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International Herald Tribune The Shows: Attitude by the sea, and plenty of jitters

By Joan Dupont

CANNES The Cannes Festival is the World Series of cinema events, a blood sport where the big hitters strut their stuff and rookies may get hurt. This is a festival with attitude, a happening that excites and riles the public. Playing favorites, faithful and finicky by turn, Cannes - and its audiences - make and break champions.

 

There are directors who seem to have lifelong contracts, who are known by initials or nicknames, and those who have been dropped along the way into noncompetitive sections. Then, in the highest out-of-competition realm, you have George Lucas's "Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith," providing the Hollywood touch. The festival chiefs Gilles Jacob, Thierry Frémaux and Véronique Cayla are proud of copping this world premiere, along with "Match Point," the new Woody Allen, which opens the out-of-competition screenings.

 

In this year's 58th festival, which runs from Wednesday to May 22, the game is looking tamer, for the competition brags so many big names that you wonder where the novelty will come from. Just look at this list: David Cronenberg, Lars Von Trier, Wim Wenders, "Gentleman" Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, "HHH" or Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Amos Gitai, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Atom Egoyan, Michael Haneke. It's a men's sport, for few women have been admitted in competition, and only one - Jane Campion - has won a Palme d'Or. Making their competition debut this year will be Tommy Lee Jones as a director, Italy's Marco Tullio Giordano, the Larrieu brothers of France, China's Wang Xiaoshuai and Johnnie To of Hong Kong. "Sin City," directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez and already released in the United States, is old news.

 

Emir Kusturica, who heads the jury, was practically born on the shores of Cannes. The director from Sarajevo first came and won the Palme d'Or with "When Father Was Away on Business" (1985), a comedy set in Yugoslavia. Freshly unshaved, pale, and barefoot on the beach, he spoke neither French nor English. Since then, he has made "Arizona Dream" with Johnny Depp, suffered his country's internal wars while being heavily criticized for not taking a stand against the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and, briefly, dropped out of filmmaking.

 

"I had to learn the lesson of the immigrant," he said in a 1998 interview. He also taught cinema at Columbia University, polished his language skills and leads a rock band called No Smoking. Despite his second Palme for "Underground" (1995), Kusta, as he is called, is a wild card, a man who likes a good fight.

 

There is speculation that a jury that includes the novelist Toni Morrison and the filmmakers Agnès Varda and Fatih Akin will be touched by films with social and political issues, such as the Kurdish director Hiner Saleem's "Kilometer Zero." But no one doubts that Kusta will have his say and leave his mark on the awards.

 

Dominik Moll opens the competition Wednesday evening with "Lemming," a ghost story of sorts starring Charlotte Rampling, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Laurent Lucas and André Dussollier. "I haven't seen Kusturica's latest films," Moll said in an interview, "but I think he likes spectacular movies. Mine are more intimate. I don't think that the movies I make could appeal to him, but you never know."

 

The tall, lanky, laughing Moll, who looks much too relaxed to be a French auteur, is in the hot seat: "Lemming" opens in France the same day, a risky business. The director made a splash in 2000 with "Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien" ("Harry, He's Here to Help"), a dark Hitchcockian comedy that was an overnight hit - thanks to Cannes.

 

He is, he admits, a little nervous about opening night at the Palais. "Everything went so well with 'Harry,' which was sold all over, that prizes didn't matter. But when you're watching a film with an audience of 2,000, and you hear people getting up and leaving," he said with a laugh, "I can't say that doesn't scare me at all."

 

"Lemming" is just as Hitchcockian as "Harry," but darker. A young couple, leading an apparently perfect life, is visited by an older couple. The evening is a disaster, and the visitors, a vision of married misery, leave their mark on the innocent hosts. From then on, all goes amok.

 

"I'm interested in the strange things that happen in a couple, when an outside force is introduced," Moll said. Lemmings, which actually show up in the movie, are, he said, "a red herring, not just to lead audiences astray, but to pave the way to another realm, the irrational."

 

Like Michael Haneke of Austria, whose "Caché" (Hidden), starring Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, screens Saturday, Moll comes from beyond France. "That's the richness of French cinema," he said. "It's open to other countries."

 

Moll's mother is French, his father German. He studied film at City College in New York and is comfortable in English. "One of my teachers edited 'The Exorcist,' and I've always liked ghost stories," he said. "I'm interested in sci-fi, too - not the kind that takes place in outer space, but the kind that takes place between people."

 

A festival that flourishes on surprises and upsets, Cannes savors the rumble of impatient critics, the frenzy of press conferences, the high of last-minute entries. Last year, it was the late arrival of Wong Kar-wai's "2046" that provided drama. Cannes has always been good to WKW, who first came with "As Tears Go By" (1989) and grabbed hearts - and awards - with "In the Mood for Love" (2000).

 

Last year there was also Michael Moore with his "Fahrenheit 9/11," winning over the jury's president, Quentin Tarantino, and taking the Palm, much to the dismay of the fastidious Gilles Jacob. It was the year of the documentary, with Jonathan Nossiter's "Mondovino," boosted up to the competition at the last moment. Nossiter says it was like being invited to the Oscars to watch and being told he was part of the show. "If 'Mondovino' was shown in over 40 countries, it's mostly because of what happened at Cannes," he said.

 

This year, there are no documentaries, no animation surprises, no stark Iranian landscapes, no kung-fu fun. There are plenty of specials: an "Atelier de Création" to help young filmmakers from all over the world, evenings on the beach called "La Soirée Movie-Mix," and an acting master class taught by Catherine Deneuve.

 

Where is Jean-Luc Godard when we need him? JLG surfs effortlessly above the fray without Palmes. He kept the curtain from rising during the May 1968 strikes, signed a contract for his 1987 "King Lear" on a tablecloth and runs his own press conferences. While the distinguished guests compete, Godard's "Histoire(s) du Cinéma" will be aired on Pink TV, the French gay channel. A delicate tribute to the master, and to the festival, which will probably tickle JLG.

 

 

The Cannes Festival is the World Series of cinema events, a blood sport where the big hitters strut their stuff and rookies may get hurt. This is a festival with attitude, a happening that excites and riles the public. Playing favorites, faithful and finicky by turn, Cannes - and its audiences - make and break champions.

There are directors who seem to have lifelong contracts, who are known by initials or nicknames, and those who have been dropped along the way into noncompetitive sections.  

In this year's 58th festival, which runs from Wednesday to May 22, the game is looking tamer, for the competition brags so many big names that you wonder where the novelty will come from.

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The Star

Age concern in Cannes Wyndham King The beautiful people have begun their annual sashay for the snappers by the seaside as this year's Cannes Film Festival gets underway.

Rearing its, er, ugly head, among the nip, tucks and body scrubs of the film world's finest is what the Grauniad calls the "age-old debate" on Hollywood and ageism.

Being at least 30 years past the acceptable cut-off point for a movie beauty hasn't stopped Charlotte Rampling sounding off a thing or two about actresses, youth and scrapheaps.

Railing from her bath-chair, the 60-year-old former Euro-cine ingenue dribbles: "The system (of only picking young actresses for the top parts) isn't as barbaric in Europe as it is in America."

Speak up, dearie, we can't hear you.

"If a woman is prepared to age it can be quite beautiful," she adds. "Having wrinkles is not a reason to be put away. In Europe they understand that thank God," Rampling continues, before shuffling off to feed the cat and renew her bus-pass.

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What would a party be without a woman? A stick of dynamite without a fuse, says PhiI Robinson.