‘Conann’: Cannes Review

Dir/scr: Bertrand Mandico. France, Belgium, Luxembourg. 2023. 105mins.

“You’re not from here, are you?” It is a question posed in Bertrand Mandico’s latest surreal spectacle, but it could also be a challenge applied to anyone who dares enter his demented world of cannibalism, kinky sex, torture and relentless bloodletting. Conann reworks the mythic barbarian tale, turning it into a saga of a female warrior that spans decades and features different actors playing the titular role. The lo-fi production design is often wondrous, the midnight-movie vibe is fetching, but the film is ultimately probably too much of a good/weird thing to sustain its running time — although, for the French writer-director’s fans, such excess is the key to his success.

Wants to challenge audiences’ tolerance for bad taste and gross-out gags

Screening as part of Directors’ Fortnight, Conann should have a healthy festival run, especially with programmers who specialise in fantasy and oddity. Anyone expecting a remake of Conan The Barbarian, the 1982 actioner that helped make Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, will be disappointed, although this cheeky riff on Robert E. Howard’s creation does have plenty of violence of its own. Conann boasts no major stars but, after establishing his reputation with 2017’s The Wild Boys and 2021’s After Blue – the latter of which played in Toronto’s Midnight Madness section – Mandico can easily command a niche following among those who want their films transgressive, gory and maybe even a little campy.

Elina Lowensohn plays Rainer, a mutant dog/human hybrid who narrates the story of Conann, a mythical figure who travels through different stages of her life. As a teenager (Claire Duburcq), Conann is a slave cruelly owned by the evil Sanja (Julia Riedler), but in later years she breaks free of Sanja. The Conann role is then portrayed by a rotating cast of performers, with Rainer and Sanja always appearing alongside her, even as eras and locations change.

The micro-budget film makes the most of its modest resources, with Anna Le Mouel crafting vivid handcrafted environments which range from dreamy underworlds to cold 1980s-era cityscapes. Cinematographer Nicolas Eveilleau shoots in 35mm, often in black and white, with the occasional splashes of colour to emphasise the shock of something Mandico has thrown up there on the screen. And the prosthesis used to transform Lowensohn into this dog-like creature is eerily impressive.

Conann’s inherently episodic structure basically guarantees that some segments will prove stronger than others — in part because of where Conann finds herself at any one time, but also because of who plays her. Sandra Parfait is excellent as the 35-year-old Conann, bringing a steely elegance to the character that hadn’t been there in previous chapters. But what’s consistently disappointing is that, while Mandico’s gender-flip of the Conann legend has the potential to interrogate cartoonish displays of masculinity, Conann doesn’t do much with its premise, although the filmmaker somehow manages to find opportunities for Conann and Sanja to lip-lock over the years. (As an indication of his gonzo style, Mandico includes a playfully gratuitous close-up of two tongues darting back and forth during one of their kisses.) 

The film wants to challenge audiences’ tolerance for bad taste and gross-out gags, presenting multiple scenes in which characters will need to eat other characters, the camera lingering on severed body parts and slippery organs. Conann is an invitation to put decorum aside and savour a trippy filmmaker with an appetite for cult-classic cinema and transgressive art. In segments, the picture can be liberating in its unapologetic strangeness, refusing to be beholden to traditional narrative structure and relishing its delightfully dippy dialogue. (Sample line: “Life is an undulating serpent.”)

But those not already on Mandico’s wavelength may find their patience tested, his provocations yielding diminishing returns along the way. As upsetting as Rainer’s presence is early on, it is slightly less dismaying each time the creature reappears, although he is part of Conann’s freakiest sex scene. Please note, however, that particular moment is probably only the fifth-most-disturbing in the film — which, depending on your temperament, will either be a warning or an enticement.