Cannes Day Six

Today is the half-way point of the festival.  I've seen 39 films so far and have yet to see a great one.  I'm not worried though, as I've only seen five of the ten Competiton films that have screened and two of those that I have missed have been the best-reviewed--"Son of Saul" (an Auschwitz film by a first time Hungarian director that Sony just picked up for US distribution) and "Carol" (a lesbian period piece by veteran American Todd Haynes).  Plus three of the potentially best films have yet to play--those by Sorrentino, Audiard and Hsiao-Hsien Hou.  A festival rarely offers more than two or three greats, so that is still possible.  Last year was a good year with "Winter Sleep," "Foxcatcher," "Wild Tales," and "Force Majuere."  None of my 39 have provided such a jolt or uplift.

I made an attempt on "Son of Saul" this morning.  I was the eighth person in line an hour ahead of the noon screening, but none of us got in as those with priority passes filled the 63-seat theater before any of us with mere Market passes were allowed entry.  That meant I could see a South African version of "Spinal Tap," a mockumentary called "Stone Cold Jane Austen."  It could have been wacky, but was mostly silly and stupid.  The two members of the rock band of the same name as the title of the movie are trying to make a comeback.  No one much cared about them originally, and even less so now.  A cop though who recognizes them when they are out and about was a fan and even has a couple of  their CDs in his car that he asks them to autograph.  They refuse when they discover they are bootleg copies.  That upsets the cop, so he gives them a ticket, about the lone comic scene in the whole movie.

I tried for a second rock band movie, "The Green Room," as it had received rave reviews after its screenings in the Director's Fortnight.  The word was out and I fell five people short of getting in.  Playing right next door was "The Birth of Sake," a documentary on a 140-year old Japanese distillery that still brews the drink in the labor-intensive traditional manner.  Its workers live dormitory-style for six months during the winter months when the distilling takes place. They arise at 4:30 in the morning and every day manually process 2,600 pounds of rice.  One hundred years ago there were 4,600 distilleries in Japan.  There are now just 1,000 as wine and beer have increasingly become the choice of drink in Japan.  I thought I might see Gary Meier, a former director of Telluride, at the screening.  He told Ralph and I yesterday tha t he had left Telluride and would be launching a film festival of his own called Eat, Drink, Film  in the Bay Area.  We were sorry to learn he had ended his time with Telluride.  It will be the first Labor Day in over forty years that he won't be out there.

I didn't spot Gary, but I was joined by Milos of Facets and a member of the Board of Telluride at my next screening, part one of the three-part six-hour Arabian Tales that has been much talked about due to its running time and its subject matter--the economic crisis in Portugal.  Milos said he was leery the film might be a case of the Emperor's New Clothes, as he wasn't confident the movie would be as good as the reviews claim.  The title alone was questionable, as it was a mere attention-grabber since the movie had nothing to do with the Arabian Tales other then their structure.  Milos is someone to listen to.  He has been coming to Cannes for over thirty years and knows the tea leaves.  

He had skipped the morning's Competition film, "The Measure of a Man," as he feared this French film had slipped into the Competition to meet the French quota and also that it would be heavy-handed in its portrayal of a man out of work seeking employment.  He was right on that. I told Milos the movie had some merit, but when I described it to him, the movie met his expectations. The film concludes with the lead working as a security guard in a large supermarket.  His job is to catch shop-lifters.  They all have a sad, justifiable reason for shop-lifting, but he does his job.  He is more troubled though when he is ordered to try to catch check-out women cheating when his boss tells him they have to cut back on staff and need to fire some people.  One woman he catches, who was merely pocketing coupons, commits suicide.  When he catches another who was swiping her bonus card to get bonus points on the purchases of others, he doesn't think he can continue with his job.  The audience, most likely the French faction, cheered at the end of the movie.

And Milos was right about "Arabian Nights."  Its subject matter and its ambition, not its execution, was what had won the favor of the critics.  Its series of short tales commenting on the economic woes of the Portuguese was lifeless and plodding, and at a certain point an ordeal to sit through.  Milos was among the trickle of people who started walking out after an hour.  I stuck it out and even gave sat through Part Two since I had no viable alternative.  Part One was enough for Ralph.  The film could have been effective if it had had a dollop of Romanian realism or Iranian humanity or Japanese sensitivity.

Natalie Portman's Out of Competiton directorial debut, "A Tale of Love and Darkneas," also was missing that elixir making a movie something more than simply images on a screen going through the motions.  She even failed to elicit more than a flat performance out of herself playing a young wife and mother suffering a breakdown during the early years of Israel after WW II.  

