Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, France

Friends: If I had arrived in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer a few days earlier I would have been part of an annual gathering of thousands of gypsies who come from all over Europe to this isolated, small seaside village 25 miles southwest of Arles to honor their patron saint Sara. Sara was a gypsy chieftain who warmly welcomed three Marys from Biblical times when they arrived in this region fleeing persecution in Palestine. The three Marys were Mary of Magdalene, Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome. The latter two were mothers of apostles and settled here, too elderly to travel further. Mary of Magdelene continued on. The "relics" (bones) of the two Marys reside in the town's cathedral and are part of the Sara celebration, lowered from the rafters of the church, where they are kept. The gypsies then carry Sara's statue, while others carry statues of the two Marys, to the Mediterranean a few blocks away. A bishop aboard a traditional fishing boat blesses one and all. The day after the ceremony, bullfights, in which the bull is not killed, are held in the local arena.

Even though the gypsies take over the town for several days, camping on its streets and on the beaches that go for miles, there was no evidence of their invasion. All was quiet with hardly a tourist, as it isn't warm enough for swimming just yet. The Mediterranean isn't the town's only attraction though. It resides on the fringe of a national park, a vast wetlands area formed by the Rhone River delta. Bird-watching and horse-back riding are popular activities. Dozens and dozens of horses, many saddled and ready to go, lined the road into town. I saw one family of four out for a ride on a trail along the road. It was mother and father in the lead trailed by a couple of teen-aged daughters, both with heads bent holding cell phones text-messaging away.

The final 30 miles to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer after a ferry across a canal were on quiet, lightly-traveled roads, a relief after passing just north of Marseille and paralleling the Mediterranean on a four-lane highway for about 40 miles with spewing trucks from the major port to the major cities of Nimes and Arles and Montpelier and beyond.

It is now 80 miles to Craig up in the Cevennes, the very same Cevennes that R. L. Stevenson traipsed about with a donkey. I will welcome a day of rest before we head off together. My legs have been pummeled by a couple of days of ferocious mistral-strength headwinds out of Cannes. They limited me to barely ten miles per hour for hours on end. They finally relented somewhat yesterday, allowing me to end my day with a twelve mph average. In any other circumstances I would have been cursing yesterday's wind, but at a quarter of what it had been, I couldn't complain. By evening the winds had calmed and I once again had that great sensation of not wanting to quit riding, unlike the previous two days when I was more than ready to call a halt to my day.

It was almost suicidal to be riding in such winds, as sudden gusts had me veering all over the road. When the embankment to my left was steep, I had to ride almost in the middle of the

road to be safe. I hardly had time to think back on all the great movies still lingering in my mind. There are quite a few I hope I will get a chance to see again in four months at Telluride. I have another bicycle pilgrimage site to pay homage to before Craig's--a plaque on the birth place of the founder of Motobecane bicycles in the town of Ganges, about ten miles from Craig's small village. As is said of the French, they do remember.

Later, George

Day 12

Friends: With all the good films this year there weren't enough awards to go around to recognize them all. The jury actually created two extra awards so they could give out nine rather than the usual seven. The extras went to a tie for third best film and a special 60th Anniversary Award. The jury also elected to overlook a couple of exceptional films by established directors who have won many awards so they could bring attention to fresh talent.

As expected, the Palm d'Or went to the Romanian abortion film "Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days." Also expected, Do-Yeon Jeon from the South Korean film "Secret Sunshine" won best actress. The early favorite from the Russian film "Alexandra" dropped off the map after this film screened. And it was no surprise that Fatih Akin won best screenplay for his intricately plotted German/Turkish film "The Edge of Heaven."

The rest of the awards were not exactly what was anticipated. The biggest shocker of all was the lead from the Russian film "The Banishment" winning the best actor award. Few expected that film to receive any recognition from the jury. Best director going to Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was a surprise, even to him. Having been called back to the festival to collect an award, he was hoping he'd won the Palm d'Or. He said if he had won it, he would have given it to Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian who many think should have won it in years past.

