‘Val’: Val Kilmer’s Life As A Misunderstood Artist Is Showcased In This Wholly Conventional Bio-Doc [Cannes Review]

Val Kilmer is the subject of the upcoming documentary “Val”, which features the actor’s never-before-shared opinions of some of his most iconic film roles.

Val Kilmer is opening up about his time in the Batsuit as Batman, in 1995′s Batman Forever.

new documentary “Val,” out Friday, we meet Kilmer, 61, after he’s survived throat cancer. Although he denied being sick in 2016, the actor now lives with a stoma — a hole in his throat used to breathe and speak.

In his latest film, Val Kilmer gets an unusual screen credit for a bona fide Hollywood movie star: cinematographer.That's because the documentary “Val” is built on thousands of hours Kilmer filmed since he was a boy — growing up, on movie sets, in cars, in hospitals. This is a lifetime-in-the-making cinematographer’s credit.Thanks to Kilmer's relentless drive to document things, “Val” is a remarkably intimate film and a moving one, too.

CANNES, France -- Val Kilmer was in movies he wasn’t in.The new documentary “Val,” bursting with footage Kilmer shot himself over his 61 years, includes home videos and backstage glimpses, as you might expect. But the most remarkable thing is seeing Kilmer’s own audition tapes of himself.

There’s a lovely wind that blows across the island of Fårö, Ingmar Bergman‘s actual home for several years, and his spiritual home for several decades. Even in the summer, when Mia Hansen-Løve‘s “Bergman Island” is set, the breeze is constant, cool and a little salt-dampened, tousling Vicky Krieps’ hair, scudding through the tufts of scraggly dune-grass and sweeping majestically across the vast empty spaces where the point of this movie is supposed to be.

Of the many films playing at Cannes which have gained in resonance since the coming of the pandemic, “Zero F*cks Given” from French duo Julie Lecoustre, and Emmanuel Marre does not represent the creepiest, most alarming kind of coincidence — that description would better fit “Benedetta” from Dutch master Paul Verhoeven, which features an actual plague, face coverings and quarantine measures.

Mention of “the Berkshires” conjures images of pastoral New England abutting major cultural institutions: The Norman Rockwell Museum, Mass MoCA, Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow. Every quaint town center enjoys an abundance of good ice cream and even better coffee.

Just a few days on the heels of “Stillwater,” another American entry in the Cannes Film Festival main competition section explores the complicated relationship between a father and daughter rooted in down-home Americana and close brushes with the law. “Flag Day” marks Sean Penn’s latest directorial return to Cannes since the critically-lambasted “The Last Face” from 2016.

Sibling style! Val Kilmer’s children, Mercedes and Jack Kilmer, attended the 2021 film festival on Wednesday, July 7, to promote his new documentary.

Mercedes and Jack Kilmer, the children of actor Val Kilmer, took the spotlight during the Val photocall during the 2021 Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday (July 7) in Cannes, France.

BFMTV, Foster explained that being at Cannes as a young girl for “Taxi Driver” in 1976 brought back some memories of how she used her ability to speak French as a way of making a connection.“They were afraid because everyone said that the film was too violent, there were criticisms, so they didn’t want to talk to people. I who spoke French, I managed to speak for them,” Foster said in the interview.

Jack, 26, and Mercedes, 29, Kilmer showed off just how grown up they are at a Wednesday July 7 screening for the documentary Val, which they co-produced, about their dad Val Kilmer, 61. The siblings looked fabolous at the screening.

cute. And “Val,” which premiered on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released by Amazon, certainly has lots of cute moments of Val Kilmer and his siblings growing up in Southern California.But those are the tip of the amateur-video iceberg in this film from directors Leo Scott and Ting Poo.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIn “Val,” the actor Val Kilmer, now in his early 60s, appears before us as a broken-down relic of himself. His face, once beaming and chiseled, with that smile that resembled a bite, now looks soggy and morose, with dark eyebrows that give him an oddly Nixonian cast.

Val Kilmer is opening up in an upcoming documentary. The 61-year-old is set to be the subject of the documentary "VAL," which will see him reflect on his decades-long career in Hollywood and much more, including his battle with throat cancer.

Telling his story. Val Kilmer gave fans an intimate look into his life and career, including his battle with throat cancer in the first trailer for the upcoming Amazon Prime Video documentary, Val.

Val Kilmer has lived his life onscreen, whether in blockbuster films, or thousands of hours of home video shot by the actor himself on a handheld camera.