Earlier this week, Quentin Tarantino unveiled his latest film “Once upon a time… in Hollywood”, a leap into the past interpreted by a stunning cast.
It was probably the most anticipated screening of this Cannes Film Festival. The excitement reached its peak with a Hollywoodian atmosphere, as the audience was eager to welcome Quentin Tarantino and his trio of stars. After an in extremis selection in official competition a few weeks ago, the American director climbed the steps of the Palais du Festival to present “Once upon a time… in Hollywood”, accompanied by Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie.
The entire Croisette was in a hurry to discover the new gem from the director of “Pulp Fiction”, film which earned him the Palme d’Or, 25 years ago, in 1994. And so he returns this year with an original film. Once upon a time… in Hollywood revisits a striking tale: the murder of Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, by the “family” of noted killer Charles Manson, in 1969 Los Angeles. But the plot will start with the characters Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a television star and his fictional loner and longtime-neighbor of Polanski and Tate (Margot Robbie), chasing their careers in a rapidly changing industry.
Owning its alternate history approach, “Once upon a time… in Hollywood” is an ode and a declaration of love to the cinema, and one that is full of nostalgia. Directed by an inveterate moviegoer, the film transports spectators into the city of Angels in the late sixties. Ever faithful to the Tarantino style, which is at once aesthetic, pop, and violent, the atmosphere evolves between the hippie movement and upheaval of the great Hollywood machine. All carried by Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, a royal duo on screen, accompanied by the luminous Margot Robbie in the skin of Sharon Tate.
The end credits were followed by a lengthy applaud. “Once upon a time… in Hollywood” might just earn the Palme d’Or, the second success of Quentin Tarantino in Cannes since 1994.
*Article originally published on the French edition of the Monaco Tribune.