A pleasant surprise was the slight Japanese film "The Mourning Forest" receiving the Grand Jury award for the second best film. "Persoplis" the French animated film about a young Iranian woman and "Silent Night" about the Mennonites in Mexico, both worthy films, shared the prize for third best film. And Gus Van Sant was given a special 60th Anniversary award for "Paranoid Park." He didn't seem all too excited about it, hoping for a bigger fish than that. At least he got something. The Coen brothers for "No Country for Old Men" and Alexander Sokouruv for
"Alexandra" received nothing, despite being favorites for the Palm d'Or.

Before the awards ceremony Charles and I had a chat with critic Ken Jones, who had served on the Uncertain Regard jury. We asked if "California Dreams" was a consensus choice of his jury. He said the French film "Actresses" was his choice, not something I particularly cared for. I asked if he expected it to be another winning night for Romania. He said he had heard that the jury might surprise and give the Palm d'Or to something other than "Four Months." He'd heard wrong.

I had a busy day before the 7:30 p.m. awards ceremony seeing the three Competition films I had missed and also giving a second viewing to several other films. Unfortunately all of my favorites were screening at a time when I needed to see something else, so I wasn't able to enjoy "Four Months" or "Alexandra" or "The Edge of Heaven" or "The Diving Bell" or "Silent Night" or "Import/Export" or "Breath" again.

My first film of the day in the new 400-seat 60th Anniversary Theater, constructed on the roof of the market complex, was the opening night film "My Blueberry Nights" by Wong Kar Wei. Although the film has the cinematic flourishes that make cineastes and fellow directors gush over Kar Wei's camera movements and angles, there wasn't enough emotional depth to Norah Jones's character of a woman hitting the road after breaking up with her boy friend to make this anything more than average fare. I had the enjoyment, however, of seeing the name of a friend from Facets, Leanne Murphy, who I helped moved to Manhattan nine years ago, appear in the credits for her design work.

Norah Jone's performance, as well as that of every other actress in the festival, was overwhelmed by that of Do-Yeon Jeon in "Secret Sunshine"from South Korea. She plays a recently widowed 25-year old who moves to the city where her husband was raised with their five-year old son. The city is small enough that everyone seems to know who she is, but thinks it odd that she would move to a city she had never been to. As one woman says, "She looks fine, but I don't think she's normal." She gives piano lessons and is pursued by a nerdy, never-married, semi-repugnant 39-year old. She suffers a traumatic event that leads to her embracing Christianity. She becomes supremely devoted and seems saved, but she suffers another traumatic event giving her doubts. As with the other South Korea film in Competition, this movie has a prison scene that is the crux of the story. The range and depth of her performance was profoundly moving.

"Persopolis," the black and white animated feature based on a series of best selling novels about an Iranian woman's life growing up in Iran and Europe, gives an insightful look into the suppressive state of that regime. Like many movies this year, it featured a feisty elder--this one her grandmother. She speaks frankly not caring about the repercussions, saying Tehran "has become a shit-hole."

The closing night film after the awards ceremony was "The Age of Ignorance" by French-Canadian Denys Arcand. The closing night film is never anything exceptional, just something okay, otherwise it would have been included in one of the competitive categories. Marc Labreche is a 50-year old civil servant with a dynamic real estate agent of a wife and a couple of daughters, none of whom would miss him if he never came home. The movie is a succession of his flights of fancy imagining how he would like his life to be--becoming a samurai warrior in the middle of a meeting beheading his boss, summoning a couple of African warriors who brutally rape a worker he is at odds with, having hard, spontaneous sex with women who demand it of him and on and on.

Fortunately, I didn't have to end the festival with this. The final rescreening of a Competition film was "Zodiac" at ten p.m. There were less than a hundred of us wanting one last film. If he weren't a Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal easily could have won the best actor award here for his performance as the San Francisco cartoonist who became obsessed with the Zodiac serial killer and tried to solve the case on his own over many years. The movie is based on his book.

And now I can return to the bike. It's off to Craig, about 250 miles west, and then he and I will
head north to the Channel.

