My first morning mouthful of chocolate tastes magnificent. It has taken four days for me to be seduced by a butter baked breakfast treat. The first day of painful fatigue and grey weather requires comfort eating. Also in my defence the American pavilion won’t make me a Panini at least until the sun is properly up. I can’t blame them; it’s too early to function properly.
I lack the motivation to drag myself into a screening room so I slouch back in my seat with half a croissant in my mouth. Besides me the film students are being given a lecture from someone who works in the high end hospitality industry. He has drooping hair and a voice that sounds like a long sigh. He tells them how special ‘special days’ are and the importance of hotel loyalty. I briefly consider working in the perk filled luxury lifestyle business. But it feels too much like being the audience for someone else’s spectacular life.
I kill time, eat more pastries and tell anyone who asks just how good a time I’ve been having. Eventually there’s no one left to talk to and nothing left to eat so I go looking for something else to do. In front of the Palais a funny thing happens. I spot someone walking toward me who looks exactly like an old friend from America. The resemblance is uncanny. I wonder, have I found her evil French twin? Such a discovery would put a whole different slant on this trip. I’m naturally cautious. But there’s no need to panic, it actually is her.
My mind does boggle a little with the sheer coincidence. I immediately decide to give up on the next batch of screenings and we catch up on life through a few drinks and a well made chicken lasagne lunch. A pair of busking musicians soundtrack our reunion with quintessentially French songs. Jaunty tunes with plenty of flair on the accordion. It's one of those rare moments when life lives up to the expectations movies have inflicted on me.
We're briefly befriended by an elderly Irish couple. They're on holiday for the rest of their lives, but it’s time to for me to get back to business. So I make our friendly excuses and we leave. Heading back towards the Palais we bump into Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson. As a couple they seem oddly juxtaposed; a 90 American teen heartthrob and a seriously dramatic European actress. But watching them stroll hand in hand the love is enviably real.
I leave my friend outside a party for a local TV channel and I return to my second home at the American pavilion. Famke Janssen is giving a talk about becoming a director. She has the improbably slender frame of a former model and a pretty face with hard edges. Her hair is jet black and her fingernails match. She says it's for her next film. She's playing an evil witch, but without scary facial prosthetics it just looks a little emo. She's serious, passionate and older than I thought.
I debate about leaving before the next talk on independent film distribution. But in the end it's too much work to leave and the panel have already arrived. Mild mannered debates start about video on demand and online marketing strategies. The fresh faced Facebook rep keeps referring to popular new Facebook apps that nobody in the audience knew existed. I start to wonder if he's just making them up as he goes along to see what people like the sound of most. Eventually there's nothing left to talk about, but I pass around a wallet's worth of business cards before I go.
It's finally time to watch another film and I assess my options. I could play it safe, but I'm unable to resist the allure of something exotic. 3D Sex and Zen is infamous for breaking Avatar's box office record in China and for being the world's first adventure in 3D erotica. Intellectual and animal curiosity gets the better of me so I join the growing queue.
A frazzled looking older woman next to me introduces herself as a famous French actress. She tells me she's won awards but I've never heard of them or her. I reassure myself that she has a festival pass and speaks basic English so she can't be too deranged. I take my seat near the front, accompanied by my award winning French stalker.
The cast and director stand up and introduce the film then sit down next to us. The film is exactly two hours long which seems excessive. It starts and the first hour is pretty much what I expected bawdy slapstick style comedy. There a strange 70s throwback vibe with all the classic Porno clichés tweaked for historical period china. Replace a cable repair man with the servant who pushes the old fashioned coal cart and you get the idea.
It's intentionally funny and mostly entertaining. The sex scenes quickly get monotonous and it's palpably awkward to watch them with the cast and 300 mainstream industry professionals sweating alongside you.
It's all going okay until the start of the second hour. Without warning the film flips a switch from silly to psychotic. With absolutely no excuse the film starts a repugnant descent into extreme graphic violence and torture porn. I can't even write of the exact horrors I have to endure because merely uttering them to you may damage you irrevocably.
Other people start to leave but I'm trapped alongside the people responsible for this nightmare. If this is what they watch for entertainment god knows what they'll do to me if I walk out on it. I fight my powerful professional instincts to run away and vomit. Although under normal circumstances that would have been the only sensible response. I start to regret that I have eyes and ears that work.
The film finally ends and I politely decline an invite to a launch party with the cast and crew. I'm careful not to make any sudden moves as I escape. I abandon my French stalker while she's busy distracting them with conversation. This could be a noble act of self sacrifice but I suspect she's just angling for a part in the sequel. She’s never seen again and the imaginary film industry morns a tragic loss.
Traumatised and nauseous I meet up with my re-discovered American friend for dinner. We search for a place to eat for over half an hour, mostly because I need fresh air and counselling to revive my appetite. I settle in the end for the healing power of pasta and conversation. I survive but just barely.
After I’m sufficiently recovered we walk back to the Palais. On the way we pass by a well known Danish actor. I decide it's best not to say hello because he's fall down drunk. It's probably not fair to burden someone who can barely stand with the added pressure of small talk. He narrowly avoids sidewalks and expensive shop windows with the help of some friends. I just hope he was celebrating good news.
Invigorated by a change of clothes and the excitement of my first official Cannes Party I return encore une fois to the American pavilion. Director John Cameron Mitchell (rabbit hole, hedwig, shortbus) is on DJ duty and it's a masterful display. He's clearly crafted a perfect mix tape of loveable old classics and obscure pop punk. Even the queue for drinks tokens is having a discrete boogie.
It's tricky to fly solo for too long and I start chatting with a friendly Serbian sales agent. We instantly adopt each other as de facto wingmen. He bemoans the fact that the UK can't handle Serbian cinema and that his last film about a gang who make snuff porn movies probably won't get a UK theatrical release. I can only agree. I meet some Australian producers, a Flemish actor and the usual array of friendly film students and Americans.
A hideously drunk Ukrainian woman, clutching a half devoured vodka bottle in her claw, tells me I need to be "more human". I think it’s safe to say that sanity may have been lost in Smirnoff soaked translation. But the night perks up again when I meet someone who has a custom made iPod nano on his wrist disguised as a watch. I'm jealous and it makes me want to live in the future.
John C. Reilly and some of the cast of "We Need To Talk About Kevin" show up. There are also a couple of guys dressed as astronauts in space suites and a few transvestites with Halloween face paint on. It's not entirely clear if they're all part of the official entertainment or not. Either way it's past 2am and the party is officially 'over'. I'm done.
The walk back to the flat feels longer than ever before and I have to get up early to hopefully meet Johnny Depp. I pass out in my clothes, dreaming of pirates.
Russ Nelson 13th May 2011
Quote of The Day:
“My reaction to porn films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes, I never want to screw again as long as I live.”
Erica Jong, Playboy Magazine, September 1975
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