Biella, Italy

Friends: We just completed a weekend in Milano that would have been a dream two days for any of the Italian tifosi--the most devoted of cycling fans. Saturday we watched the final mountain stage of the Giro through the Dolomites on a pair of over-sized TVs under a tent with a hoard of the faithful in the city's main plaza, and then Sunday we were among the thousands that lined the finishing two-and-a-half mile loop of the course in the heart of Milan. The peloton rode the loop ten times after starting some 80 miles away.

Pink was everywhere, as that is the color of the leader's jersey, and is as synonymous with The Giro as yellow is with The Tour de France. The tent in the main plaza was even pink. Under the tent were various displays documenting the race since its first edition in 1909, five years after the Tour de France was established. Pantani's bike was there complete with his custom Il Pirata saddle, along with many other bikes and photos and front pages of newspapers from over the years. There were scrapbooks of yellow newspaper articles from the race's very beginning to the present. There was a collection of tributes written by school children proclaiming their love for the race and the racers, some quite touching. And there were souvenirs, including replica pink jerseys, for sale.

The place was mobbed. We stood for nearly an hour-and-a-half, crammed shoulder to shoulder with dozens of the devoted, watching raptly and reverently the racers go over one climb and then another. Surprising there was little audible response to the action. Everyone seemed too consumed by the extreme efforts of the racers to react. This was a crowd of cyclists, each and everyone of whom knew how deeply those racers were digging to pedal a bike up such inclines. They knew it took an ultimate, all-out effort. They all had been there and understood what a cathartic experience it was.

The only audible reaction from our mob was a wave of muttered condemnation when our counterparts along the steep mountain roads would get a little too enthusiastic and push or pat the back of a rider as he passed. There was no reaction, however, to the lunatics who would run at fell speed alongside the racers trying to exhort them on. Nor were there cheers or any reaction at the stage's conclusion. But just about everyone immediately dispersed. Only I and a couple of others lingered for the post race-analysis. I couldn't understand much, but I still wanted to see whatever replays there might be and the close-ups of the racers as they were interviewed and fulfilled their podium chores.

It was all most exalting, especially being in the presence of Milan's spectacular cathedral, one of the largest in the world, with dozens of jutting spires that must have been an influence on Gaudi's famed church in Barcelona. For blocks around the plaza there was no motorized traffic. It was a monumental pedestrian mall. It seemed as if a good portion of Milan's 1.3 million inhabitants were milling about these streets. It is a most spectacular city center.

As we biked into Milan Saturday morning, it seemed to be just another big city, but as we neared the center and started seeing one stately, block-long, five or six story building after another, it began taking on a most appealing flavor. The cathedral and plaza and the many traffic free arteries that spoked out from it proved conclusively that this is not just another big city. It has a distinctive character of its own.

Saturday evening we scouted out the course the race would follow just a few blocks from the city center and were surprised to see no evidence that a race would be taking place there the next day. But Sunday morning when we returned, crews were everywhere setting up barriers and stands and sponsorship tents. The racers didn't arrive into the city until after four p.m. for their final hour long promenade, and not too many of the tifosi arrived until an hour before the
racers did. By noon there weren't even 50 people staking out a spot against the fence at the finish line, unlike at Cannes where people were outside the Palais ten hours or more before the stars were to arrive.

I was a little worried about the lack of tifosi, but they came flocking by race time and were thick around the race course. If people didn't have pink to wear they could buy a pink t-shirt and hat for five euros as Jesse did. Jesse and I stood at a point on the course where we could see the racers twice within 30 seconds allowing us to see them a total of 20 times zipping past us at better than 25 miles per hour. There's not much one can distinguish as the racers fly past, so I switched my gaze from time-to-time to the tifosi and their gleeful expressions. We were nowhere near the finish line so we did not know who won the stage, but the victor of the overall race had been decided the day before, a 22-year old, Cunego, who is the latest great Italian hope, one of the youngest winners ever. A headline in the day's paper said "Tifosi is delirious," referring to Cunego's bright future. Pantani is the only Italian to have won the Tour de France in the past several decades. There has rarely even been an Italian threat. They're all hoping Cunego can be the next Armstrong.

