We’re nearly up to a full house in the festival apartment this morning. I’m on the sofa in the sitting room. Sarah McIntosh (CFF Shorts Programmer), Isabelle McNeill (CFF Programmer), and Jason Wood (Artistic Director of Film at Manchester’s new cultural venue, HOME) all have their respective rooms, and then later this evening, CFF Director Tony Jones arrives, and we bring in the cushions from the sofa on the balcony. Does knowing the sleeping arrangements of the CFF Cannes team offer a level of insight previously unknown? I hope it goes some way to show the communal level about visiting a festival like this: we all muck in, cooking meals for each other, sharing our living environment together.
I passed Peter Bradshaw on the street at the start of the day. The sun was shining, it was a little gusty, and he had a brisk walk on and a stern expression. When you see the output of film reviewers from big publications like the Guardian, and you realise they’re watching four or five films a day, with a review for each, some time for food in-between a screening, and minimal time for sleep, well… you can’t help but admire their stamina! The arrangement I find myself in here for Take One is very enviable in comparison to a scheduled checklist of films I absolutely have to watch. I know I’ll average about four films per day, and that they’ll be a mixture of different genres and countries of origin. It’s all a question of timing the screenings just right, but if I don’t make one screening, I can always attend a repeat screening the following day. Bradshaw must be under a lot of pressure to perform at a festival like Cannes!
My first film of the day was an Icelandic film called HRÚTUR (translated as RAM) by a director called Grímur Hákonarson. Screening in Salle Debussy, a lovely cinema to the left of the Grand Theatre Lumiere, and with very comfortable seats, I arrived nearly two hours in advance to secure a place more-or-less near the front of the queue. One of my favourite films last year was another Icelandic film called OF HORSES AND MEN. As soon as the first wide-shot of the empty rural Icelandic landscape appeared on screen in Salle Debussy, I knew I was in a similar territory. Then similar cast members started to appear in RAM (I guess there just aren’t that many Icelandic movie stars out there). So far, so good. Then follows two hours of a film about a pair of acrimonious fraternal shepherds and their flocks of rare breed Icelandic sheep – with less dark humour than OF HORSES AND MEN. It was a very sincere film, the cinematography was stunning, but I’m sorry, I just don’t find a film about sheep or elderly shepherds that interesting, at least not in the hands of this director. I wanted to get up and leave about half-way through, but the cast and crew were in the audience, and I felt a strong pang of not wishing to offend. Better luck next time, chaps.
After lunch, we dressed up and got ready for Yorgos Lanthimos’s THE LOBSTER. Walking in to town to the screening we bumped into Celyn Jones, of SET FIRE TO THE STARS fame (the loveliest Welsh actor you could meet) and then two minutes later, Cecilia Frugiuele, producer of APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR with her friend Desiree Akhavan, President of the Queer Palm at Cannes this year. It sure is a small world on the walk to the biggest cinema in town! Picturehouse Entertainment have picked up THE LOBSTER in advance of its screening here in Cannes. I believe this marks the first film in Competition for the Palme d’Or which Picturehouse Entertainment will be distributing in the UK. An impressive coup for a company our size!
It’s a quick dash up the red carpet and into the Lumiere, a cinema with a 2300 capacity. Up walk the stars of the film on the red carpet: Ben Whishaw (swoon), Colin Farrell (I’d just watched the new TRUE DETECTIVE trailer and there he was), Rachel Weisz (her mum frequents the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse and is lovely!) and many more. It’s a 10.30pm start to the film, with a great premise about a dystopian world in which you get turned into an animal if you don’t find a partner within 45 days. I settle down before the screening and decide I’d quite like to be a red squirrel. Two hours later we leave the auditorium, and it’s safe to say this one needs a second viewing and/or some time to process before writing a review. As Mark Kermode would say, “first, but not right”. At nearly 1.00am, I’m not ready to properly analyse this surreal piece of arthouse filmmaking. I’ll see if a review comes to me later in the week. Over and out for today!