Psycho. #49

What is overrated and/or underrated about the Cannes Film Festival experience?

Oh fucking Christ, thank you, thank you for this hilariously softball question. Watch as I hit the huge spongy ball with my massive bat, and everybody gives me a big round of applause for getting to first base! Are you my mum? A guardian angel, watching from on high? At any rate, cheers for this, it’s really doing exactly the job. I’ll wang you some money for it if you send in your deets. 

Shall we do it in this format? Seems a shame not to!

Underrated: the sidebar selections. Yes, of course, you are most likely to see a masterpiece in the competition section — the one where some of the greatest directors in the world vie for the Palme d’Or (indeed that’s the section that has yielded this year’s first masterpiece, Sirāt by Oliver Laxe) — but the section can also include severe disappointments and the odd dud. The sidebar sections, like Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight, often offer up a really rigorous selection, and in my view are less likely to show a complete howler because they aren’t as dependent on stars and reputation, choosing instead on merit, and knowing that they’re more likely to fly under the radar on that basis. 

Yesterday in the Directors’ Fortnight I saw Her Will Be Done, by Julia Kowalski, a really stirring and powerful psychological drama about Nawojka, a young French-Polish woman in a repressive family, battling her faith and sexuality. So far so standard, in terms of subject matter, but Kowalski is audacious in her execution, employing a heavy electric guitar soundtrack and impressively nightmarish montages of bloodcurdling visions, all blood-spattered and sickly. The performance she coaxes out of the mercurial Maria Wróbel in the lead role, as a kind of Carrie 2.0 as seen by Giotto, is really gutsy and intelligent. Although the film loses a little bit of rhythm towards the end, there’s so much to like here, including a lively, witty depiction of a boozy Polish wedding, in all its mess and drama. 

Today, in the Directors’ Fortnight section I watched A Useful Ghost (Pee Chai Dai Ka) by the thrillingly named Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, another example of a director going for broke. The film tells the story of a young queer man researching recent Thai history, and whose vacuum cleaner is haunted. Upon calling out a maintenance guy to look at it, he is told the story of a man who died in the factory that made the hoover, and how he precipitated a wave of ghostly appearances taking on the form of household appliances. That is a very high and wobbly tightrope, as far as concept is concerned, and yet for the most part Boonbunchachoke walks it, even doing a few little trick steps along the way, like Philippe Petit between the Twin Towers. The film boasts enormously engaging formal qualities, and is pretty adept in its storytelling; and there is, to boot, an intelligent argument here that pulls together queer and class solidarity, political repression, eroticism, and globalisation. A shame, then, that the movie sometimes overstates its intentions, and perhaps that it also tries to do too much. Still, I had — as we say in the business — “a very good time with it” and felt invigorated by its cojones. 

Those are the risks that you can expect to see in the side categories: of course there will be films in the main selection that really advance the form, and which show true mastery and craft; but I love dipping into the unknown on the sidelines, and feeling inspired by the way these films often seem to enter into a productive dialogue with other, unrelated ones. 

Overrated: the parties. I went to one of the best parties in my life on my first ever Cannes, in 2012, for the film The Angels’ Share, by Ken Loach (it’s a long story, but let’s just say it took place in a beautiful kind of castle, and everybody danced to 500 Miles by the Proclaimers, and the lead actor — who was wearing a kilt — mooned me as we all walked back into town at 5 in the morning, following which I went for a skinny dip in the sea as the sun came up on the following day); but I can honestly say that I haven’t been to a single fantastic party since then. In part, there’s been an understandable scaling back in terms of the money that gets thrown at these things, and in part I got lucky that one time, and in part I’m a small fish in a big festival and don’t get invited to the great parties. BUT! I really do think that the parties just aren’t that good! They’re overcrowded, and the music often sucks and blows, and something about it all feels a bit try-hard and depressing. Far better to hang out with friends in a flat or at a restaurant! 

Underrated: the hot staff. Swear to god, the folks in charge of staffing the Palais des Festivals must go scouting top model agencies or something, because where do they get these people?! Some of the ticket staff are tired lifers, yes, but many of the younger intake, at the coffee stands and in the film queues, are breathtaking? Yesterday I walked thoughtlessly up to the main film screen, the Debussy, and buzzed my badge to get through, and the man who had scanned it was quite literally Michelangelo’s David come to life???! Every year I’m the only damn pervert who goes on about this, and I’m sick of it. I’m here among film critics! Have you no sense of the aesthetic?