We were back at the campground, six miles from Milan's center, by 6:30. We quickly took down our tents and packed up and were on our way out of town. One night was enough in a
sanctioned campground. A nearby disco played music until three a.m. Our sleep was also interrupted by a French couple arguing over who was responsible for losing the keys to their car. When we checked into the campground early Saturday afternoon we were harangued by an American ex-pat who claimed the US government had implanted a chip in his head years ago and had been trying to control him ever since. He said the IRS had stolen a million dollars from him and that he was never returning to the land of George Bush and we were insane to do so ourselves. He's been paying fourteen euros a night for months to live in a tent in this campground. We were relieved to get fifteen miles down the road and camp in a wooded area free of such mind-numbing distractions.

Tonight could be our last night in Italy and I won't be sorry to be leaving despite the elevated
regard, if not worship, of the bicycle here. There has been all too much traffic and its roads all too narrow, but by far the biggest headache has been its utterly stupefying road signs. There are far from enough and those that there are are often severely lacking in clarity or consistency, a marked contrast to those of France. There were stretches when we had to haul out Jesse's highly-detailed 150-page atlas of Italy's roads five or six times an hour. I just want to lose myself in the biking, and when its constantly interrupted by trying to figure out where I am or how to get to where I want to go, its not so much fun. We're lucky its been mostly sunny our eight days here, as we've constantly had to rely on the sun to determine which way to go. And the signs giving distance are rare and also woefully inconsistent. In one 40-minute stretch we saw six or seven signs all saying 23 kilometers to Como.

Billboards to stores will say they are five or ten minutes away, rather than the number of kilometers. The supermarket grub has also been frustrating. The supermarkets are as vast as those of France or the US, but there is a minimum of prepared food, just tons of ingredients. The Italians are as fond of eating as the French, but they are equally fond and proud of cooking. Anyone caught buying prepared food would be in danger of being excommunicated by the
Pope, or at least their mother-in-law. Only once have I found a can of spaghetti and it was thick in dust. My tent dinner has been chick peas with olives just about every night. The only other canned prepared food to be found is lentils. Only once have I seen baked beans and they were 1.6 euros. And the deli fare has been equally paltry. Its rare to even find potato salad and it is prohibitively expensive. So I am thrilled to be going back to France and its great variety of canned delicacies. The most direct route into France is through a seven-mile tunnel past Mount Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe, though we haven't had it confirmed that bicyclists are allowed. The snow-covered Alps are in sight.

