I’ve been here for a month so there’s some catching up to do…

The Cannes Film Festival, which happened a couple of weeks ago, is about half an hour away from Nice by train.  I was thrilled to learn that the festival would be on while I was here (I didn’t even plan it that way!)

There are three things you should know about me before I get into this:

1)      I’m celebrity repellent. I was at the Sundance Film Festival several years ago and saw no one except Macaulay Culkin from a bus. It’s virtually impossible to be at Sundance and not end up sharing dinner with Spielberg or finding George Lucas in your room, but my repellent is that powerful.

2)      Cannes is an industry-only festival. If you don’t work in film, you’re not getting into anything. Apparently people can be arrested for giving away their tickets to shows. I figured this was hype.

3)      I really want to walk a red carpet some day. I think I’d rock it.

My friend Anjana was visiting during the festival so we decided to go. We found a ridiculously cheap four-star hotel for the opening night (which sextupled in price for the rest of the festival so clearly the opening night was not a draw here in Cannes).

When we arrived it was totally chaotic. The main shopping street is a narrow road flanked by upscale European designers as well as more downrate shops like Zara and Etam. It was packed with people – all of whom looked like celebrity hounds. Once we were off the main road, I felt like I was in Florida, not France. The buildings lacked that architectural quaintness or beauty that usually characterizes French towns. Instead, they had a distinctly “retirement living community” feel.

After dumping our stuff in our room and figuring out where we were and where the action was, we headed the short distance to La Croissette, the main drag on the water. That is where all of the high end hotels and designer stores are located. There is a nice boardwalk and a pretty park and several very expensive patios that look out over the water. For the festival, there are also many, many giant tents on the beach, which serve as clubs and party venues. As we walked, we surveyed the menus of several of the beachfront patios, assessing at each that $30 for a starter salad was definitely out of our price range.

To me, Cannes was full of tall people. Amazonian women who were overly done up (too much bronzer or collagen or leopard print) or simply jaw-droppingly gorgeous women. Seriously, I saw the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life there. She was on the back of a scooter and when she passed us.  AJ and I both turned to each other and said “Oh my God.” And then we wondered about what it must feel like to be that gorgeous all the time?  I concluded that it would feel pretty f%^king awesome.

In addition to the throngs of people on the boardwalk there were fake paparazzi taking photos of anyone who would allow them to. We got photographed and our pictures are up on the web somewhere but I lost the card the guy gave us.

As we wandered around seeing various actorly looking folks, I realized that, for me, Cannes would be the Festival of That Guy. We saw several people who made us say, “Hey! It’s that guy! You know… oh what film was he in?” That was our niche. You know, the big black guy, he was in that movie…

We decided to move off the main drag to find a less expensive place to eat. We found a great little (empty) patio just behind one of the expensive patios (I laughed because it was so much cheaper and the food was coming out of the same kitchen.) As we ate, we lamented over how un-public-friendly the festival is. I knew it would be difficult to take part in the festival but it felt much more closed than I had anticipated, even with all the warnings I’d received. We couldn’t even find any information about where movies were playing or at what times, just lists of what movies would be shown during the festival. It was frustrating.

After our meal, we headed to the Festival Palace for the red carpet screening of Robin Hood with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. As you’d expect, the crowd was immense. As we were walking up there were numerous people in ball gowns and tuxes holding signs saying “Looking for a ticket to Robin Hood” in English or French. We stopped at the barrier where people were flashing their invitations to be let in. For some reason, in my fantasy that we’d get invited to see a film, it never occurred to me that we’d have to bring a ballgown (probably because I knew the chances were nil that this would happen). But of course this was a red-carpet gala; there was a black tie rule in full effect, and the bouncers weren’t budging on it. It was very amusing to see people who had dressed up but had no ticket. They would join the line to look important and try to sneak in and then get booted out… and then rejoin the line again.

After the line had dwindled to nothing and no one important had entered we got as close to the Festival Palace steps as we could, which wasn’t very close. There is only one spot where the public can get a decent view of the stars and it’s directly in front of the steps. Unfortunately, only about 20 people can fit in this space. Like I said, very un-public friendly. Cate and Russell and Salma Hayek were there and we could see them, but only barely. They posed for a few pictures while an announcer trumpeted their accomplishments and then they went inside. Done.

More on the evening in my next entry.