Later, George

Day 11

Friends: The last two of the 22 films in Competition were screened today. Of the 19 I've seen, not a one was a dud. I'll get to see the three I missed tomorrow on repeat Sunday. Not all were universally embraced, but even those that were reviled by some had others calling them masterpieces, as with the Bela Tarr, Ulrich Seidl and Quentino Tarantino films. Half the films in Competition were by veteran, established directors, none of whom stumbled, each delivering another work in their distinctive styles that will at least please their devotees.

So it was with today's first Palais presentation, "Promise Me This," by Serbian Emir Kusturica, two-time Palm d'Or winner and former jury president. This rollicking, frenzied, sometimes farcical story of a teen-aged peasant who is sent to the city to find a wife for himself by his grandfather will delight all of Kusturika's fans and others as well. Kusturika's exuberant imagination shows no signs of diminishing. Guys are clobbered left and right by falling and flying and flung objects. A guy fired from a cannon is glimpsed throughout the duration of the movie above the mayhem below. When he lands he wants to know what's happened in the Italian soccer league. A variety of objects are hoisted and dropped by intricate sets of pulleys, including the peasant boy trying to impress the woman of his affections. Going to the city is a big deal for the boy. His grandfather warns him to be on guard as "towns are designed to lure people to buy things they don't need." That's about the extent of social commentary in this otherwise escapist entertainment fare. This was a good movie for the sleep-deprived to wake up to.

"The Mourning Forest" from Japan put us back on the "film as art" track. Panoramic and aerial shots of lush green forests and precisely trimmed rows of hedges that made for good hiding complemented the story of an elderly Japanese man approaching death and his relationship with a young woman. They go off into the forest for a couple day trek that has moments sweet and poignant. A second Japanese film "Dai Nipponjin" was less serious with godzilla-sized characters intermittently battling it out, toppling buildings and grabbing planes in flight, when the story line takes a break from following and interviewing in documentary style a long-haired guy who leads a fairly dull life.

The final screening in the Uncertain Regard category was the Romanian film "California Dreaming" that later that evening was named the best picture in this category of 23 films. If "Four Weeks, Three Months and Two Days" wins tomorrow night in the Competition category, it will make it a clean sweep for Romania. A platoon of ten or so U.S. Marines is stranded in a small Romanian town when the railroad station master won't let their train proceed without the proper papers. They are transporting communications equipment for NATO operation in Serbia. The film takes place when Bill Clinton is still in office. The hard-nosed station master says even if Bill Clinton himself showed up at the station he wouldn't release the train without the papers.

All sorts of pressure is brought upon him, but he stands fast. He harbors a grudge against Americans for their failure to come to the town's rescue at the end of WWII. He's been waiting for their arrival ever since. He's one of the few townspeople who speaks English and is well-versed in world affairs. He asks the marine in charge, "What's with Bill Clinton letting Monica suck his dick in the White House." Meanwhile, all the young women in the town are throwing themselves at the marines. The young men of the town don't appreciate the shenanigans at all. The town mayor throws a party in honor of the marines with an Elvis impersonator. The women seem even hornier than the marines. The Marines are commanded by a block-headed brutish sort who is inclined to intimidation to get his way. One of his young subordinates regularly has to intercede, insisting he be more diplomatic in his approach. The young director of the film, Christian Nemescu, died in a car accident shortly after the completion of the film, cutting short a most promising career.

There was a great mob outside the Arcades Theater an hour before the final screening of the festival before Repeat Sunday to see Greg Araki's "Smiley Face." The buzz on this Director's Fortnight film wasn't the reason for the crowd, just that it was the last and only film playing at the end of the day. This over-the-top portrayal of a pothead was quite a contrast to Araki's last film "Mysterous Skin." Anna Faris is stuck on a Ferris wheel at the start of the movie. She begins a monologue that flashes back to the start of her day. She has an audition to get to and also has to pay her electrical bill or else her electricity will be cut off.