Later, George





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Lecco, Italy

Friends: The road along Lake Como is as perilous a road as I've biked and among the most scenic too, though I hardly had a moment to divert my attention from the road and traffic to appreciate its beauty. The road is largely carved into the mountainsides that plunge to the lake's shoreline. It has no shoulder for bicyclists and at times narrows to just one lane wide with minimal warning. The road is thronged with speeding sports cars, tour buses and trucks of near 18-wheeler proportions. There are small villages and villas of all sizes wall-to-wall around the lake, as high up as the terrain will allow. For centuries it was acclaimed the most beautiful lake in the world. Aldous Huxley offered one of the first dissenting opinions back in the '30s when he ventured to Guatemala and laid eyes on Lake Atitlan. He declared it, "The most beautiful lake in the world, even more beautiful than Lake Como." It is an opinion I cannot dispute, having biked its shores as well a couple of times. Lake Atitlan too is surrounded by mountains, though they are conical and of the erupting variety. It is much less thickly populated than Lake Como, with just a handful of small villages dotting its shore. The women of each village wear colorful, matching, intricately embroidered blouses unique to their village. Lake Como is much narrower than Atitlan, a y-shaped sliver that one could practically skip a stone across, not unlike the fjords of Norway. I'm almost surprised that a book on cycling Italy recommends biking its road, or at least without warning of the hazardous traffic. For me it was more dangerous than Bolivia's "Most Dangerous Road in the World." If I hadn't just replaced my front brake pads after wearing them out descending the 14% grade road from the chapel of the Madonna de Ghisallo, the Patron Saint of Bicyclists overlooking the lake, Jesse might be writing this email to you rather than me. I had to slam on my brakes, as my heart rocketed into my throat, on a descent, when a truck that had just passed me, slammed on his brakes to avoid an over-sized bus that had just come around a bend blocking the road. My front wheel just nudged the bumper of the truck as I came to a screeching stop, and as I cringed hoping there wasn't a vehicle behind me not paying attention. As beautiful as the vistas of the lake have been, I'm glad the thirty miles we cycled along its shores from the city of Como to Lecco are behind us, and we can continue on to Milan, thirty miles away. But tonight we will camp at what the local tourist office advertises as a free campground just a mile out of town along the lake. That is almost too good to be true, as it would be a challenge to camp wild tonight in this highly congested area. We were lucky to have found a forest last night ten miles before Como. With luck tonight we'll enjoy our first shower since Cannes. Yesterday, Jesse had his baptismal bathing-in-a- river experience, or near baptism, as he could only force himself to go thigh deep into the cold river, doing his bathing by splashing water on his upper body. It was a legitimate swimming area on a gravel beach with a couple of hundred sun-bathers, though no one was wading more than ankle deep into the river. I've had plenty of experience with much colder water than this, and though I wasn't overly desperate for a washing, I still took a full plunge and felt most invigorated. It was nice not to be so sticky in the tent last night. Another highlight for the day was for the first time coming upon a restaurant/bar with a television to watch the conclusion of that day's stage of the Giro d'Italia. It wasn't the religious experience I thought it might be, joined by a throng of exuberant fans breathlessly glued to the proceedings. Shockingly, the place we stopped at late in the afternoon didn't have the race on its television--rather some music video that none of its patrons were paying any attention to. The bartender had to go in search of the remote control to change the station. When he finally switched the station to the race, hardly anyone in the place seemed to notice. This clearly was not a den of the tifosi--cycling fanatics. But I was thrilled to be watching the Giro even though I could understand not a word of the commentary other than the names of the racers. The 35-year old Russian veteran, Pavel Tonkov, former winner of the Giro, had broken away from his two breakaway companions and held everyone off for a dramatic win. At his age, every win could be his last. It will be hard to experience a greater highlight though than our visit to the tiny Madonna de Ghisallo chapel--a storied shrine that every devotee of the bicycle owes it to himself to visit. It may be no larger than a hut, but it is a vast reservoir of cycling lore, tangible and not. Perched upon a small clearing some 1500 feet over Lake Como, it offers spectacular views of the lake and the snow-dappled Dolomites in the distance. It is a most demanding 5.4 mile climb from the lake, with two of those miles relatively flat. The year end classic Tour of Lombardy passes by it, a race that has drawn most of the cycling legends over the years. Centuries ago in medieval times travelers adopted the Madonna as their patron saint after a traveler sought refuge in the small chapel when he was attacked by bandits. He saw the image of a saintly woman in the chapel and gave her credit for saving him. Later, cyclists took her as their guardian saint as well. Finally, in 1949 Pope Pius XII officially consecrated the Madonna de Ghisalla. A photo of his visit is among the many photographs in the small chapel adorned with a museum's worth of bicycling mementos--bikes ridden by Coppi and Merckx and Moser, autographed yellow jerseys from the Tour de France and pink ones from the leader of the Giro, some rainbow-striped world championship jerseys and others of note. Prominently displayed on an altar behind a locked gate was a photo of the recently deceased Marco Pantani in pink with arms upraised in a Christ-like pose. Sculptures of Gino Bartoli and Fausto Coppi, the most revered of Italian cyclists, flank the entrance to the chapel. There was a steady trickle of others paying homage to this shrine, though we were the only ones who arrived by bike in the hour-and-a-half we lingered on the premises. There is a vast cycling museum under construction on the grounds that will make this an even more alluring draw. A nearby shop sells postcards and drinks and snacks. I was surprised not to have received a single horn toot as I climbed up to the Madonna, as a couple days before, nearly every car that passed me, on a much longer and equally challenging climb, recognized my efforts with a friendly toot, the most I have ever been accorded. It was another sign of the Italians' great fanaticism and fondness for the cyclist. It could be that since that climb was less twisty than the one to Ghisallo, my appearance didn't suddenly catch them by surprise, and seeing me well ahead, watching me spin my way up with vigor, clearly having the upper hand in my battle with the mountain, they had ample time to trigger their horn. Jesse, who is still trying to find his climbing legs, was lagging far, far behind on both climbs. He reported he did not receive a single toot. He will in time be floating up these mountains himself. He's still in his infancy as a touring cyclist, but he's already well beyond the stage of dreading climbs, unlike others I've toured with. He's actually eager to test himself on the most demanding of the Tour de France climbs before this trip is done. Me too. Later, George

