26 May 2007
I made my last visit to the Majestic Saturday morning only to find that there were no copies of Screen. Again. Do they just decide not to print this stuff if they don’t meet deadline (granted, hard to do when there’s so much going on every day)? I really missed reading their takes on the last few films I saw. Even though they write their reviews based on how marketable the film is to its desired audience, a little too businesslike for my tastes, they kept good tabs on where each competition film stood; I felt a bit adrift without them.
Tickets for Mogari no Mori (“The Mourning Forest,” a Japanese film—hi, Megan!) were easy to come by. I have to admit that, after finally “sleeping in” before catching the 10:12 train, I just wanted to keep sleeping, so… I did. I watched all but the last 15 minutes of the film, which I drifted in and out for (and had some trippy dreams that I hope I didn’t sleeptalk about), and the general consensus was that I didn’t miss much. It was one of those films where I could tell my cultural background didn’t give me what I needed to really appreciate the story. The lingering shots of the forest made me see it in the magical way the old man did, but I obviously found it hard to keep paying attention to long periods of “doing nothing” or at least doing something (like screaming) over and over.
Jill and Ryan stayed for the next film, Samantha went to McDonalds (her mothership), and Kaison and I went to shop a bit. We pawed around a lot of fancy chocolate/wine shops, buying nothing, and I sniffed several perfumes/touched a lot of jewelry that I didn’t buy while he read reviews in Metro, the daily film newspaper. Eventually we made our way to FNAC (my mothership); no signed copies of Persepolis to be found, but a poster did taunt me with the date—four days before I knew I loved the film—that Marjane Satrapi was in the store. Samantha came to meet us on the covered rooftop café while I ate a delicious “Chinese salad” (sautéed chicken, rice, cucumbers, and sprouts on top of some lettuce). As we discussed our possible plans to go to Cap d’Antibes, this well-dressed British guy a table over gave us some directions. Apparently, he’s lived in JLP for 5 years and has some fabulous friends who bring him to yacht parties and casual afternoons with stars like Leo DiCaprio and Bono. I was more than startled to hear that he’s never seen a film at the Palais, but he was similarly shocked that we knew of none of the party places he goes to. His friend, a more down-to-earth visiting Brit, said “Cheerio!” when they left.
We tried a second time to get into Pirates of the Caribbean at the Arcades theatre in Cannes after a bit of slumming around JLP. Kaison, Tolu, and I caught a later train back to Cannes and went to Monoprix for candy before meeting up with Bill, Mandy, and Laura, who said that the theatre was closed because of a black-tie premiere there. I’ve gotten used to disappointment at the festival, so it didn’t bug me much, but we weren’t sure we could make another evening of just wandering around old Cannes. Thankfully, Adam called to say that he and about 7 others were in the theatre; the uppity guards for the premiere must have mislead Laura because of language issues, or they were just being jerks. I coughed up 8 euro and wandered up some typically French, narrow stairs into a theatre the size of two dorm rooms. The screen was small, taking up only the upper half of a smaller side of the rectangular room, and the restrooms peeked from a small entryway at the side of the screen—very glad I didn’t have to use them and thus be seen by the whole theatre for a restroom run. It was no Grand Theatre Lumiere, but it was pretty fun to see an English-language movie in a typical French theatre. I didn’t hate the movie as much as some people did, but it kind of got on my nerves how, if there was anything campy that they could do with the characters, they took it to the extreme. I’ll respect Disney’s wishes for early reviewers and not spoil the plot for you. But I think if you like Pirates you’ll enjoy some of the in-jokes, Johnny’s typically flawless performance, and all of the crazy action scenes (especially on your bigger American movie screens).
We had a brush with the law while we sat for half and hour on the train back to JLP. Police were everywhere outside of our car, about six of them present around a man they had handcuffed. Everyone thought this was funny, and Kaison wanted a keepsake so he took a photo. Immediately after the flash all of the cops pointed up at our car, and one of the hugest guys I’ve ever seen actually comes into the car, looks at Kaison and says “Votre appareil-photo” like he’s going to confiscate it. Kaison did some quick talking and showed him how the picture didn’t even turn out (it just got the reflection of my arm in the window), and he left just before I couldn’t hold in my nervous laughter any longer. So that’s how we learned not to mess with French cops, even if they don’t pack heat: they’re worried they’re not photogenic.
No comments:
Post a Comment