Alex de Campi: Gojira!

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19.5.05 Cannes Without A Clue, Part I

Monday, 12.30pm: I have sand in my shoes. Cannes smells like jasmine flowers, and melted ice cream, and the sea. The scent of flowers is pervasive, but always unexpected. Every piece of hoarding space along the Croisette is filled with posters advertising films in pre-production, in production, or opening soon. 95% of the films advertised look staggeringly, epically bad. So bad they make Michael Bay look like Orson Welles. A file of dumpy middle-aged Americans brush past me, intently following a woman holding a white plastic paddle emblazoned with "Cannes Celebrity Tours". Exhausted, I rock gently in their wake and try to get my bearings. I arrived via 5am car to Luton, 7am flight to Nice, then 11am bus from the airport, after a hectic weekend marketing comics at the Bristol Expo. I am without map, agenda, or clue. It's cloudy. Warmer than Bristol, but not by much.

Monday, 4pm: Everything's coming up rose. My producers have conned me in via text message along the Croisette to a lavish tent on the beach which serves as the Cannes outpost of London's Century Club. I only find this out later, as now all I notice is that the decor is lovely and food and drink are being proffered to me. We sit outside, but just as the first bottle of a truly delicious rose arrives the sky opens. We scuttle inside and the weather proceeds to chuck it down for the next several hours. We proceed to chuck down rather a lot of the aforementioned rose. Nobody is in much of a rush - strangers exchange the sort of guilty, pleased, conspiratorial grins of two kids doing a bunk off school who recognise each other in the town game shop. Some film lawyers join us for a meeting. The producers kick me under the table and I do the funny and charming writer schtick, jazz hands, describing my film. The lawyers nod and smile and say It All Sounds Very Interesting.

Monday, midnight: Scottish Country Dancing: The Horror. I shiver in jeans and leather jacket on the patio of the old Soho House villa, hiding in the shadows as unattractive and suspiciously happy people of Gaelic descent try to convince me that Scottish Country Dancing is a good idea. I point at the band and mime that I can't possibly hear them over the deafening music, and clutch my drink. I'm sure that flying out of the UK this morning only to be nearly trampled in the freezing-cold Cote d'Azur by overly-enthusiastic Scottish country dancers is some sort of new irony record, even for me. Horribly lifelike wax heads and animatronic animal parts dot the entrance to the villa, products of S/FX company Artem. Some coked-up boys take phone photos of each other sticking their heads in the animatronic coyote head's mouth. My prayers for a freak electrical accident with the coyote remained sadly unanswered. I eye up the wax head next to the bar and decide that yes, I really need another drink.

Tuesday, 12.30am: Lovely Hannah, Party Plannah gives me a list of parties my producers are supposed to be attending over the next two days. I duly write them down. But this remains the only party we say we are going to, that we actually then show up at. Cannes is a mess of shifting schedules, delayed meetings, and chance encounters. And films? I remain unconvinced that they actually show films at Cannes. It's all a myth. Saying that, I would have quite liked to see the new Jarmusch (BROKEN FLOWERS, starring Bill Murray) and the new Cronenburgh (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, with Viggo Mortensen), both of which got strong reviews. I mean, the Jarmusch is a Jarmusch, and you either love him or wish that he'd give his films a proper fucking ending. Then there were lots of boring Euro-films about the misery of the human condition... which brings us nicely to Lars von Trier. The 5am start to the day catches up with me. I bail, and walk the 15 minutes home to my hotel. There are taxis in Cannes, allegedly, but none passed me. I find out later that the police busted the party at 1am due to excessive noise, and my producer, Lovely Hannah, and other friends went on to a boat party full of rich Americans. Damn. I could have used a rich American.

Tune in tomorrow for further adventures of the clueless girl.

( 3:03 PM )

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