Alba, Italy

Friends: Not every town in Italy has a bicycle store, though it certainly seemed so at first. We saw more in our first forty miles bicycling along the Mediterranean than we saw in 800 miles through France. And there were hoards of guys decked out in full racing attire pedaling the roads like they meant it, in pace lines and on their own. The Italians are known as the most passionate of bicycle racing fans. There was ample evidence to verify it.

It wasn't until we went searching for a bike store in the small town of Chiusauecchia did we learn that bike shops weren't as ubiquitous as we thought. We needed a bike shop to replace Jesse's front wheel. It had been bent beyond repair when a car coming around a blind corner at forty miles per hour slammed into it. Jesse was on the bike, but was miraculously spared injury. We were just starting our day, crossing an exit ramp from a highway. There were high bushes to our left, preventing us from seeing cars that might be preparing to exit. There wasn't much traffic on this road up from the coast. I went first, looking and listening. Jesse followed a few seconds later without pausing to verify that it was safe to proceed. The driver was evidently momentarily distracted by the odd sight of me on my loaded touring bike returning to the highway and was suddenly upon Jesse plowing into the front part of his bike without even braking, narrowly missing Jesse himself, very well sparing his life. The damage to the wheel and the bike would have been much more severe if it hadn't been protected by a pannier.

I was lucky not to have witnessed the horror of the collision. I just heard the thud of car into pannier. I slowly turned, not eager at all to see the likely sight of a fast spreading pool of blood and a comatose body. Instead, I was shocked to see Jesse arising from the pavement without a spot of blood or even a bruise. The driver came rushing over apologizing, but pointing out that we shouldn't have been entering the highway there. He was right, and we apologized ourselves. We were all in such a state of shock that we didn't take time to assess the damage to the bike and enlist the driver in getting us to a bike shop, before he had sped off. We were all simply relieved that Jesse was OK. His wheel was severely pretzeled, but after jumping on it and taking a truing wrench to it, we straightened it just enough so that it could spin unimpeded if we released the brakes and removed one of the brake pads.

As long as we didn't ride too fast, Jesse's rear brake provided enough braking power for us to safely putter to Chiusauecchia, two miles up the road. It was a slight climb, so we didn't have to worry about a descent generating unsafe speed. Though Chiusauecchia didn't have a bicycle shop, it had bicyclists. A kindly soul most graciously offered to lend us his front wheel so we could more safely bike back to Imperia, a large city six miles away. It was an astoundingly generous offer, but since we had hobbled two miles already without much difficulty, we knew we could manage a few more and wouldn't have the complication of returning his wheel. We were under no severe deadline to be anywhere, so the only stress we felt was recovering from the trauma of this near disaster. It didn't take us long to find a bike store in Imperia, and it had a comparable wheel to Jesse's old one.

