Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 3h16 All of a Sudden entered the Cannes competition slate Saturday, the Japanese director's twelfth appearance at a major international festival and his first as a competition entrant on the Croisette. [1] The paper's Friday account of Cannes Day 4 as a test of whether politics is the jury's operating system treated the festival's middle weekend as the moment the slate stops auditioning and starts competing. Hamaguchi is the Day 5 entry.

The filmography is the brief. Happy Hour (2015), a 5h17 ensemble piece about four women in Kobe, established the long-form patience. Drive My Car (2021) took the Cannes best-screenplay prize and the Oscar for international feature. [2] Evil Does Not Exist (2023) took the Venice Grand Jury Prize. The pattern across all three is the same: deliberate runtimes, conversations that go where conversations actually go, characters who do not announce themselves.

All of a Sudden is his first competition title at Cannes proper. [3] The runtime — 3 hours 16 minutes — is short for him. The slot is large for the festival, which has been criticized this week by Le Monde for an American slate that is not taking center stage. [1] An auteur arrives.

That is the note. American audiences who met Hamaguchi through Drive My Car met him at the back of his career, not the front. Saturday's competition entry is the chance to meet him at the middle.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles