Even to a cultural journalist the concept of attending the Cannes Film Festival had always seemed like a distant notion. So receiving an e-mail from CFI (Canal France International) asking for my confirmation to attend, my imagination soared. Not yet familiar with the badge hierarchy in Cannes, I naively thought it would be possible to get an interview with Abbas Kiarostami, whose film entry this year Like Someone In Love is set in Japan, or Michel Gondry, one of my favourite filmmakers. Yet soon enough, when the port side city's festival opened, reality dawned on me…

The invitation was to a workshop involving seven journalists-bloggers from different African and Mediterranean countries in order to create a blog together about this year's edition: four days in Paris, and then the Cannes Film Festival.

 

Paris

Spending four days in Paris before arriving in Cannes, I knew immediately that France is a haven for film lovers. From their cinematheque to their large multiplex cinema Les Halles, which includes an impressive film library, I couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy of the Parisians. A film library such as this, with books from Tarkovsky to the Japanese anime maker Miyazaki, is not even conceivable to an Egyptian.

During my stay, a Tim Burton exhibition was being held at the cinematheque; it was by far one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip. Entering the exhibition space was like walking into Tim Burton world. You are so immediately captured by the strange-looking creatures you begin to wonder if they truly exist somewhere in a cave inside woods made up of trees with many eyes. Burton’s artwork outside the cinema industry is massive, interesting, and most importantly witty. And it seems that his films only represent a fragment of what he does. The exhibition also displayed different quotes by him and biographical information about his childhood; unsurprisingly, as it turns out, he was quite a strange kid.

 

Arrival

Arriving in Cannes by bus from Nice, we were greeted by banners of the festival. Otherworldly: “So this is it. This is the centre of the cinema world.” Going up the stairs of our apartment building, posters of different Cannes editions were plastered on the walls. The excitement made carrying a 20 kg bag two stories up an easy task. The presence of the festival was palpable in every corner in the city: something that, though initially enticing, proved increasingly a strain, even a burden at times.

 

Queues

The first film I went to watch was The We and the I by Michel Gondry. It was the opening film of the Director's Fortnight (Quinzaine) section. Yet, after queuing for 45 minutes, we told in gestures that the hall was already full – groans. I headed straight to the screening of a documentary about Woody Allen – two hours early. I was the first to arrive. A cinephile card-holding woman who joined me a little later told me how she got it: “I have been coming here for years now, and on many occasions wasn’t allowed entry even after waiting for more than an hour.” Personal introductions resulted in the following exchange:

“So you like Woody Allen?”

“Yes very much.”

“Are you Muslim?”

“I come from a Muslim family.”

“But how can you like Woody Allen? He is Jewish.”

Though one can always start explaining how Woody Allen is critical the Jewish community and that there is a difference between being against Jews and being against Zionism, such conversations never prove fruitful, so instead I said,

“He makes good films; besides, I like his humour and his worldview.”

“He reminds me of my son. He is so pessimistic,” the woman said.

For a Woody Allen fan, the documentary about was both entertaining and nostalgic, yet it offered nothing new. One of the interesting aspects of the film is that – screening in Cannes – it showed Woody Allen's reservations about the press attention forced on him last year during the screening of both You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Midnight in Paris, the latter being last year's opening film.

 

Amour

This piece of work had all the elements of a winning film, whether for the Palme d'Or or an award for acting. I went to see the film the day after its premier. It was raining heavily and many people were waiting in line holding umbrellas.  Despite the gloomy weather, the line for the film outside Soixieme Hall was right by the sea. The cloudy skyline with all its shades of grey was one of the most beautiful views during my stay in the city. And the coincidence of gloomy weather was in the film's benefit. Anyone afraid of old age and the repressions it brings about will hate to see the raw reality it depicts of what it means to age. The Palme d'Or winner showed the slow deterioration of a woman's health and her husband's reaction and coping methods. The film, which was bereft of music except when music was meant to be playing in real-time, ended silently, the credits rolling in a hushed hall. Usually films are received with applause at the end in Cannes, but with this film not one sound was audible in the hall. Viewers left the hall still silent, maybe even shocked, only to be welcomed outside by pouring rain.

One conversation I had about Amour is worth recounting. At the premiere screening of Leos Carax's Holy Motors I was chatting with the man sitting beside me before the film – as in any random conversation in Cannes during those ten days, exchanging views about films we'd seen.

“But what about Amour? Isn't it mind-blowing?” I asked.

 “I didn't like it,” he answered.

“Really? I'm curious. Why?”

“I didn't feel it was very realistic.”

“How come?”

One of the best things about the film is that it effectively draws out emotion without any sentimentality.

“I felt it was really cold,” he said.

“I agree that there was a general cold feeling in the film, but beneath this cold surface there was a very warm bond between the couple. This could be felt in just instants, which made it even more effective.”

“I can understand why someone would say it is a great film cinematically, but maybe because my mother was suffering from the same disease and died a few years ago, I felt it was very unrealistic.”