The accident occurred on our first morning in Italy, two days ago. If not for that incident we would say that Italy has been perfection. Despite his ill-luck Jesse is loving Italy so much, he is expressing regret that he chose to learn French rather than Italian. The Italians are responding to us and our bikes with even greater fervor than I could have imagined. This morning when we came out of a grocery store two guys were huddled over our bikes, closely examining their every feature. They expressed a level of curiosity way beyond anything we had encountered in France. We are on our way to Milan for the final stage of Italy's version of the Tour de France, likewise a three-week grand tour of the country. But before that we will visit a chapel overlooking Lake Como devoted to bicycling's patron saint, the Madonna de Ghisallo. Could be she has already been looking out for us.

Later, George

Cannes #11

Friends: The films are done, and I'm sorry to report I was denied seeing "Fahrenheit 911" for lack of formal attire. Since it won the Palm d'Or, its final screening was at prime time today, rescheduled from its original five p.m. slot, and as eager as I was to see it, I wasn't so desperate as to go scrambling for a penguin suit. All the men parading around at night as if they are headed to a state dinner is quite hilarious. May I never be one of them.

Moore has clearly been the star of this festival receiving hearty applause at his every appearance. He was the only dignitary to receive applause as he walked up the red carpet to the Awards Ceremony from the audience in the theater I was seated in watching the proceedings on a big screen. It was actually more applause than he received when he won the Palm d'Or, as it was such a surprise and not considered worthy of the Palm d'Or. Everyone is delighted to laud him for his anti-Bush politics, but few are willing to acknowledge his polemic as a film for the ages or to anoint him as an auteur. There was quite a huddle of us afterward trying to figure out how it could have happened. The jury had quite a time defending itself in today`s press conference.

Rumors had been rampant that Tarantino loved the Korean film "Old Boy", which won second prize, that also had few enthusiastic supporters. Tarantino would have loved to have given it the top prize, but his jury stood up to him on that one. Since they could get no consensus on anything else, they just copped out and decided to thumb their nose at Bush. The headline in Sunday's newspaper agreed--"Cannes: la Palme d'Or qui defie Bush." There were no great quarrels with any of the other awards except for the special mention that the Thai film "Tropical Malady" received. It was the only award that the audience booed. In the jury press conference Tarantino admitted there wasn't consensus on the jury for it, but that there had been a couple of people on the jury who had great passion for it, and the rest of the jury decided that if anyone could so enthusiastically embrace such a film, especially when it is the jury president, they'd go along with it. Then Tarantino looked around at his fellow jurists and asked, "Isn't that so." It was several moments before anyone else would speak and acknowledge himself to be the other consenting member of this unpopular choice.

Even though I maxed out at 60 films, the most I've ever managed to see at a film festival, this is one of the rare festivals I've attended where there hasn't been at least one film that I'm going home wildly enthusiast about, that I will be telling everyone they must see. I saw plenty of good films that I'm very happy to have seen and can highly recommend, but unfortunately, for your sake as well as my own, I do not have an ultimate film to exalt over. The closest I came to such exaltation was the American "Tarnation". "The Edukators" started out as such a film, but it lapsed into just a very good film, rather than a great film. Close behind were "Clean"
and "Moolaade." "Whisky" and "In Casablanca the Angels Don't Fly" were a cut below. The best of the young-women-in-distress movies were "Brodeuses" and "Or". And then a pair of French movies by established directors--"Look at Me" and "Right Now." I'll also fondly recall the French thriller "Hook" and the Mexican "Duck Season".

It was a surprise not to have seen something truly great, but an even bigger surprise to discover how easy it was to navigate this mammoth festival that dwarfs all others. I feared it would be something to endure like Sundance, battling the hoards desperate to get into the next "must see." But there was none of that frenzy and mania here. The film-goers were very orderly and professional. I had been warned that cell phones would be constantly going off in screenings and that I'd be distracted by people leaving prematurely. There was a minimum of phone ringing and those walking out generally were justified. Even before the festival was half over I began looking forward to returning, knowing that I'd learned many tricks and short cuts to make it even more enjoyable the next time. I nodded off in fewer films here than in any week or longer festival I have attended, further testimony to the quality of films and the minimum of hassle I had to endure.

And now I am thrilled to have the open road ahead of me so I can return to my true passion--that of the bike.

