Cannes Begins; Let Puns and Pricing Complaints Follow

By Steven Zeitchik

Overnight, the crowds on the Croisette multiplied, the screenings cranked into gear and Jack Black decided to show up
with humans in panda suits on a pier in the south of France.

On Wednesday morning,  journalists and critics -- when they weren't lamenting  the cost of a cup of coffee paid in dollars -- packed the first screening of the festival, the 10 a.m. critics showing of "Blindness." We were able to catch only the first half hour or so, but Fernando Meirelles' comments on his own work struck us as apropos -- the use of an anyonmous setting (the movie was shot in Sao Paulo), vague accents and the general lack of distinguishing locational details puts you a little off-kilter and gives the film a mystical, metaphysical feel.

On the business side, the real question will be the buyer action on available titles. While market pics and reel showings will inevitable providy a breakout, the competition lineup is where the cachet -- and sales buzz -- lies. A lot has been written about the effect of the tempered market over the last few fests, the Hollywood labor pains and the contraction of specialty companies like Picturehouse. But like at all fests, the sales will rest on reaction to the movies themselves.

For that, the hope lies, as reported in today's THR, with two lovers, a two-parter and a headtrip -- that is, with James Gray's romantic drama, Soderbergh's "Che" epic and Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, NY." None of the three films have distribution, and while all have the kind of artistic ambition that could make them a commercial reach, they also have the artistic ambition that could turn them into this year's "No Country for Old Men."

Also, look for Israeli doc "Waltz with Bashir" as this year's "4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days" -- a unique, buzzed-about film that draws a small-midrange distributor and a modest amount of actual currency but enormous amounts of the cultural kind. And on the market side, "JCVD" will be the high-concept gamble -- a Jean Claude Van Damme biopic that's a parody of the aged action star. A Jean Claude Van Damme parody may be a comic redundancy, but then, aren't those the best kind.

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!