The man's perception did not change my view of the film, but it made me think about viewer expectations and the very subjective way art is received. Though filmmakers are leaning more and more towards intense realism and the use of real time, and I have to add that personally I am drawn to such films, this quest for emulating a life's experience is near impossible and what a film can do is just add a certain reflection upon it. Yet it seems that every time a film fails to convince us of the reality we expect of it we write it off. Credibility is subjective too. Yet in the end, the core of any film's enjoyment is a very subjective act, that sometimes is distorted by the critics' views and cinematic expectations.

Anyway, the film that followed the Amour conversation was the best film I watched in the whole festival.

 

Holy Motors

Unlike Amour, which struck audiences and muted them, Holy Motors received one of the grandest rounds of applause I've ever witnessed after the end of a film. Holy Motors can easily be described as cinematic experience. It transcends all genres as it includes all. Comically absurd, the film satirises both filmmaking and modern life. In a large white limousine, which from the inside looks like a theatre dressing room, the film’s protagonist M. Oscar, goes around with his female driver/assistant to take up different roles. From a robotic man to an old lady to a strange looking quasi monster living in a sewer, the protagonist’s transformations change the film’s genre, lighting, mood and setting. This creates a visually enthralling, concentrated cinematic journey, never free of sarcastic hints.

The only part of the film I cannot be at peace with despite my counter-argumentative attempts is that in which the man that comes out of a sewer kidnaps a woman to put a face veil on her. It may be the absurd style of the whole film that prevented me from underlining this as an Orientalist perception. The film has so much surrealism that perceptions are augmented, and one cannot take the insinuations too literally. The film received a big buzz after its screenings: it was one of those films you either love or hate. This division led many to think that it may end up winning the Palme d'Or winner like Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark and The Tree of Life by Terrance Malick. 

 

Funny encounter

Before starting the film 7 Days in Havana, in which 7 filmmakers collaborated to make 7 different short films about each day of the week, I sat down next to a man who spoke Italian, Spanish and French. I forgot to ask him about his nationality, but I think he is Italian. When I told him I only spoke Arabic, English, German and very basic Japanese, he said “7 languages and no communication.” Quite an ironic observation. Trying to have a conversation I told him I was Egyptian, which was followed by excitement on his part. “El Shaab Yoreed Eskat El Nizam (The People want the Downfall of the Regime,” he exclaimed loudly and started chanting in the hall, laughing. “Yaskot Yaskot Hosny Mubarak,” he chanted, explaining that he was in Tahrir during the 18 days that led to the ouster of Hosny Mubarak.

After a while he took out a sheet of paper with all Egyptian presidential candidates along with their descriptions. “Abou Ezz El Hariry is my candidate,” he said. “But he is not getting any votes,” I told him. “The Revolution Continues Alliance,” he said pointing at the description, while adding that “Life is a Revolution. But Aboul Foutouh will win?” he asked. “I think he will be in the run-off,” I answered.

 

Arab Films

During the festival, there were three Arab film screenings in three different section. The Egyptian Baad El Mawkea was competing in the official competition, the Morrcoan God's Horses in the Un Certain Regard section and the Algerian Le Repenti in the Director's Fortnight section. I only watched the first two.

Expectations were high for the Egyptian film, as it has been years since an Egyptian film was in the official selection. However, after the premiere, the general consensus of both critics and general movie goers, with whom I struck up conversations, was just puzzlement regarding the film's entry.

God's Horses started off as a good, heavy film about Moroccan shantytowns but soon degenerated into a cliché depiction of the Middle East, Al Qaeda, and suicide bombers.

During the stay, I realised that people in Cannes know more about contemporary Egyptian cinema than I had thought. The film Sheherazade Tell Me a Story by Youssry Nasrallah and 678 by Mohamed Diab were brought up many times in conversation. One thought that came to my head was whether it is a coincidence that those two films discuss women's issues. It seemed the general comment about them was how it was interesting to see women's problems in Egypt and it felt as if these films were appreciated as an educative tool about Egypt rather than cinematic works.

 

The We and The I

Having failed to see Michel Gondry's film on the first day of the festival, I went to catch it somewhere a bit far from the Croisette, in a cinema called Studio 13. Though, watching the film two days after the premiere, I did not have the chance to attend a Q&A by the filmmaker, I did have the chance to see one of the low-key cinemas in the city, which was also interesting.

The cinema looked like one of those underground indie centres, which emitted an air of shabbiness. The atmosphere, however, was relaxed; and attendees waiting in the hall, which held a contemporary photography exhibition. Snacks and drinks were also offered. “So this Townhouse-like cult of meaningless and pretentious art exists everywhere,” I thought. The only problem with these fringe screenings is that subtitles are only available in French. So I realised when I went to watch a Korean animated film in another...

 

Kiarostami's film

One of the most anticipated films this year was Kiarostami's Like Someone In Love; however, it seems the film did not live up to the high expectations. Despite the disappointment, Kiarostami as always shows a great deal of experimentation. Whether it worked or not, something that I personally have not come to a conclusion about yet, one just has to commend the effort.

The film starts brilliantly with a scene in a bar, in which at first the viewer only hears a conversation but doesn't hear who is talking. It builds up in a very intense way then it slows down and abruptly ends. This extremely abrupt ending leads to many questions. My feeling is that Kiarostami wanted to end a film right before the point where “the action” is expected to begin. It defied all expectations. Even though this has led to negative reviews of the film, undoubtedly it was one those films that require a second viewing.