O n a humid morning in Macau, a blue-and-orange phoenix embellished with more than 60,000 flowers is hatching from an enormous pink Fabergé egg in the lobby of the Wynn Palace hotel. The haughty bird basks in the attention of onlookers as it rotates on a diamond-encrusted perch to the triumphant sound of clarions, before returning to its shell. Chancing upon this spectacle, you think to yourself, “How lucky that I was passing at that precise moment!” Stick around and you will be disabused of your sense of good fortune: the hatching occurs every 15 minutes without fail.

It is summer 2024, and Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton are guests here while shooting Ballad of a Small Player, directed by Edward Berger ( Conclave ) and based on Lawrence Osborne’s clammy 2014 novel about ghosts, guilt

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