Cannes Postcard
by Sharon Stone18 May 2009 - this article originally appeared in Finch’s Quarterly Review Issue 4
My Dear Charles,
The very first thing that cuts the players from the watchers is whether or not you can say it: Cannes. Well, Cannes you make it there? Or are you trying to Cannes someone?
With the advent of film festivals all over the world, what is The Thing about Cannes? What gives it the je ne sais quoi?
There are deals, of course. Some of them are even about film. And there are boats. Big boats. There are deals on boats. Some of them are even about film. There are stars: movie stars and rock stars. And boats. There are parties with stars on boats. There are more deals.
There is a palace with a long red carpet outside its front door and down its very tall staircase. All of the stars and super-talented fancy people who have come to show their films in the palace to the people who make deals walk very slowly up the wide red carpet to the top of the tall staircase.
While the stars and the super-talents do the fancy walk there are crowds of thousands of screaming people on either side of the wide red carpet. Usually, they are screaming one of the fancy persons’ names. This is captured for eternity in tiny black boxes by a crowded group of mostly men in tuxedos whom we have come to call “paparazzi”. The fancy people both revere and loathe the paparazzi. It appears to be a tribal ritual.
When the fancy persons reach the top of the palace staircase they are greeted by some palace caretakers and then they turn around and wave to the energetic crowd. Soon they disappear inside and observe the films that they are in with a large group of much-bejewelled spectators.
At the end of the films the spectators clap their hands together and stare at the participants of the film they have seen. This seems to bring much pleasure to all involved.
Everyone leaves and goes to a party (on a boat).
Later in the evening there are more parties in various places of different levels of meaning and importance.
I have noticed that in this place called Cannes the sunlight and the way it touches each person’s face seems to make him or her indistinguishable from a fancy person. It is my opinion that this is why everyone loves this festival the most. Either this, or the boats.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Sharon XXXXX
Adam Dawtrey focuses on some big-name films expected at this year’s festival
Antichrist
A couple of years ago, Danish provocateur Lars von Trier swore never again to premiere his films at major festivals. But he’s a terrible tease, so of course he’s back at Cannes this year with Antichrist. It’s a kind of horror movie, with Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple who retreat to a cabin in the woods to recover from the death of their baby. A cabin in the woods? How foolish of them.
Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)
Michael Haneke’s US remake of his own Funny Games took the gloss off his shiny Euro arthouse reputation. He’ll be hoping to restore his lustre with The White Ribbon, about kids in a small German villlage just before the First World War.
Fish Tank
Andrea Arnold won the Oscar (2005) for her short Wasp and the Grand Jury prize at Cannes for her feature debut Red Road (2006), so can she sustain her glittering promise with Fish Tank? It’s the story of a troubled teenage girl whose life is transformed when her mother brings home a new boyfriend, played by Michael Fassbender, who made a big splash at Cannes last year in Hunger.
Taking Woodstock
Ang Lee does the hippie hippie shake, with a film about the crazy capers surrounding the founding of the Woodstock music festival in 1969, and a hot young cast including Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch and Paul Dano.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Terry Gilliam is a past master at surviving disaster, but the death of Heath Ledger in mid-production topped any previous crisis in Gilliam’s career. His solution was to draft in Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law to play three different avatars of Ledger’s character. Brilliant, bonkers, or both? We’ll find out at Cannes when this screens out of competition.
Thirst
Korean auteur Park Chan-wook attempts to prove that horror belongs in the rarefied atmosphere of the Palme d’Or race, with this tale of a priest who turned into a vampire after a medical experiment goes wrong.
Spring Fever
There’s always one movie at Cannes that titillates or shocks with its sexual shenanigans. Chinese auteur Lou Ye shot this story of a teenage erotic threesome in great secrecy, but rumour says it’s torrid stuff.
Up
Starting with a 3-D animated Hollywood blockbuster is a major departure for Cannes, which normally prefers to depress the hell out its opening-night audience. But Up, the story of geriatric who ties thousands of balloons to his house to make it fly, comes from Pixar, which specialises in rewriting the rules. Who else would make a kids’ movie with a 78-year-old lead character?
Tales From the Golden Age
2007 Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu returns with a movie that promises to be a bit more fun than his austerely brilliant and humanistic abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Tales From the Golden Age delves into the surreal and comic urban myths about life in late Communist-period Romania.
- Adam Dawtrey is FQR’s film critic
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