2008 Festival de Cannes: Part Two

The incongruous in Cannes: an open truck, stuffed with palm trees going down a narrow street. Even in the land of palm trees, the Festival needs more. Headline in Nice Matin: the Festival means 173 million euros to the local economy.

For those who associate the Festival with fun, here, from the official catalog, are the first lines from descriptions of films in the official competition:

“A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant white blindness”. Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital…” (the opening film, Blindness)

“Julia wakes up in her apartment, surrounded by the bloody bodies of Ramiro and Nahuel.” (Leonera by Pablo Trapero)

“A family dislocated when small failings blow up into extravagant lies battles against the odds to stay together by covering up the truth…” (Three Monkeys by Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

“Abel and Junon had two children, Joseph and Elizabeth. Victim of a rare genetic condition, Joseph’s only hope was a bone marrow transplant…” (A Christmas Tale by Arnaud Desplechin)

“One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs…” (Waltz with Bakshir by Ari Folman)

“Chengdu nowadays. The state owned factory 420 shuts down to give way to a complex of luxury apartments….” (24 City by Jia Zhang-ke)

“Sao Paolo. 20 million inhabitants, 200 kilometres of traffic, 300,000 messengers on bicycles…” (Linha de Passe by Walter Salles)

ALL of this pales, of course, to the problems one might encounter in Hollywood. The closing night film is What Just Happened?, directed by Barry Levinson. The plot description in the catalog goes like this: “The tale of a fading movie producer trying to revitalize his career while dealing with a teenage daughter who’s growing up too fast, a variety of ex-wives, and several Hollywood personalities who seem to want nothing more than to make his life difficult.”

- Facets Multi-Media Executive Director Milos Stehlik, reporting from the 2008 Festival de Cannes.