Jewish Sex Crimes and Bromance Vie for Attention at Cannes, While Israeli Films Are Excellent
This year’s Cannes Film Festival was inaugurated by Woody Allen’s Café Society, a middling and derivative rehash of Allen’s signature themes set in the Golden Age of 1930s Hollywood. The film was in turn preempted by the now annual ritual of the latest Allen-Farrow family scandal. This year’s iteration was predicated on the publication in The Hollywood Reporter of Ronen Farrow’s damning essay, “My Father, Woody Allen, and the Danger of Questions Unasked.” The piece defends his sister, Dylan Farrow, who is a daughter of longtime Allen film actress and former girlfriend Mia Farrow.
Dylan Farrow, it should be recalled, had made damning allegations of childhood sexual abuse against Allen in the wake of the collapse of their relationship when she discovered the nude pictures Allen had taken of Farrow’s step-daughter—now his wife—Soon-Yi Previn. Allen has continued to deny all allegations of the sexual abuse but Ronan—who may or may not be the illegitimate son of Frank Sinatra—posited himself as being exhausted by what he characterized as the “culture of acquiescence” and complicity that has wrapped his father (or not) in accolades, absolving him of culpability. According to Ronen’s furious piece, the brutal accusations levied against Allen were being systematically ignored and left socially unpunished by an equally exhausted public that just wanted to get on with it so it could watch his films in peace.