By the time I dashed a few blocks to the Arcades for its 10:30 screening of a Belgian black comedy with Catherine Deneuve about God,  the theater was "complet."  I had five minutes to bike a mile up Antibes to the Miramar for the Critics Week screening of "Land of Shade" from Colombia.  I made it just as the lights were dimming.  Though it had been another long day with some nodding off, this minimalist film, as the Critics Week specializes in, had me fully riveted. The story set in rural Colombia was as sad as any of those of "Arabian Nights"--a young woman working in the cane fields while her husband lay at home seriously ill.  The workers aren't getting paid and no one will help her husband.

Cannes Day Five

Invited films are often distinguished from those in the Market by a strong charismatic performance by a star.  They can  lend credence to a script that may not be entirely credible engaging an audience enough with their artistry to make their movie seem worthwhile.  The Market is full of very marginal movies with a star hoping their performance can save the day. I could spend the entire festival indulging in such fare. Mickey Rourke can be seen in three Market movies, Nicholas Cage is in two.  Joe Pesci, James Can, Joe Mantegna, Eric Roberts, Richard Jenkins, Michael Madsen, Danny Glover and Oscar Isaac are among a host of actors who can carry a movie who have non red-carpet roles.  I'd be curious to see each of their performances on the Big Screen, but won't be able to work many them into my schedule.

This day was highlighted by a couple of riveting performances in movies of questionable validity that a lesser performance would otherwise have left audiences with a sour taste.  Vincent Cassel dazzled the screen as an über-suave restauranteur in the day's opening Competition film, "Mon Roii." He sweeps Emmanuelle Bercot (director of the opening night film "Standing Tall"), playing a lawyer, off her feet.  He's too perfect to be true and she asks him after their first bout of conjugal bliss if he's for real, or like all men a jerk.  With his non-stop repartee he tells her he's the King of Jerks, not a jerk himself but all other men are his subjects.  He of course turns into the ultimate jerk, and would be further fodder for Janina's gender study class. Initially he fully caters to the object of his desires, but then becomes the ultimate control freak, even insisting they name their baby "Sinbad," rather than Elliot, as she would prefer.  This was  directed by Maiwenn, whose previous film "Polisse" won the Jury Prize, a much more realistic film.

Matthias Schoenaerts, another Gallic actor who can ignite the screen, somewhat redeems the Un Certain Regard "Disorder," playing a part-time security guard while he awaits word on whether he can return to duty in Afghanstan as he deeply wishes despite being shell shocked.  He is guarding the wife and son of a wealthy Lebanese businessman who hobnobs with government ministers.  The businessman is engaged in questionable practices that have him in trouble with the press as well as people he does business with.  His wife becomes a target.  Schoenaerts is a hunk.  The script can't help but lapse into matters of the libido. 

Collin Ferrell is also known for his sexual dynamism.  But they are entirely wasted in "The Lobster," a Competition film I caught up with today.  He plays a nebbish with a paunch and glasses, a role better suited for a Greg Kinear or John C. Reilly.  Reilly does turn up in this movie playing his usual bumbling self, and just like the other Competition film he had a similar role in "Tale of Tales," it was an exercise in inconsequential absurdism.  Reilly and Ferrell are an a holding center for singles in a futuristic world.  They have 45 days to find a mate or they will be forced to be turned into an animal of their choosing.  Ferrell would like to become a lobster. 

This was a rare day with a Market film on a subject matter of personal interest--a documentary on a trek of the US from Mexico to Canada by four recent graduates of Texas A&M on horseback.  The film takes its title "Unbranded" from the wild mustangs they enlist for the ride.  The subject of the west being overrun by wild horses is a recurring theme of the movie.  Their numbers are increasing at 20 per cent a year.  Over 50,000 are being held in corrals awaiting adoption.  It takes three months to train one for domesticity.  The scenery is spectacular as their route includes the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.  They guys don't entirely get along, distracting from the glory of their experience.

My day included two other documentaries with lengthy, self-explanatory titles--"David Lynch: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "Can't Stand Losing You: Surviivng the Police."  Lynch narrates in a droning tone his life-story up until his first movie "Eraserhead."  He is rarely glimpsed though, as his commentary is accompanied by drawings and paintings and sometimes photographs of what he is describing, making this transcend the usual bio-pic. A recurring phrase from his mother as he was growing up was that he was disappointing him. His first ambition was to be a painter.  He rented a studio while he was still in school.  When he upset his father with his benign defiance,  he told him he was no longer a member of the family.  He regained his good graces, but when he went to visit him a few years later where he was living in Philadelphia his father was so unsettled by his work that he advised him that he shouldn't have children.  Little did Lynch know at the time that his girl friend was pregnant.  They married shortly thereafter.  Lynch says his life was saved a few years later when he won a $5,000 grant from the American Film Institute to make a short.  He later earned a scholarship to move to LA from the AFI which led to "Eraserhead."   