She begins her day stoned and only gets worse. She is so pathetically self-destructive it is almost painful to watch. Her agent calls her several times to remind her to get to her audition. She is so desperate for money after burning up an ounce of pot she had purchased that morning from her dealer while trying to make some cupcakes, she tries to sell a spare packet of dope to the 50-year old woman hosting the audition. The woman is so appalled she immediately calls the police and then her agent. Her desperation to come up with some money to at least pay off her electrical bill and to give something to her drug dealer, she is willing to go out with a nerdy friend of her roommate so she can ask him for money. More crazy antics follow including coming into possession of an original copy of The Communist Manifesto. There was hardly a laugh from the audience, though the program called it an uproariously funny comedy.

Later, George

Day 10

Friends: Two Argentinian films today, featuring women with troubles, included a quick glimpse of a carrot being sliced, which may or may not have had symbolic significance.

Its a semi-obese guy who does the cutting in "A Stray Girlfriend," as he prepares a stew for a woman who has several times rejected his advances. The woman is on an anniversary holiday she was expecting to spend with her boyfriend, but he abandons her before they reach the resort they are headed to after she harangues him as they travel by bus. She's very impulsive, trying to decide whether to stay for the four days they had booked or return home. She calls her boyfriend and harangues him some more. She nearly has a fling with a guy at the resort after a night of drinking, but he rejects her advances saying he has a girl friend. The obese guy takes her horseback riding along the beach the next day and tries his luck. She abandons him when he goes swimming, but feels guilt and before she leaves the resort tries to leave him a note of apology. He hears her sliding the note under his door and invites her in and once more tries his luck, to no avail. If carrot-cutting implies castration, so he may feel.

Castration is also an issue in "XXY" the winner of the best picture award in Critic's Week. It is a film about a 15-year old girl directed by a young woman, both of whom were on hand to gleefully accept the award in the ceremony preceding the film. The film starts with another teens-losing-virginity theme when the girl tells a 16-year old boy, who is visiting her family in their small Uruguayan fishing village, "I've never fucked anybody. Would you like to?" The boy is
shocked and doesn't know how to react. He initially resists the girl, but in time becomes enamored with her. This was far from standard fare and was most deserving of its award. The girl alone with her vitality is a delight (she has just been kicked out of school for punching out a guy), but she also is not entirely what she appears to be, allowing the movie to go off into rarely explored territory.

It was all too standard fare from both the Competition films at the Palais earlier in the day.
Catherine Breillat of France, notorious for her explicit, sex-exploitation films, is relatively
restrained in her "An Old Mistress," a period piece taking place in the 1700s. A 30-year old libertine is about to marry and must give up his long-time mistress. When he has a final fling with her, the bride's grandmother, who has arranged the marriage, threatens to cancel the wedding. The libertine explains the history of his relations with his mistress to her in a long flashback. His frankness convinces the grandmother that it is over, and so thinks the guy. But the mistress is persistent and pursues the newly-weds to the isolated seaside village where they have taken up residence to be away from all the temptations of Paris. Ho-hum. Nothing special or unique, not even the occasional conjugal relations. This is simply fodder for those who like period pieces and more than casual cinema sex.

Brooklyn 1988, when drugs were rampant and the drug lords seemed to be taking over the city, provides the backdrop for "We Own the Night" by James Gray staring Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall and Joaquin Phoenix. Only the star power of the cast makes this marginally worth watching. Father and son, Duvall and Wahlberg, are high level cops leading the fight against drugs, while coke-tooting Phoenix is the wayward son running a night club where the Russian
drug lord they are trying to catch hangs out. Phoenix refuses to cooperate with his brother and father. No one at the night club, other than his Puerto Rican girlfriend, knows Phoenix's background. This was all too contrived and proceeds as expected.

"Night Train" gives an insightful view of present day China as it follows the travails of a woman
working with the Chinese criminal justice system. We see her cheap studio apartment and meet a few of her single-women neighbors. We see her on her job having to deal with those accused of crimes. But the focus of the movie is on a match-making service and some of the not so likable men she ends up with.

