By Sailesh Ram, Eastern Eye editor
Hello folksters, from Cannes…where it is sunny, bright and almost beautiful – too early in the morning to be anything more than that. Every now and so I pinch myself, yes, this is my reality, at least for another 24 hours or so. Yeah, someone’s got to do it.
**Day three here and I find myself in front of a keyboard. My natural habitat and yes there are the natural withdrawal systems. Not too many, because there are enough other distractions here. I will tell you about some of them (the others … well, my boss may be reading…).
**The films almost roll into one – I’ve seen five so far. I managed three on Thursday (13) when I first hit town. There’s a story behind the last. Ostensibly as the editor of an Asian paper, I should be watching the Bollywood fare and smoozing with those types. Confession – I’ve not seen a single Indian/Bollywood film yet and I leave the other stuff to more experienced and talented professionals. Me – I am here for the films.
**Saturday 6.30pm. Some eight hours after I penned all that I am finally back at the screen. I had to go to a movie. Not any old movie, you will appreciate – Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (YWMATDS). I have the lowest grade of press card in this universe of unfathomable hierarchies – there are some toilets I cannot use – no, seriously sometimes it just feels like that.
**I knew there would be a lot of pressure for seats, even though it was marked as a press screening and in the Lumiere – official capacity, 2,300. I went to the right queue and got in, somewhat assuaging the slight I felt at not getting into the South Korean movie showing here in Competition, The Housemaid on Thursday (13), where a thousand other superior badge holders beat me to it.
**Let’s gloss over that – but first you want to know about YWMATDS – yeah, it is kinda all right. If you like Allen, no let me correct that, if love Allen, you will adore this. Many in the audience did. It’s about people falling in and out of love and not just the young and pretty ones, though with Naomi Watts, Frieda Pinto, and a blonde bombshell called Lucy Punch all that seems entirely natural and expected. Add a well-heeled and sophisticated art dealer played by Antonio Banderas, a mid-pensioner crisis for Anthony Hopkin’s character into the mix, and you have a veritable portmanteau of possibilities. All this and a little more are ably handled by Allen. There are some great lines and some cute moments but already, I am beginning not to remember them quite so vivdly. But it was great to get into the big theatre and see a movie with a couple of thousand of people for the first time.
**And what of Pinto? Well, it’s hard to judge because she is not in a lot. Let me be quite frank, her on screen affair with Josh Brolin who plays a struggling writer, lacks a certain something – it doesn’t feel like a creative spirit finding his muse and devoting himself to her and his art. But then maybe that says more about the characters than it does about the skills of Brolin or Pinto. I think it’s Pinto, who doesn’t come across as sexy enough – believe me …pretty, yes, attractive, yes, but no femme fatale.
**Naomi Watts is excellent as the woman who falls out of love with Brolin and almost seals a deal with Banderas. I won’t spoil it for you. If you’re into New Age spirituality and the life you may have lived through reincarnation, it may be a bit uncomfortable, but Allen does not take sides and lets it be. In a word, and just for the humour, it is charming but it is a long way from being anything other than a slight and pleasant interlude to this puzzling business called life, imho.
**Last night I attended a party thrown by one of India’s premier business organisations, who manage the India pavilion. I won’t dwell on it too much – and not because it was fabulous or anything that should not be written about – but the organisation left a lot to be desired. Messy, chaotic and not very impressive, I am afraid. Very Indian in terms of who got in and who was left out and made to look small and stupid (we won’t go back to my press card… and the fact that I had a verbal invite on what was good authority). Like I have a complex about any of this …
**Enough said of my (personal) travails, but a kindly Hinduja (of them tycoons) and the food lifted my somewhat dented spirits. And before that, I saw a movie that you are going to hear about. Titled Meant to Be, it plays out the story of an angel who wants to be with the woman he is protecting. It is a fantasy comedy and again there are some lovely moments and a few real laughs. It was kinda corny too, but shot in Puerto Rico and having two knockout female leads tempers my cynicism. It also has Kris Marshall, the only big name I recognised. There aren’t any notes to hand because it was shown in a market screening, primarily for film buyers, not journos and there must have been 20 us tops in that cinema.
**That morning, I saw On Tour – a big French/US production about a fictional burlesque troupe, on tour in France. It is showing in competition and I can see why – it has a lot of energy and rarely flags, but then with a hardly understated exhibitionism, that may not be too much of a revelation. Overall, it was ok but not something I will remember long into the year.
**In the evening before the India party, I saw a Hollywood movie called Every Day. It has a star cast headed by Helen Hunt. It’s very much a family drama and to me it came across like an extended version of Eastenders. Half an hour of that is quite enough for me. I was close to the Palais, where the red carpet films are and was texting someone (no one important), when I noticed this woman parading what looked like a ticket. Was she trying to sell it? Just as my mind was absorbing this and texting (see some of us can multi-task…) a group of teenagers broke into spontaneous celebration. They were jumping up and down and hooplaing. Oh. Cute. They had some tickets. The girl was still there – she flashed one at a couple who showed them theirs. Then she looked at me and handed me the ticket. Huh. A red carpet invite. I was a little taken aback …people wait a lifetime for an opportunity like this and it falls into my lap (well, it sounds better that way).
**So amidst the young and the beautiful and the clicking cameras, I made my way up those immortal steps like all the stars do, feeling like a star does. The film was Chongquing Blues – Chinese by director Wang Xiaoshuai (yes, I have the official catalogue). It was a very fine movie, though not the sort of thing I would get too hot about. And to be really honest, reading subtitles after two days of six hours sleep is not recommended. But as Cannes film experiences go it was fabulous.
**The director and the cast were all in attendance and watched the movie just as the audience did. They were received by rapturous applause. Until this morning and the Allen screening, there was no way I was going to get an insight into a red carpet premiere, where you watch the movie for the first time with the people who made it and get to see the reaction of the 2,300-strong audience, all done up in their nines and tens. I had a jacket but had to purchase a bow tie to facilitate my entry. Was I going to complain at the Euro15 charge? Hell, baby, this is what I came here for …guess it was just meant to be …
