A world spiralling out of control at Cannes

Economic and social tensions run like a common thread through several of the films competing for Cannes' top prize this year

A police officer – portrayed by Adam Driver – in Jim Jarmusch’s zombie zinger The Dead Don’t Die, the 72nd Cannes Film Festival opener, is a man with a premonition. His refrain all through the film is: “I have a feeling it is going to end badly.” It does. For him and Centreville, a town that represents a nation overrun by unbridled consumerism, hatred and fear.

Several other films in the festival’s 2019 Competition, if not in a way as bizarre as The Dead Don’t Die, zeroed in on a crisis-ridden society hurtling in the direction of a social, economic