Only a five movie day, dropping my average back down to six a day, putting me at sixty through ten days, as I sacrificed a movie by attending the Critic's Week award ceremony thinking the winning film would be played immediately afterward, rather than in a separate following time slot. As the award ceremony dragged on and on, going for more than an hour, I was regretting I hadn't gone to see a documentary on director Lindsay Anderson with his frequent star Malcolm McDowell in attendance. I was taking a minor risk anyway on what would win the Critic's Week
prize as I had seen two of the seven films in contention. Neither were exceptional, but one never
knows about juries. It was a great relief that "XXY" won, just a disappointment that it wasn't shown immediately, preventing me from seeing "Mutum" in the Director's Fortnight later, or my back-up "Rio Bravo," in the classics category. Luckily I didn't end up at "Rio Bravo," as its two-and-a-half hour running time would have kept me in the theater until one a.m. Only once
have I been kept out so late, a night I didn't get to bed until two a.m., which meant a bit of cat-napping the next day when I had to be at the Palais six hours later. But I have yet to sleep through my alarm this year, unlike year's past. When some college students here for the first time asked me before the festival started what advice I could give, it was to have at least one good and loud alarm clock, and a backup as well.

Later, George

Day 9

Friends: Russian master and 1997 Telluride tributee Alexander Sokurov warned that his Competition entry "Alexandra" was unlike anything he had ever done. Considering the vast majority of his work is unlike anything anyone else has ever done and is often a challenge to comprehend, it was frightening to imagine what he might be offering up this time--something
inside-out or upside down or in swirls or an unintelligible language.

Shockingly, it was a fully comprehensible and accessible film of universal appeal that leaps right
up there with "Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days" as a front-runner for the Palm d'Or. Its lead, opera legend Galina Vishnevskaya, as Alexandra, an elderly woman who goes to visit her officer grandson at his isolated outpost in Chechnya, becomes the favorite to win best actress honors.

The incongruity of a doddering grandmother among a small corps of weary, hardened soldiers at a rustic encampment of tents provides a captivating premise for a commentary on the insanity and inhumanity of armed conflict where "good guys collude with bad guys and saints become devils," as she says. As she looks after her grandson and wanders about the camp she makes simple grandmotherly observations, "It always smells of something here. I'm getting used to it,"
and comments of deep, sagely truth, "I'm sick of this military mentality. You destroy. When will you learn to rebuild?"

Though her grandson is a veteran soldier, who kills matter-of-factly as a job, there isn't a
single shot or act of violence in this film. He shares moments of astounding tenderness with his grandmother, hugging her as if she is the most valuable thing in the world, braiding her hair, speaking from the heart. This is a movie that speaks to our times and all times--a truly remarkable movie-going experience. One poignant scene follows another. It could go down as
one of the most powerful anti-war movies ever.

The day had a second truly momentous cinematic program--a nearly two-hour "Film Masterclass" conducted by Martin Scorcese and noted French film critic Michel Ciment in the thousand-seat Debussy Theater. Even before it started, the highly expectant audience went camera-crazy when Quentin Tarantino joined their ranks wearing a baggy black t-shirt with shorn sleeves. Scorcese was given a standing ovation when he was introduced. Festival director Thiery Fremaux acknowledged Tarantino, allowing the audience to applaud him as well.

Scorcese traced his career from a three-year old asthmatic who couldn't engage in sports or play much, finding fascination in the world of cinema growing up in a rough Italian New York neighborhood where his parents worked in the garment district. He reminisced about seeing "The Big Heat" as an 11-year old and viewing "East of Eden" about the same time multiple times trying to figure out how it succeeded in touching his emotions. His commentary was
interspersed with clips from six of his films--"Mean Streets," "Raging Bull," "After Hours," "Age of Innocence," "Casino" and "Kundan."

He revealed that Norman Mailer was responsible for the fight scenes in "Raging Bull." His original intent had been to make a boxing movie without any boxing. Mailer said he couldn't do that. Later Mailer told him he liked everything in the movie except the boxing scenes. Whoever was translating his remarks for those non-English speakers wearing headphones in the audience had to be very tongue-weary by the end of the session after trying to keep up with the fast-talking Scorcese. Ciment hardly need to ask him a question, as each he asked sent Scorcese off on a torrent of memories.