The documentary on the Police was based on the memoirs of guitarist Andy Summers, one of the three members of the band.  The group's singer and song writer Sting wasn't invoked at all in the making of the movie, as Summers said all along he only cared about himself.  The film has plenty of archival interviews and concert and rehearsal footage to draw from as well as some recent reunion concerts.  

The day concluded with "Journey to the Shore," another Un Certain Regard film that leant an insightful view into the culture of another country, this time Japan. Ralph and I could fully connect with this movie, as Ralph spent a good part of his working life there and I two months bicycling it.  A young woman's husband returns three years after he was thought to have been lost at sea.  He says he had been depressed and needed to regain his health.  He has spent the time traveling about Japan working an assortment of jobs.  It was just what he needed. His face is continually wreathed in a beatific smile.  He takes his wife on a trip to meet many of the wonderful people he came to know during his time away.  They are all very happy to see him again.  

Cannes Day Four

It was a day of socially relevant cinema with docs on food, jihadists in Pakistan and Mexican drug cartels to go along with features on women's rights in Iran, interacting with the indigenous and another featuring striking workers and a dying woman.

Nanni Moretti's Competition entry "Mia Madre" may not fully fall under the umbrella of social relevancy as the movie was split between a movie director on the set dealing with a difficult actor and in the hospital room of her dying mother.  John Tuturro flies in from America to star in an Italian movie as a factory owner dealing with his striking workers.  He is a nightmare to work with as he can't get his lines right.  What is meant as a comedy quickly grows tiresome.  The hospital scenes, which include Moretti as the director's brother, are serious but all too typical.  This movie was akin to a Hollywood sequel, with Moretti sticking to safe, recycled material that didn't go beyond the ordinary, only meriting inclusion in the Compeittion category because of his reputation and connection to the festival as a former award winner and jury president.

The Iranian "Nahid" in Un Certain Regard was one of full slate of films on the second-rate status of women in the Islamic world. There are others from Turkey, Palastine, India and elsewhere.  Janina could see several films a day that would make good material for the gender studies class she teaches, including a feature about young girls who are transformed into boys and how they much prefer being girls.  Nahid is a thirty-year old mother of a son who is separated from her drug addict husband.  She'd like to remarry as she is destitute and on the verge of being evicted.  A wealthy man, whose wife has died, has proposed.  She likes him but fears she'd lose custody of her son if she does.  He assures her he has a good lawyer to achieve that.  She agrees to a series of trial thirty-day marriages.  She is frazzled and doesn't really know what is best as she fights battles on several fronts.

Two young girls are given away in marriage against their wills in the Pakistani documentary "Among Believers."  They are just an incidental, but telling moment, in this movie that concentrates on jihadists, while giving attention to other aspects of Pakistani society.  Young boys are recruited to Islamic schools with the promise that if they become jihadists they will wear a crown in heaven and so will their parents who give them up to the schools.  This well-balanced film also interviews more rational clerics and gives a well-informed view into today's Pakistan.

"Cartel Land" was even richer with remarkable, unguarded footage of how it is deep in Mexico in Michoacan where the drug cartels have terrorized the local populations and also on the border of the US where vigilante groups patrol.  Michoacan gave birth to its own local vigilantes as well, led by a local doctor, frustrated by the corrupt government failing to control the drug lords.  The doctor is initially a great hero, recruitng dozens of armed locals to take the law into their own hands, but then feels the wrath of the government and the all-powerful cartels.  The movie almost plays as a feature with a rich cast of fascinating characters and dramatic action during shoot outs and interrogating suspects.

Less dramatic, but equally well shot, "Ten Billion--What's On Your Plate," a German documentary on how the world will feed itself when its population doubles to ten billion in the next few decades, deals with another pertinent subject.  The director travels the world examine the present state of food production to what needs to be done to save the planet.  He cites concerns, including India transforming itself from a country of vegetarians to one of carnivores and a visit to Chicago's Board of Trade (the largest in the world) where he interviews one of its biggest traders upsetting the prices of grains.   He sees hope in the high productivity of small, organic farms.  