Later, George

Cannes #10

Friends: It is Saturday morning and I could have a final sensational weekend of film-going ahead of me, as today the 20 films in the Un Certain Regard section are being rescreened, and tomorrow everything in Competition. I've seen about half of each category, but there are five or six each day that I'm very glad to have the opportunity to see, including the much talked about "Fahrenheit 911." I was lucky to see "Cronicas" already this morning, an Ecuadorean film starring John Leguzomo. Leguzomo plays an Geraldo Rivera type character investigating a mass murder in Ecuador. This was another fine film from a small country in South America that isn't known for its cinema, just as "Whisky" from Uruguay. But in contrast to the extreme understatement of "Whisky", this was much more charged, opening with a near lynching, once again showing man's bestial nature.

The weekend's schedule wasn't announced until late last night, otherwise I might not have stayed out late watching the Egyptian film "Alexdrie...New York" from master and former Cannes tributee Youssef Chahine. It would have been wiser to have gotten to bed before midnight so I'd be good and strong for this home stretch, which includes the Awards Ceremony
tonight. I'd don't have the attire to attend, but it is being simulcast in the Bunuel, the second largest theater here. Chahine's homage to himself ran over two hours and started late as the Un Certain Regard awards preceded it. The Sengelese film "Moolade" won first prize, no surprise, but second prize going to the "Whisky" was a bit of a surprise, though it would have been my choice. The jury president said "Moolade" was a unanimous choice of the six person jury, a real rarity he said among film fest juries.

Before "Alexdrie...New York" I saw the South African documentary "John Boorman and the TRC," about a soon to be released Boorman film "Country of My Skull" on The Truth and Reconciliation Commission dealing with victims of apartheid. It will star Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche. It recreates hearings where perpetrators of crimes have to apologize face to face to the victims or relatives of the victims. There is more of man's bestiality on parade here, as former police officers tell of torture (pulling out tongues and cutting off hands) along with the all too graphic details of their murders. Boorman invariably tackles subjects of note and this is no exception.

I can also report on the Kazakhstan film "Schizo" about a teen-aged boy who is a tad schizophrenic, thus his nickname and film's title. And there is more brutality here, something I can't seem to escape from since that outrageous, but very artful, Italian documentary on World War I that started my day yesterday. Bare-fisted, no holds-barred fighting in a ring is the prime entertainment in the small city this film is set in. There is significant money at stake
in these fights and Schizo, with some conniving, manages to come away with a hunk of it, getting him into trouble. There are tender moments, somewhat balancing the roughness and toughness. This was a commendable effort from the young woman director Guka Omarova.

Later, George

Cannes #9

Friends: I was interviewed yesterday by Patrick McGavin for a feature he's writing for Chicago's "Reader", and it had nothing to do with the several movie websites, including greencine.com, that have been picking up my comments and quoting me as "George the Cyclist". Patrick has been attending this festival, and many others around the world, for years, and has noticed that Cannes, more than any other festival, seems to attract people of an obsessive nature. He thinks that bicycling 800 miles to watch movies all day for two weeks puts me in that category, along with all the maniacal wheelers-and-dealers that pervade this place trying to buy and sell and distribute and get movies made. I've luckily been sheltered from such ilk by sticking to the safe and serene world of the big dark rooms with the dancing images. Movies may not be the true nature of what's going on here, but I don't mind my ignorant bliss. As with Godard's offering to this year's festival, "Our Music," which is divided into Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, the Heaven segment of his movie and the Heaven part of the Film Festival, its movies, is just the tip and the smallest part of it.

The market screening of "Our Music" at the Star Theater wasn't even a quarter full. It was less
obtuse than the usual Godard fare, but just as pedantic. It opened with his version of Hell, one
clip after another of battle scenes from the world of cinema. Purgatory was original footage of his own, which included himself and an assortment of characters including a couple of Native Americans haranguing an old guy stooped over a desk. Another character asks, "Why haven't revolutions been started by the most humane people." "Because they start libraries." Heaven was some nature footage that ended after barely five minutes.