"You, the Living" by Swedish director Roy Andersson, whose "Songs from the Second Floor" won an award here a few years ago, was a lark of a movie whose host of characters might have been caffeinated escapees from a Kaurasmaki film. Many start out mopish and droll but explode into unexpected acts of zaniness in this series of hardly connected vignettes. A suicidal woman on a park bench suddenly breaks into song, a barber sheers a strip down the middle of the head of a customer who makes a disrespectful comment, a guy is sentenced to the electric chair by a trio of beer-guzzling judges for ruining a two hundred year old tea set when his table cloth pulling stunt fails, a naked guy on his back complains about his investments as his wife in a Viking helmet straddles him with her breasts bouncing about, a grade school teacher walks into class one morning and bursts into tears, stunning her students...

I was turned away from the animated Competition feature "Persepolis" at a market screening that was for buyers only. Both Charles and I passed on it yesterday, but the reviews were so great, we were among a hoard trying to see it today. It's about an Iranian girl who goes between Paris and Iran contrasting the cultures. The Iranian religious leaders are not happy about the film at all. Missing that I slipped into a market screening of the Iranian film "Rami." The Iranian film community has been upset that there hasn't been an Iranian film in Competition in several years. It is no wonder if this film is an indication of the present state of Iranian cinema, which at one point was at the forefront of world cinema.

"Whaledreamers," a very polished home movie documentary by an Englishman who befriends some Australian Aborigines and takes up their cause, was another waste of time. Julien Lennon is a backer of the film and was supposed to introduce it, but the man who explained his absence said he probably lost his pass and couldn't get into the theater.

"Liberation Day" gave a taste of rural Rwandan life. Two young men of the rival Tutsi and Hutu
tribes, that led to the massive genocide there, are traveling buddies. When they return to the home of one of them, the parents can't believe their son has struck up a friendship with someone of the rival tribe. They are having none of if and there is no hope for reconciliation. The film ends with a lengthy rap diatribe pleading for some humanity.

Three days to go, George

Day 8

Friends: I was lured to see the market screening of "My Place in the Sun" from France, as its description in the festival catalog mentioned it began with a teenager riding his bike getting hit by a car, setting off a series of encounters. It didn't promise too much bicycling, but it was the lone bicycle reference in the entire program of the more than thousand films playing here, so I felt obligated to give it a look.

It wasn't long into this hodgepodge of miserable characters, who made anyone watching the movie feel miserable, that I began seething at the absolutely unnecessary mention of the bicycle in the description, leading me to being there. The movie does start with a kid joyously riding his bike, celebrating his sense of freedom, just before he is hit by someone pulling out of his driveway without looking, but there is no more biking in the movie, nor even the kid, only the
older driver who is one of the lost souls of this prototypical French film of characters bemoaning their meaningless lives, looking for lovers and ruining their lives in the attempt.

The perils of getting laid was also the theme of the French film "Just About Love?" This one focused on teens who were desperate to lose their virginity. The film opens with two girls walking along, talking about a classmate who lost her virginity the day before and how they ought to make a resolution to do the same before the end of the school year. "But that's just a week away," one says. "How about by September." They both succeed in getting laid much
more hastily than they anticipated, leading to all sorts of misery and despair. Van Sant's "Paranoid Park" included a similar story thread, but was high art compared to this run-of-the-mill, rambling, but probably all-too-true, story.

A third French film for the day, "A Lost Man," included a series of encounters with prostitutes in the Middle East by a vagabond French photographer who enjoyed photographing his amorous encounters with one hand as they were transpiring. At the center of this true story was the photographer befriending a mysterious male and trying to figure out his past. He is very evasive and combative at times, but the photographer is relentless, even hiring a prostitute to learn more about him. At least this film took place in an interesting environment.

The Competition category offered another exceptional film that is making this year better than
most. "The Edge of Heaven" by the German/Turkish director Fatih Akin splits its time between Germany and Istanbul following six characters (two sets of mothers and daughters and a father and son--four Turks and two Germans). The spellbinding, continually evolving plot includes the unfortunate, accidental deaths of two of them.