Ralph and I were fortunate to see "Embrace of the Serpent," a luscious Colombian film on two early nineteenth century explorers canoeing the Amazon on separate missions, thanks to falling thirty people short of the night's final Un Certain Regard film.  We had to wait an hour for this Director's Fortnight film at he Arcades, where films are occasionally shown without English subtitles, as was the case here.  We thought we would give it a look, but lasted the entire two hours, easily managing the French subtitles, keeping us out until after one, as we were fully consumed by this exceptional film shot in black and white.  This is what the Amazonian explorer film, "Pure Life," from Day Two aspired to be, but failed.

Cannes Day Three

None of us in the Last Minute Line this morning gained entry to the morning's Competition entry "Lobster."  I had several worthy options--"Survivalist," (an English film that had been well-reviewed)? "I Am Michael," (a true story about a gay-rights advocate who had renounced his homosexuality, one of several films starring James Franco),  or "Arteholic," (a German documentary about the German actor Udo Kier who loved art).  

I chose the documentary as it had a running time and location that would give me a chance to see "Rams," an Icelandic film in Uncertain Regard at eleven.  I was also tricked into seeing it as Lars Von Trier was listed in the cast.  Kier had appeared in "Breaking the Waves" and was a friend of his, but his appearance in the movie was simply a joke.  Kier does visit him during the shooting of the documentary, but the two of them simply sit and read for a minute or so.  Not a word comes out of Von Trier's mouth, not even a greeting.  The whole movie was less than honest.  Kier does like art and was a friend of Warhol and Mapplethorpe and others, but he's hardly an "arteholic" and has very little to say about the art that is shown in the movie.  He does like to be on camera though, and somehow managed to get a totally unnecessary documentary, a most indulgent, giant-selfie, made about himself. Usually one can find some redeeming value in any documentary.  I did learn in this one that the signature chapter scenes in "Breaking the Waves" were designed by an artist friend of his and not by Von Trier.

The documentary at least did allow me to see "Rams," a classic Icelandic story of sheep farmers who have to destroy their flocks because a disease has been discovered in them.  This is the nightmare of every Icelandic farmer, and in particular two brothers who live side by side but haven't spoken in forty years.  The scenery was magnificent as were the abundance of lush beards.  This was a full cultural immersion, the next best thing to bicycling around the island as I did the summer before I began coming to France for Cannes and The Tour de France.

The Italian Matteo Garrone is known for making movies about his culture.  He turned his back on that in his Competition entry "Tale of Tales," which I stood in line for over an hour in its repeat screening today in the Soixante.  Not all in line gained entry, despite the tepid reviews.  The most tepid came from Michel Ciment, the most respected of French reviewers.  He gave it a rare zero stars, meaning it had no redeeming value.  He was absolutely right.  This series of three fairy tales were utterly inconsequential grotesqueries.  Since his last two films in Competition had won awards he was given the best odds by bookmakers to win the Palm d 'Or this year.  This proves how utterly useless such predictions are by those who haven't even seen the movies they are speculating about.

I got right in line afterwards for yesterday's other Compeition film, "Our Little Sister" from Japan that had been better reviewed.  It was the second film of the day I was turned away from.  That allowed me to see a "Sembene!," a documentary on the father of African cinema.  As I was waiting in line, Jason Silverman, a fellow staffer from the Telluride film festival who used to direct the Taos film festival and now programs an art house in New Mexico greeted me.  I was shocked to see him and furthermore that he was wearing a suit.  The biggest shock was that he had co-directed the film.  I had no idea.  And then Mark Steele, a former Telluride staffer, came over.  He had co-produced the film.  They said this wasn't its world premiere, as it had opened at Sundance.

This solid bio-pic was a narrative by the other co-director of the film, Samba Gadigo, a Senglese admirer of Sembene's who now taught in the US.  Sembene died a few years ago, but there was ample interview material of him to make it seem he had been a full collaborator on the film.  There were clips aplenty from his many films.  This wss a most worthwhile contribution to the world of cinema.  The ninety minute documentary was followed by a recently restored "Black Girl" from 1966 about the less than pleasant experiences of young black woman who works as a servant for a young French couple, first in Dakar and then in France.  Seeing both of these was more than worth being shut out of "Our Little Sister," which I'll have a chance to see in the days to come, unlike these films.

I was denied the conclusion of "Black Girl" as I had to meet Ralph at 7:45 in front of the credentials office, as he had just flown in from LA via Zurich and I had to give him keys to our apartment.  He said he had slept well on the eleven hour flight and was eager for a movie or two.  Unfortunately the credentials office had closed at six and he'd have to pick up his credentials at nine the next morning, also preventing him from seeing the 8:30 a.m. Compeition screening.  He was too thrilled to be here for the fourth time and with nine days of cinema had wasn't too chagrined.