Overrated: Cannes. The town. Yes, it’s got a lot of cinema screens, and sure, there’s a beach, and there are a few restaurants. But every other town on the Cote d’Azur, apart from Monaco which is objectively one of the five worst places in the world, kicks the arse of Cannes, and on a bad day with a coffee-medicated hangover, there’s something actively depressing about the crappy designer boutiques along the Croisette. Nice is absolutely lovely! Menton is gorgeous! You would have to be fully insane to come here on holiday.

Underrated: friends! Not the television show, which I think is rated absolutely right by everybody (namely: it’s a funny programme that we all enjoy, but, you know, kind of horrifically awful and cringe), and which has nothing to do with Cannes. No, the concept of friendship and seeing one’s pals all over town, at every cafe and laptop power-point. If you aren’t somebody who likes bumping into people (I hear such people exist? They’re called introverts, I’m told?), that aspect may not be as fun, but I LOVE bumping into friends. It already happens to me a fair bit in London, but in Cannes it’s really like the teddybears’ picnic, and each time you get to talk about cinema — which I also love! 

Overrated: food. I’m sorry, I’ll go out for one good meal, maybe, while I’m here; and I like the look of the market, and I do believe in the importance of getting one’s five a day — but that’s not what we’re here for! We’re here for films! Shove a sandwich down your gullet between screenings and get thee to a screening room — I don’t want to hear about great restaurants or whatever. Would you ‘eat well’ at ‘Glasto’, another festival I’ve heard of? Of course not. Eyes on the prize, people.

Underrated: the journalists’ terrace. Many people will say, oh shut up you horrible little rat, stop boasting about your rooftop where you write your nonsense in the south of France. To those naysayers I retort: I chose a mostly terrible job in an industry that’s disappearing faster than you can say “Letterboxd”, let me have a cold San Pellegrino in the sun once a year until my privileges are revoked by some All About Eve-ass chatbot that will churn out “why we’re all going squee for Julia Ducournau” for the price of 0 dollars, thereby undercutting me by one dollar. 

Overrated: sunlight. 

Overrated: water. Look, I’m not going to play god with my bladder and film runtimes while I’m here. It’s short coffees all the way, maybe some cigarettes, and glasses of rosé after 8pm. Hydrate at your peril. 

Overrated: Americans. You’re here to watch Mission: Impossible? And to talk loudly in restaurants? OK

Underrated: French cinephiles. Yes, they’re all annoying, but every single one of them is exactly the same as each other, they never change from year to year, and I love to hear them talking together before a film starts. Here is how every single conversation goes: 

Journalist 1 (early thirties, curly hair): Matthias?
Journalist 2 (early thirties, curly hair): Ah! Salut Matthias!
Journalist 1: T’as vu le Wes Anderson?
Journalist 2: Ouais, c’était très fort. 
Journalist 1: Ouais. Et le Lynne Ramsay? Oh la la. 
Journalist 2: Oh la la la la. Putain!

Underrated: Raoul. The festival’s most inside-baseball meme, which I probably shouldn’t even be writing about, because it’s supposed to be to Cannes as The Aristocrats is to comedy, is — in my view — really good, and not at all cliquey and annoying. I said it for the first time last year and got a huge buzz from it. Raooooouuuuuuul!

Overrated: celeb-spotting. For some reason it’s always crap here? I like to celeb-spot somebody not at all famous, but otherwise the celebrities are kept away and for some reason it’s not even exciting when you do see one. I feel like the festival just swallows them up whole, denting their fabulosity. The only celebrity I like to see when I’m here is Rossy de Palma, who is always — in the parlance of our times — giving. 

Underrated: Caspar Salmon. You know what? When I come here I really feel my size in the ecosystem, and this year I am even more of a nothing than ever, not least because I don’t have Twitter anymore, which used to afford me a decent audience. But do I bring it, every time? Yes, yes I do. I’m here, I’m writing, I’m wearing clothes, having opinions, flirting, I have a smile for everyone and I’m up for movie-going, and I really feel I should get more credit.

OK I could probably go on for ages but I’ll stop there. I have to rush off to a Richard (overrated!) Linklater screening, so I will bid you farewell for now, dear reader. Long life! Vive le cinéma!

Send your questions anonymously to Caspar at this link, no personal information is collected.