The linear plot, which doesn't try to interweave multiple stories simultaneously, but just proceeds relentlessly ahead, follows a Turkish/German professor of German to Turkey, where he tries to track down the daughter of his father's live-in prostitute. Ironically, the daughter has come to Germany to track down her mother. The daughter is involved with a militant group in Turkey and seeks asylum in Germany. She is befriended by a good-hearted young woman who
has recently returned from several months in India. Her mother does not appreciate the intimacy of their friendship.

The day's other Competition film, Hungarian Bela Tarr's "The Man From London," wasn't quite as well-received. It was by far the most walked-out upon movie to play so far. His fans, however, will be delighted with this moody, murky, black-and-white affair that begins with a signature, snail-paced, 12-minute pan of a ship in harbor at night. It takes all one's powers of concentration to figure out what is going on. A night watchman at the ship yard recovers a suitcase full of money that a man from London has come to retrieve.

The only movie I could squeeze in between Bela Tarr and the bicycle movie was "Summer Love," reputed to be the first Polish Western. It would most likely be a waste of time, which it was, but one never knows.

I also squeezed in thirty minutes of the final installment of Ken Burns' "War." There had been three four-hour programs over the last three days preceding this last two-hour segment. I was hoping Burns might be there to introduce it, giving me the opportunity to let him know his favorite Telluride Film Festival staffer, Lyndon, had recently married. Burns hasn't missed a Telluride Festival in twenty years and is one of its strongest supporters.

Burns was indeed there, but he was late in arriving, and was hurried directly to the stage. And
as is required by all directors at such special presentations, he was obligated to sit and watch his
film so he could be applauded by the audience at its conclusion, preventing me from having a word with him. If it had been crucial, I could have sat through the film and caught him on the way out, but that would have meant the sacrifice of two other movies. There were only about 50 people in the 300-seat Bunuel theater, so it would have been no difficulty talking to him afterward. Ken will just have to wait until September to find out, if he hasn't already.

Later, George

Day 7

Friends: When "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" opened with the blurred vision seen through the eyes of someone waking from a 20-day coma, totally paralyzed including the ability to speak, only able to blink, and begins an inner narrative peering out at the doctors and nurses trying to communicate with him, I kept a sharp lookout on the audience in the packed 2,400 seat Palais
theater anticipating the most walked out upon movie of the festival.

But this French feature quickly becomes stunningly captivating, keeping everyone glued to their seats. Mathieu Amalric's performance as the 43-year old stroke victim could easily win him the best actor award here, even though the bulk of his performance is spent laying in bed with the single facial expression of a lop-sided, contorted lip, peering about and blinking his lone healthy eye. The film is interspersed with flashbacks of his life as the editor of "Elle" magazine and father of two with a mistress. His therapist is exceptional too, teaching him to express himself by blinking when she speaks the letter of the word he wishes to express.

One of the first sentences he contrives is, "I want death," enraging his therapist. Though he never regains the ability to speak, he does regain the desire to live and eventually begins the arduous and remarkable effort of writing a book about his experience, blinking out each letter. The movie is based on the book of this true story.

A Mennonite father of six in northern Mexico having an affair is the unlikely subject of Carlos Reygadas "Silent Light." Reygades proves he can make a remarkable film even without graphic sex, as riled audiences and marked his two previous films "Japan" and "Battle in Heaven." Like those, this is another understated portrayal of a character with painful inner turmoil. The father treats his attraction to another woman like a disease and asks others, including his father, what he should do about it. Everyone remains even-tempered and sympathetic. When his father calls his affair "the work of the enemy," his son replies, "Talk to me like a father, not a preacher." He tells his father he has told his wife about it all from the very beginning. His mistress is equally as rational as one can be about such things. The film is also highlighted with a ravishing sun rise
opening and sunset close and vistas of the countryside.

Charles, Facets programmer, who has been my seatmate two or three times a day as we alternately save an aisle seat for each other for the all-important quick-getaway at a film's conclusion, warned me that he saw the largest mob of the festival before the two o'clock screening of Harmony Korine's much anticipated "Mr. Lonely." We were both planning on
attending the 10:30 pm screening, when Korine and the cast would be present. I left "Riding With the King" early to get in line by nine. I was among the first 15, but there were soon mobs gathered.