After the handing over of the keys I rushed back into the Palais complex of screening rooms for "Shades of Truth," an attempt at a movie about a Jewish journalist who looks like Robet Redford seeking the truth about whether Pope Pius XII was a Nazi sympathizer.  I was drawn to this movie as Pope Pius XII consecrated the Madanna del Ghisallo chapel overlooking Lake Como as a bicyclist's shrine in 1949.  The journalist goes to Rome, Israel, Berlin and Spain meeting with people who convince him that the Pope saved the lifes of hundreds of Jews, including his parents he learns at the end of the movie.  It was a nice little history lesson, but a very feeble movie filled with miscast actors, including the journalist's heavily made up girl friend and boss, who looked as of the director had plucked them off a model's runaway thinking their good looks would look nice on the screen.

Per usual I was able to end the day with an "Un Certain Regard" film, this time from South Korea, that  looked all that more stylish and accomplished compared to what I had just seen.  A young, very determined and idealistic detective in "The Shameless" goes undercover in a brothel seeking a murderer.  This was more like it, and a fine way to end the day.  I was only sorry I wasn't able to discuss it with Ralph on a hike back to our apartment.  Instead, for probably the last time I rode my bike home.

Cannes Day Two

Ordinarily Day Two starts off with the first Competition screening of the festival bright and early at 8:30 a.m. in the 2,300 seat Palais. This year that time slot went to "Mad Max: Fury Road," an out of Competition entry, which would receive its official world premier that evening at 7:30 with the full Red Carpet treatment.  I had no burning desire to see it, knowing I'd have ample opportunity later stateside, but since the first film of the day that I did wish to see didn't start until 9:30 I went down to the Palais just to see if I cod get in and if the procedure for us non-ticket holders was the same as last year.

There were about fifty people in the Last Minute Line when I arrived at 8:15 positioned on the outside of the second row of barriers this year instead of inside them.  And, as last year, we weren't allowed to start filtering in until the very last minute at nearly 8:30.  Surprisingly, there was so little interest among the press for this screening that there was space in the Palais on the first floor rather than in the balcony for all of us.  More often than not we're turned away from the Palais and funneled to the Soixante Theater for a 9:00 a.m. screening of the film.  Getting into the early screening meant I could watch fifty rather than twenty minutes of the action before slipping out.  It was instant crashes and explosions and furious fightering and loud noise.  It wss unrelenting for thirty minutes.  Where there was a brief lull, the audience responded with applause, either in appreciation of all the mayhem or in thanks for relief from it.  

When I switched theaters It was a dramatic shift from the grand Palais to a fifty-seat screening room and an equally dramatic shift from the desert to the jungle and from fantasy to reality for the true story of "Pure Life," recounting the expedition of a young Frenchman in 1949 in the Amazon seeking an isolated tribe.  The director wishfully pitched his movie as a cross between a Herzogian epic and "Into the Wild."  The young Frenchman was ill-equipped for his adventure and lost nearly all his funds playing poker with an ex-con just before he ventures into the jungle.  He had to trade a watch for a canoe at one point. He disappears never to be found, only his journal.  His father spent twelve years futilely searching for him.  The first time director wasn't much better prepared to do justice to the story than the Frenchman was in undertaking his adventure.

"Twice Upon a Time in the West" gave promise of being the wackiest film of the festival--a Bulgarian feature  paying homage to Sergio Leone's masterpiece with Claudia Cardinale playing herself.  Cardinale no longer wishes to live in Paris and decides to retreat from the world and go live in anonymity in Spain where "Once Upon a Time in the West" was filmed.  Not too many others thought this would make for an interesting movie, as there were only three of us attracted to this screening. Not even the star power of Cardinale, who gave a Master Class here a couple years ago and was a recent tributee at Telluride, could fill the thirty-two seat Gray 4.  Cardinale was a delight counting stories from her long career though she talks more about Fellini than Leone.  She felt lucky to have lived 140 lives, one for each movie she appeared in.  This movie may have had a top-notch premise, but unfortunately it didn't have a director who could execute it.

During the three years I have known Janina she has cultivated in me an interest in ballet, one of her passions.  Thanks to her I was drawn to "Ulyana Lopatakine," a French documentary on the renowned Russian ballerina.  It was equal parts rehearsals, performances, interviews with her and interviews with those who know her raving about her brilliance.  She made for an excellent subject and a most captivating documentary.  She was positively radiant and a rare, rare talent.

