Limelight Cannes can deliver By Lubna Abdel Aziz Another frantic, frenzied, fascinating, frustrating, French, film festival has come and gone on its Mediterranean azure coast. Fifty-five years of silver- screen magic on the French Riviera proves that Cannes can still pull it through, providing all the dazed and crazed with the same wild jungle-like atmosphere that everyone expects. They come from far and wide, leaving reason and civilisation behind for 10 gloriously mad days in May. Threatened by a boycott of the United States film industry called on by the American Jewish Congress, had Monsieur Chirac vehemently complaining to the Israeli government. The boycott was recalled just in time for Woody Allen, the diminutive comedian Jewish director to open the festival with his latest film Hollywood Ending. The crowds loved him. He seemed to praise the French every time he opened his mouth. He was well rewarded with the Palme des Palmes, their life achievement award for his body of work in film -- a great honour for Allen, even though his film received a cool response from the critics. Beneath Cannes' clear, crisp skies, along the avenues and boulevards they come -- a collective force of film-loving crowds, reducing sanity into insanity, order into disorder, logic into illogic and chaos into harmony. Extravagance is their rule, moderation their bête noire. It is the pride of the French and they call it Festival International du Film, as if it were the only film festival in the world. It is here that they make the deals, also peddle their trash, but more important, they showcase some of the most important film art in the world. The first week's selection seemed to suffer somewhat for the lack of stars and films with any commercial value. While the 22 films from 15 countries for the official competition were comprised of the usual mix of nearly mainstream and art films, they draw a select, restricted audience. For those whose main attraction was the barely-clad lovelies, some ennui was displayed, but to the serious seekers of serious film, their smiles were wide and genuine. Like last year's politically laden issues, such as Iranian director Makhmalbaf's Kandahar, this year Cannes had its share of political themes. There was Canada's Armenian director Atom Egoyan's Ararat -- a film about the massacre of one and a half million Armenians between 1915 an 1923 at the hands of the Turks. That prompted a special visit from one of the film's stars, 77 year old Chahnour Varnaz Aznavourian, better known to us as Charles Aznavour, grand guru of French songs, whose parents fled Turkey for France to escape the killings of the Armenians. The Turks have objected and are boycotting Miramax and its parent company Walt Disney. Another politically laden project was Roman Polanski's The Pianist. As a young boy, Polanski himself escaped from a Krakow ghetto, but his parents were sent to concentration camps; his mother never returned. Ten years ago Steven Spielberg asked Polanski to direct Schindler's List, but he declined, claiming the subject was "too close to home". Now however, the acclaimed director was ready to make the film he knew he must always make The Pianist. Polanski (Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby) can now finally tackle the story because it is someone else's. The film is based on the memoirs of a Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, who manages to survive in the Warsaw ghetto and ultimately survive with the help of a German officer. "It is the most important film of my career" says Polanski, and he was well rewarded. The International Jury headed by American director David Lynch, awarded Polanski the much cherished Palme d'Or for this very personal account. The political coup however, was the combination of an Israeli and Palestinian film to be entered side by side in the competition. While the Israeli film Kedma, by director Amos Gitai was a historic review of the State of Israel, the Palestinian film Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman was the critic's favourite. Often disturbing, the film possessed poignancy and humour which gracefully carried it through. Suleiman, who calls himself "a chronicle of love and pain", also stars in the film, which is comprised of a series of vignettes with enough comic relief to soften the political message. In one hysterical scene, Suleiman sits in his car and inflates a red balloon featuring the face of Yasser Arafat. The red balloon soars over a roadblock headed for Jerusalem. The Israeli soldiers angrily request permission to shoot it down; but they are so distracted, they miss a car full of explosives slipping past them. The Balloon reaches Jerusalem, landing near the Golden Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's holiest shrines. Now the soldiers cannot shoot. A tremendous crowd pleaser, its irony and self-derision touched both the public and critics, who gave it a long-standing ovation. Elia Suleiman is one of a dozen Palestinian filmmakers who have achieved a respectable amount of praise and recognition. Suleiman was born in Nazareth in 1960; lived in New York between 1981 and 1983 where he lectured in many universities, art institutes and museums. There he directed his first 2 short films and was the recipient of many grants and awards. On moving to Jerusalem in 1994, the European Commission charged him with initiating a film media department in Bir Zeit University. The first Palestinian ever to show at Cannes, Suleiman made history by winning the Jury Prize, the third prize in the Palmarés. A great deal awaits the world of cinema from this budding director who has already put Palestinian cinema on filmdom's map. By the festival's second week, the stars began to shine at their annual Cannes rendezvous -- "a whole world of stars and celebrities, half naked and tanned to a perfect crisp" joined the parade of the rich and famous. As usual AMFAR president, the indomitable Elizabeth Taylor, brought along Elton John, Sharon Stone, Prince Albert of Monaco, Sting, Calvin Klein, and on and on. But it was a bearded Jack Nicholson who stole the show with another bravura performance on and off the screen. About Schmidt, a film directed by Alexander Payne, in which Nicholson portrays a morally repugnant middle aged man, recently retired and widowed, suffering from loneliness, lovelessness and the stench of personal failure. Iconoclast Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki won the Grand Jury prize for The Man Without a Past, a film revolving around a man who arrives in Helsinki, loses his memory after being attacked and savagely beaten, and lives on the outskirts of the city trying to reconstruct his life. Kuarismaki, with his distinctive serio-comic sense, often mordantly funny and bleakly hilarious, is a favourite of critics and devotées, but seldom finds a venue for his work outside of Europe. He has not had a US or world release in years. The Grand Jury Prize will surely breed new life into the art of Aki Kaurismaki. Art that no one can see is no art. It remains lost and buried until such time it reaches the eyes and ears of the world. Only then does it become art. Other Palmarés were handed to Finland's Kati Outinen, best actress, Belgium's Olivier Gourmet, best actor, Britain's Paul Laverty, best screenplay, and best director honours were shared by Im Kwon-Taek, South Korea, and Paul Thomas Anderson, US. While there are now several hundred festivals around the world, the paradox of Cannes is that it marries the sublime with the ridiculous and together they live in blissful harmony for 10 days in May. It is not hard to see why the Cannes Film Festival is such a singular event and why the Palme d'Or is the most famous and widely reported film award around the world. Other festivals are growing in prestige such as the rival European festivals in Berlin and Venice, and the North American festivals of Toronto and Sundance. But the ambience that Cannes provides is unique and unrivaled, and judging by its careful focus on the world of cinema and the fine art of film, a trip to the glamorous and glitzy South of France for 10 days in May will remain an annual pilgrimage to both serious as well as frivolous filmmakers. English director Mike Leigh described Cannes well: "It is deliciously and gloriously liberated from Hollywood." Until next year for more of that unique blend of supreme art and supreme madness, we close with the words of Robert Browning: How sad and bad and mad it was, But then, how it was sweet.
