentary Amy, a careful- middle of good-not-great films. ing the disastrous screening. In oth- who wowed several viewers here a its debut here on Saturday night. An ly-constructed, emotionally-devas- And then there’s The Sea of Trees, er words? Never you mind— or, as few years ago with her sprawling, au- adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s tating documentary about the late which received a wave of contemp- they say on the Croisette, tant pis..