"Fou d'Amour" was my second French movie of the day that was a true story about a young French man with hubris who dies young.  This one was a philandering priest.  The movie opens with him being led to the guillotine.  His head is lopped off and left in a basket to narrate his story.  It is 1959 and he has been assigned to a small rural church.  He is very charismatic and warm.  All the women, young and old, fall in love with him and offer themselves to him.  He ranges about his parish on a bicycle for his assignations until a wealthy woman buys him a scooter.  That allows him greate freedom.  If he had stuck to the bike, he might not have gotten so deep into trouble.  If Gaspar Noe had made this movie, it might have been worthy of being in one of the Competitive categories, but instead it was in the Market looking for attention.

I ended the day with a pair of "Un Certain Regard" entries by accomplished directors who'd had films invited to the festival over the years and I at last had the pleasure of genuine cinema by masters of the art.  The honor of the opening film for this category went to the Japanese film "An" by Naomi Kawase, a fomer winner in the Competiton field. This story of a gruff man with a past who runs a small food stand and the kindly 75-year old woman who befriends him was just a bit too slight to be worthy of being in Competiton, though it had to be a tough decision for Thierry Fremaux. The film opens during the cherry blossom season, allowing Kawase to include many of her signature nature and cloud shots, and had her usual social sensitivity.

Just as "An" was a characteristic Japanese film, "One Floor Below" by Radu Munteau was a chararacteistic Romanian film of gritty every-day realism.  A murder takes place in a small apartment building.  A tenant who could assist the police chooses to withhold information that could help them solve the case.  As with "An" this film had a simple profundity that displayed the power of cinema to give us insight into the human condition. I had a fine midnight ride back to the apartment on a hill uplifted by two fine films knowing many more awaited me.  

Cannes Day One

I was among the first in line at eight a.m. Tuesday when the office opened that was dispensing credentials and programs.  Once I got my hands on that eagerly-awaited program, I headed to a bench in the shade looking out over the Mediterranean to began my day-long process of digesting each synopsis of the thousand films that will be screening here over the next twelve days and trying to narrow down what I wanted to see besides the nineteen films in Competiton.  For the first couple of hours every film, other than the all too many horror films, had some appeal.  But as I neared the finish of the program nearly twelve hours later back at the apartment I'm staying at, the descriptions began to seem all the same and to start losing their appeal, especially since I hadn't come upon a single film with a bicycle theme.

This could be the first Cannes  I've attended without such a film.  I haven't given up hope though, as there are always films added during the fest, and one year there was such a film from Belgium.  As I perused the Day One issue of Screen magazine the next day, I was encouraged by the photo of a cyclist in an article on films from Asia promoting a film that was being offered by Emperor Motion Pictures called "To the Fore."  It wasn't scheduled to screen, but there is always that chance.

This year's program is surprisingly short on films devoted to the world of sports.  Last year there were three on running to go along with three on cycling.  There are none this year, nor any on baseball or basketball or surfing.  As usual, there are a handful on the international sports of soccer and boxing, along with single films on fencing, skiing, and windsurfing.  There are also films on car racing and horse racing, if they can be considered sports. Its a bad year too for mountaineering films with none other than a hike with horses from Mexico to Canada through the rugged west.

For the first time some films were identified as dealing with "social issues."  There was also an environmental category.  There could have been one on filmmakers as there are films on Orson Welles, Hitchcock and Truffaut, Sidney Lumet, David Lynch, Eisenstein and Ousman Sembene.  There are even more on musicians (Quiet Riot, Stone Cold Jane Austen, Hillsong United, Wilko Johnson, The Police, The Scorpions and two on Curt Cobain) and the music industry (Henry Stone of TK Records) and movies on reggae, punk and hip-hop and more.

It is too early to establish any theme or trend, but there were quite a few films dealing with an inheritance or a windfall of money from the lottery or an insurance payoff, including "Wild Oats" a comedy with Jessica Lange and Shirley MacLaine receiving a check for $5 million rather than $50,000.  There is also a glut of films on kidnapping and hostage-taking.  Two films mention beheadings and two deal with euthanasia.  One film seeking distribution in the market played at Telluride last September--"Seymour," the documentary by Ethan Hawke.  Once the festival beings and I become submerged into all the films,  stray strands appear that link one film to another.  My very first film "Sunshine" from South Korea had a scene in a bookshop with a book on David Hockney in the background.  A documentary on him has a single screening Saturday morning.