Then it was another film about teen-aged girls, or at least a couple of 20-year olds that were
teen-agers at heart, in "Venus and Fleur" by Emmanuel Mouret of France. Venus is a flighty, free-spirited, quite attractive Russian girl and Fleur a repressed, dour, but intelligent, French girl. They both have unfulfilled longings, though they are not so desperately depressed as all the other teen-aged girls who have had their traumas portrayed here. They are boy crazy and can't seem to attract any despite flinging themselves at boys on the beach, contrary to expectations and reality. Despite begging reality, this was entertaining and not without a message.

Then it was another French movie, "Lightweight," by Jean-Pierre Ameris, about an amateur boxer who works at a funeral home and has an unlikely Asian girl friend, who he acknowledges is too good for him. He drinks too much and is always fucking up and then flees from the carnage. I was looking forward to a movie of athletic endeavor, as I'm looking forward to getting back to it myself, but there was little of that and what there was wasn't inspiring in the least. This movie just muddled along and is thoroughly sabotaged by a disastrously incongruous ending, though even altering that couldn't save it.

The festival is clearly winding down with less than 100 screenings to choose from on this Friday and the laptops removed from the "Variety" media center. Jesse and I had virtually no other choice than to start the day off with "Oh, Uomo" by Angela Ricci Lucchi of Italy. This was a documentary entirely of footage of casualties from World War I. It was the most gruesome movie that either Jesse or I have ever seen. There was one sequence of guys whose faces had
been deformed by injuries that I couldn't look at for more than a moment or two. But the worst was a couple minute operation on an eyeball that had people wincing and groaning throughout the theater. It made the legendary Dali-Bunuel avant-guard collaboration look like a cartoon. I was regretting I'd had any breakfast. Still, this was a seminal film we were both happy to have seen.

After "Clean", the latest from France's Olivier Assayas, I have seen nine of the 18 films in
Competition, or actually ten of the 19, as the wine documentary was belatedly added to the Competition category for some curious reason. "The Edukators" remains my favorite, and "Clean" ranks second. Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte are both superlative with performances that could warrant tributes at Telluride this year. Cheung is battling heroin addiction and is
trying to win back the son she lost after her rock star husband died of a heroin overdose that she was implicated in. She serves a six-month prison sentence for possession. Nolte is her wise father-in-law who has custody of her son. Both are very reasonable and rational in contrast to the usual assortment of unstable, neurotics that are film fodder. We can all only hope age brings each of us the understanding and compassion that Nolte exhibits. Cheung is equally admirable.

The much anticipated and slightly delayed "2046" played last night, but only for those with formal attire or press passes. I hope to see it and the rest of the Competition films I passed on in the next two days when there is little else to choose from. The awards will be announced Saturday. Sunday, the final day of the fest, will feature a screening of "Kill Bill," Volumes One and Two back-to-back at 10:45 a.m. to be introduced by Tarantino. There will be an intermission, but the end credits to One and the opening credits to Two will be expunged.

Later, George

Cannes #8

Friends: This festival is so huge, there are three English publications ("Hollywood Reporter," "Variety" and "Screen") offering a free daily issue devoted to festival news with reviews, interviews and schedules. I had been partial to "Variety" since it is my Internet outlet, but I now turn to "Screen" first after discovering they have a one sentence blurb on most of each day's screenings. It hasn't altered any of my choices, but it does help me when I have options. If I were a Chowhound, I might have changed today's plan of attack with the discovery of another movie about a chef playing in the market. It is "Hungry Hearts" from the U.S. "Screen" says, "An up-and-coming chef caters a party for four women, only to discover they have a shocking surprise in store for him."

For the first time an usher had to find me a seat in the Palais for the afternoon screening of the Competition film "Exils" by Tony Gatlif of Algeria. That is the one venue that requires tickets/invitations, so there should have been seating enough. There are always people hovering around the Palais with signs asking for "invitations" or asking verbally. From my own experience outside Wrigley Field looking for extra invitations/tickets I know there all always some to be found and always empty seats in the ball park, so I was quite taken aback when I started hiking up to the distant reaches of the Palais and didn't see any vacancies.

