Would the price of cinema tickets be a brake on cinema attendance? One would be tempted to answer no as long as subscription cards have multiplied in multiplexes as in the sanctuaries of the arrested. And yet, like every year, the Film Festival demonstrates the extent to which a “broken” price (in this case 4 euros per screening) triggers a pressing need among many spectators to make the trip.
The 37th edition of this highly anticipated event demonstrates this once again. On Sunday, during the first day of the event, more than 837,000 admissions were recorded in France, “i.e. more 8% than the average over the last three comparable years (from 2017 to 2019”, specifies the National Federation of French Cinemas. In Toulouse and the conurbation, more than 19,000 tickets were sold, half of them at Pathé Wilson and Gaumont Labège (which belong to the same group).In 3rd position, the Mega CGR Blagnac made a very good operation with 3 700 entries.
In almost all cinemas, attendance was doubled between Saturday and Sunday. Mainly benefit from it are the big American productions which are, in order of success, “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Jurassic World: the world after” and “Buzz Lightyear”, that is to say three sequels or versions of known stories or characters. The stability of Tom Cruise in the 6th week leaves us skeptical: how does such a fabric of macho and melodramatic nonsense manage to please so many spectators?
We much prefer “Elvis”, by Baz Luhrmann, a formidable biography which vibrates and abounds in a superlative register corresponding so much more to so-called “big show” cinema.
The Film Festival is not really that of “Made in France”. Only “Irréductible”, by Jérôme Commandeur, has a nice place in the sun for its indoor debut. This story of a lowly employee of Waters and Forests forced to leave Limoges for exotic and dangerous posts brings together all the qualities of a good comedy, which is rare in the ocean of mediocrity that this genre has become in France.