"Sunshine" was one of only two films playing in the the first time slot of the day, ten a.m., later than the usual 8:30 first film when the festival is in full swing on Day Two.  It was showing in the 19-seat Gray 5 screening room, the smallest by nearly half of the fifty venues. Only sixteen of us were interested in this film about a young woman in South Korea who had defected from North Korea.  She was working in a flower shop and painting murals to supplement her wages.  A young filmmaker discovers her art and wishes to make a documentary on her.  She's not interested, despite his argument that it could bring her fame and wealth, though she finally relents to his persistence.  The program didn't identify this is a "social issue" film because unfortunately it just barely scratched the subject, with just a couple brief references to how those from the North are treated as second-class citizens.

"My Bakery in Booklyn" was an inheritance movie.  It may have taken place in Brooklyn and been in English, but it was a Spanish production with an international cast. Two single young women inherit their aunt's bakery.  It is $230,000 in debt and the bank wishes to repossess it.  One of the young women happens to fall into conversation with  the young banker assigned the task in a small cafe with neither of them knowing who the other is until the next day at the bakery when he comes with the bad news.  He agrees to give them three months before closing them down. The banker is actually an aspiring writer who had gone to Spain the previous summer to pay homage to Hemingway.  )There is a movie here called "Papa" with Giovanni Ribisi about an aspiring writer going to Cuba in 1959 to tract down his idol.)  The two women can't agree on how to run the bakery, so they divide it in half and battle over every customer who comes into the shop.  This had as much social realism as a Hollywood movie.  But it also had the polish and energy of a studio film and some entertainment value as well.

"We Were Young" from France was equally commercial. It featured five middle-aged men who are long time pals.  One has decided to buy a boat and sail around the world. One is a former boxer who wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid.  There are three movies in the market featuring astronauts. All five are having women problems--divorce, blind dating, nagging wives.  This too had energy and humor catering to those who go to the cinema for escapism rather than insight.  The five guys are all familiar French faces just below the A-level actors French actors Depardieu, Auteuil and Amalric, who are all in at least one film here. The five have a good chemistry and have a grand time together.  The film would be a pleasure to any of their fans. 

Rather than going to "Criminal Activities" next, directed by Jackie Earle Haley with John Travolta, for a buddy movie of four pals that leads to a kidnapping, I went serious with the documentary "The Man Who Mends Women--the Wrath of Hippocrates."  This two-hour Belgian film thoroughly covered the subject of rape in the Congo.  The focus of the film, Doctor Mukwege, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Award for his work helping over 30,000 rope victims in the past twenty years, not only performing operations on them, but giving them refuge until they have recovered mentally and physically.  Twice he has come to New York to address the UN on the issue.  Part of his work is an appeal to the men of the Congo to stand up to this horrible epidemic that  has gripped the country victimizing their mothers, wives and daughters.   After an attempt on his life he fled to Europe, but returned when there was such a great demand for him from the thousands that he had helped.  He now has a full-time UN security detail safeguarding him so he can continue his work.  The film included heart-rending testimonials from many victims and also a military trial of several soldiers accused of rape.

I chose "Road Games" as my final film as it was about hitch-hiking in France and featured a collector of road-kill.  It was described as a "thriller."  If it had more aptly been placed in the "horror" category I would known better than to have wasted my time on this nonsense.  I stuck it out wondering why anyone else did, remaining mystified why this genre is so popular.  Only two or three people of the hundred of us in the theater had the sense to leave early.

The first day of the festival with only seventy screenings compared to two hundred and fifty or more in the days to come is always marginal fare, so I knew better than to be discouraged by such a lackluster opening day.

Provence

This year's Paris to Cannes ride, my twelth, seemed the shortest yet, thanks in part to tail winds and sunny skies the last seven days after starting out with three days of rain.  The 681 miles passed without a sense of time largely though because of my familiarity and appreciation of all things French.  I was continually enraptured by the scenery the entire distance, feeling no boredom with my surroundings or urgency to be further along.

All of France is remarkably picturesque. It is a land of well-manicured fields, well-kempt stone buildings, pockets of forests and just a general sense of care for how all looks, from  the garb of gendarmes to the trim on one's home.  Much as I enjoyed my recent thousand mile ride from Atlanta to Chicago, it had no such aura.  The French truly have an esthetic sense that casts a sense of well-being over all.

Provence was a splendid culmination to my ride.  It is dotted with more charming villages than any other region.  Each town unveils itself as a wonderful discovery.  Some may boast a museum or a chateau or an ancient cathedral or an array of outdoor cafes or bed-and-breakfasts to attract tourists, but they mostly just remain true to their heritage of century old stone buildings and equally old plane trees.  The entire region is a glory of plane trees.  They line the roads in the countryside and through the towns.

They have a majesty unlike any other tree.

Very often they are only on one side of the road, as the advent of the automobile necessitated the widening of the roads and the removal of those on one side.  A narrow lane to a chateau provided an example of what a magnifcent arcade they once offered.

