CANNES PREVIEW : La Vie Hectic in a Little Beach Town : Movies: Seaside village is almost totally swallowed up by the 46th Festival International du Film, which opened Thursday with 25,000 film people in town.

Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like this was ever some quiet little fishing village regrettably overrun by the glamoroids of the international film community. For more than 100 years, Cannes has been a playground for the moneyed classes, home to regal hotels, chic restaurants and pricey boutiques. Not for nothing is its sister city Beverly Hills.

Still, it is something to see the place almost totally swallowed up by the Festival International du Film, the 46th version of which opened Thursday night with Andre Techine’s genteel “Ma Saison Preferee.” For when 25,000 film people come to town, including 3,000 journalists and representatives from more than 1,000 companies from 54 countries, all trying to see as many of the 500-odd films on view as possible, things do tend to get a little hectic.

First of all, the huge film posters go up along the ocean-front boulevard called La Croisette. This year Sony seems to have bought up a disproportionate share of the space with the comic-book style artwork for “Last Action Hero,” starring the man the French press have impishly taken to calling, “Schwarzy, l’Himalaya du box office.”

In what little billboard room is left, an inquiring mind can learn that the Michael Douglas film “Falling Down” has been retitled “Chute Libre” in French, making it sound like a 1930s movie about daredevil parachutists. Or that Warner Bros. has come up with an intriguing ad line for Abel Ferrara’s taut “Body Snatchers,” in competition here but not due out in the States until the fall: “Imagine. . . . You’re gone and someone else is living inside your body.”

Aside from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the most visible image in town is the festival’s very own poster image, a slow kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious,” a film from 1946 to mark the festival’s 46th years. That embrace is also visible on pins, cigarette lighters, suspenders and two different styles of T-shirts and is the festival’s first solid hit.

All this is something of tonic to the French spirit, wounded by the recent suicide of former Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy, whose somber visage is taking up magazine cover space that would otherwise go to the festival.

In addition, France has four films in competition, a total equaled only by Great Britain. Plus, for the first time in the festival’s history, both opening and closing night films are home-grown and star the two competing divas of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Adjani.

“Ma Saison Preferee” features Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil as a brother and sister who must confront their own prickly relationship as they deal with their aging mother’s deterioration. Though the two stars give finely attuned performances, the film itself is typical of the careful, classical, somewhat distant French cinema, examples of which appear regularly at Cannes but rarely get to the United States.

The Adjani film, “Toxic Affair,” is said to be a comedy, but for Americans, its title brings to mind the schlock horror film of years past, “Toxic Avenger.”

And many films of the “Toxic Avenger” stripe can be found in the marketplace section of Cannes or baldly announced in the pages of the industry trade papers. There is, for instance, “Jugglar Wine,” a new Bo Derek film titled (inevitably) “Woman of Desire,” and something called “Idaho Potato: A Story From Croatia.” Not to mention a modern-day version of “Crime and Punishment” from former Cannon topper Menahem Golan, a slew of movies on pigs (“The Day of the Pig,” “Leon the Pig Farmer,” etc.) and at least a half dozen films from Korea on kickboxing, ranging from “Year of the King Boxer” to “Kickboxer From Hell.”

Among the presumably more serious films, early buzz centers on “The Piano,” a new one from Australian director Jane Campion with Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel; “Farewell to My Concubine,” starring Chinese actress Gong Li, and fresh efforts from Wim Wenders (“Faraway, So Close!”) and the Taviani brothers (“Fiorile”).

Trying to make sense of it all will be the usual eclectic 10-member jury chaired by director Louis Malle. In addition to British actor Gary Oldman, Australian actress Judy Davis, Italian actress Claudia Cardinale and U.S. producer Tom Luddy, there is a Portuguese film critic, a French cinematographer, a Russian actress and directors from Iran and Bosnia. If this group can reach any kind of reasonable accord, the Middle East peace talks could use their help.