It was almost a relief to escape "Riding With the King," a most amateurish minimal-budget production, based on the true story of Elvis's step-brother as his bodyguard. He joined Elvis on tour as a 16-year and eventually learned karate and became one of his bodyguards. He was quite shocked when he boarded Elvis' private jet for the first time to see his personal doctor aboard. He was told not to question, when he asked what he was doing there. The movie doesn't shy at all from his drug use. Early on Elvis asks him to give him an injection before he's about to go on stage.

A Scottish castle inhabited by celebrity impersonators, including the Three Stooges, Charlie
Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, the Pope, Madonna, Sammie Davis Jr. and Michael Jackson, along with nuns jumping out of airplanes prodded by Werner Herzog over the jungles of Panama, promised great hilarity that could rival Korine's masterpiece "Gummo" from ten years ago.
The movie's opening number of a helmeted character in a bird suit on a mini-bike to the tune of Mr. Lonely brought resounding applause from the audience, as did two more early-on outrageous sequences that only Korine could have devised.

Danger signs appear, however, when the Michael Jackson character, while doing a routine in a Paris park with a cup for money in front of him, keeps repeating himself and doesn't approach the shocking weirdness that Korine is known for. Same with the next scene when he talks with his agent and then when he goes to perform at an old people's home.

When he meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who invites him to the Scottish enclave of impersonators, I expected all hell to break loose. That too was shockingly dull. Only a profane Abe Lincoln could enliven things at all. Otherwise the others were lackluster pale imitations of their characters. The enclave desperately need a Groucho Marx prancing about, wise-cracking with brothers Harpo, Zippo and Gummo, certainly GUMMO, in tow. Or a Hamony Korine
impersonator of the enfant terrible of ten years ago. Korine admits to having been in rehab and holed up in a Paris apartment, as well as wandering around the Amazon, these past years when he has been notably absent. Could he possibly have suffered a lobotomy somewhere along the way.

Although "Mr. Lonely" painfully fails to come close to "Gummo's" freshness and spontaneity, and can be considered a flop to a degree, it certainly isn't of the proportions of last year's "Southland Tales," the "Donnie Darko" follow-up. This doesn't need to be salvaged. It can be released as is and will find some support. People weren't exiting the theater in droves as they did for "Southland Tales." Most everyone stayed to the end and gave him a fairly prolonged applause. The film does have its moments, but its mostly a huge missed opportunity. The
producers have to be nervous about recouping their 8.2 million dollar investment.

I was able to squeeze in three other films for my first seven film day on the seventh day of this year's festival after being held to six the first six days. Eight could be possible on day eight if I didn't have to take time to send out these missives.

There are a dozen or more films on soccer here. I saw my first today, "The Power of the Game" by Michael Apted of "7 Up," "14 Up," "21 Up" fame. He used the excuse of wanting to make a documentary to gain entrance to last year's World Cup. He also ranges to Argentina and Senegal and South Africa, pursing soccer stories there. An Iranian woman journalist covering the World Cup is another of his subjects. This will please those craving anything soccer, but he doesn't
offer anything fresh or new.

If "Outlaw," about vigilantes seeking justice in London, ever gets released, the media will have a
heyday condemning its portrayal of men seeking justice through violence, when the legal system has failed them. With Bob Hoskins in the cast it might have a chance despite its senseless plot.

"Silent Light" ran 20 minutes longer than the 122 minute running time listed in the program, so I missed the first half hour of Canadian Guy Maddin's "Brand on the Brain," but that didn't much matter, as experiencing a Maddin film is more important than whatever plot it might have. As expected, this was an assault of images unlike any other on offer here--a black and white recreation of a silent era style film in twelve chapters with no dialog from the characters, just short, clipped subtitles. It is accompanied by fast-paced, foreboding music with Isabella Rossalni as an Interlocutor. It was relaxing to sit back and simply enjoy.

Later, George