Most of the lower limbs on the trees have been pruned, but a plane tree in the small town of Lamanon, less than fifty miles south of Avignon, demonstrated how luxuriant such a tree can be if left untended.

It is considered the largest and at 400 years, oldest, known plane tree.  It takes thirty men with out-stretched arms to encircle the circumference of its foliage.  It is on private property that does not offer visitors a closer look than beyond its gates.  There were no signs to the tree.  I asked at the local tabac shop for directions.  I was told to go to the round-about and follow the sign to the stadium.  It was across the road from it.  As I approached the round-about a car passed me and the driver stuck his arm out pointing to the left.  One of the customers in the shop had hopped in his car to make sure I found it.  It was a good thing he had, as I wouldn't have recognized this giant tree with the hanging limbs hiding its distinctive trunk.  It was another fine example of the French showing care for one who expresses an interest in something they hold dear, such as their Tour de France.

Unfortunately, I found no such person when I was in search of the spot on the Rhone River where Hannibal was said to have crossed it in 218 B.C. with 46,000 soldiers and 38 elephants on his way from Spain to Italy.  This had some interest to me as I had recently read Richard Halliburton's account of riding an elephant over the Alps in the '30s, reenacting Hannibal's march.  According to Peter Mayle's book, "Provence A to Z," the Rhone crossing was thought to be near the small town of Montfaucon.  A woman in the town said it was about five kilometers south.  I biked along a dirt path hugging the river but found no plaque or monument marking the spot, just a couple of places for boats to dock or launch.  Twenty miles south I inquired further at the tourist office in Avignon.  Three different agents knew nothing and searched the Internet without success other than finding that there was a museum devoted to Hannibal in Nimes, about fifty miles to the west, opposite the direction I was headed.  I will seek it out another time.

Mayle recommended a musuem devoted to lavender that was somewhat on my route.  Since lavender is as much an emblem of Provence as is the plane tree, I was happy to give it a look. There had been numerous small museums on my route devoted to someone's obsession or passion (ceramics, farm machinery, horse drawn carriages) that could have been fascinating, but I had resisted them all saving myself for the lavender museum. 

It was beyond Avignon in the small town of Coustellet.  There was no missing it, as official road signs advertised it, recognizing its popularity and importance.

It was opened in 1991 by a family who has grown lavender for over a century.  Admission came with a small device that one held to their ear for a commentary at twenty-five different stations throughout the museum, including two videos.  The word lavender is derived from the Latin laver, to wash, as it was initially used to scent water.  Over the centuries its uses have expanded greatly--as a cure for insomnia, irritability, stress, headaches, sunburn, insect bites, cuts, burns, colds, sore throat, lice and more.  The musuem boasts the world's largest collection of copper distilling devices, some dating to the 1600s.  To insure purity, the conscientious distiller only uses rain water.

One of the videos demonstrated the planting of the lavender with a machine and a crew of eight. They could plant 170,000 plants in a day.  It takes a lot to produce a liter of lavender oil--130 kilos of the purple flowers.  It takes three years for a plant to reach maturity.  After seven years of productivity, it is dug up and replaced.  There were rows of the bushy plants around the museum, but they wouldn't begin to flower until July.  Even unflowered, the rows and rows of plants, that can go to the horizon, are a spectacular sight.

From the museum I ducked down to Salon-de-Provence, where I came upon the oddest round-about of the trip.  Many are dedicated to DeGaulle, but rare is the one honoring Françoise Mitterand, one of his successors.

As always, my travels through France took me past a few gypsy encampments on the outskirts of cities.  If I didn't know what they were, I might have mistaken them for a campgrounds.

Even more common are signs for Emmaus--resale stores and shelters for the indigent comparable to the Salvage Army.  Nuclear power plants are another object reminding me I'm in France.

And of course there is the occasional memorial to the Resistance, wholely unique to France.

I camped last night in a forest that I had all to myself twenty miles over a 1,200 foot ridge from Cannes in the same spot as I did last year.  I almost didn't recognize the side road I'd taken to it, as it was somewhat washed out.  I had to push my bike up it this year, further ensuring my privacy. With some ninety nights of wild-camping each of the past eleven summers in Europe, along with a previous couple months in Scandinavia, I'm somewhere around one thousand such nights in Europe to go along with my hundreds of others all over the globe.  The world is truly my campground. I will miss my tent the next two weeks, as I'll be sharing an apartment with Ralph from Telluride once again during our movie bash.  I'll enjoy our camaraderie, but not necessarily sleeping in a box.