"Exils" was another of those Competition films that was long on style and short on substance. Its the simple tale of a very photogenic Algerian couple in their 20s living in Paris who decide to return to their homeland. They travel overland through Spain and then by boat across the Mediterraen. Gatlif directed the acclaimed, rousing musical "Latcho Drum" some ten years ago, and this film too is rich with rousing music. That's about all it has going for it.

I next took my chances on the Philippine film "The Woman of Breakwater" by Mario O'Hare over at the Director's Fortnight. Philippine films tend to be overblown melodramas that have no place in film festivals except to draw the Filipino community. This film was no exception, even though the producer promised "realism" and so did the film's pre-credit announcement--"41% of Filipinos live below the poverty line. These are some of their stories." It was an hour before the aisle I was sitting in the middle of had cleared out so I could escape without stepping over anyone.

Next up was a rare film from Uruguay, "Whisky" by Juan-Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. This was great film fest fare, and a film that is not likely to be seen anywhere but at a film festival. It is the simple story of two brothers getting together for the first time in years. The older 60-year old has to enlist the help of his 48-year old assistant from his sock making factory to masquerade as his wife. The boss is very cold and distant and has nothing more than a professional relationship with this most taciturn and submissive woman. The younger brother is much more successful and flamboyant than his older brother, singing at karaoke bars and telling jokes. The woman has never had so much attention lavished upon her as she receives during their weekend together, but she remains her taciturn self. This was a perfectly cast and executed movie that was a fine finish to the day.

Since the much anticipated "2046" was in transit from Bangkok, as Kar-Wai Wong went to the deadline and beyond with his finishing touches, I was free to attend the French Canadian "CQ2" (Seek You Too) at 8:30 this morning instead. I figured I made the right choice when I saw none other than jury president Quentin Tarantino slink stoop-shouldered and unaccompanied into the Bunuel Theater. He's been seen quite frequently with Sofia Coppola, but not this early. There was no applause as he entered, so I wasn't entirely sure it was him until I heard his distinctive voice ask, "Is that an empty seat?" as he made his way down the third row. He knows the importance of being as close to the center when gazing at the screen.

When the movie opened in a woman's prison I thought that explained why Tarantino was there, but the prison scenes are over quick. Instead, the movie turned into another of those featuring a teen-aged girl in turmoil. This one was 17, about to turn 18. She was more rebellious and out-of-control and confused and unrealistic than any of the others so far portrayed here. As the Australian girl in "Somersault," she flees her mother and is trying to make it on her own. She attaches herself to a 35-year old woman dance instructor who's just been released from prison. The script withholds the reason she was in prison as long as it can for no other reason than to try to keep our attention. That is the least of the faults of this unadulterated mess that had one fatal plot flaw after another. This early audience didn't bother to boo, though it should have. But neither was there a single clap, almost as damning a reaction.

After the screening I grabbed the three daily publications and high-tailed it to an eleven o'clock screening half a mile away. The blurb on "Strange Crime" by Roberto Ando in the Critic's Weekly sector said, "A writer attends his step-son's wedding in Capri and meets another woman." This was an Italian film, so I should have known it would turn into another movie about a successful 50-year old man having an affair with a woman less than half his age, as I had been subjected to twice already this past week. At least this one developed some more intrigue than "when will his wife find out and how will she react." Daniel Auteuil plays a successful writer who is a bit of a libertine. He writes under a pen name and may have some plagiarism in his past. A couple of woman try to blackmail him. I looked for Kathleen Turner, who is on the jury here, in the audience, as it was such a movie that launched her career. Maybe if I hadn't been scarred by those two earlier Italian films about old men and their mistresses I would be more enthusiastic about this film, but it seemed like more standard fare with not that much of a twist.

For the first time we are under threat of rain today, forcing me to add a rain coat to my pack, which is just added camouflage for my bike pump and tools when the bag is inspected.

Later, George