Real World Looms Over Opening of the 55th Festival

Politics at frivolous, fun-loving Cannes? Don’t be surprised. Serious matters have always been woven into the tapestry of European film in general and the Festival de Cannes in particular. It’s just that in some years, affairs of state are more prominent than others. This year, the festival’s 55th, looks to be one of them.

Cannes, which opens tonight with Woody Allen’s “Hollywood Ending,” was literally born into politics. Its first edition in 1939 ended after but a single day when Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. And in 1968, a political crisis and nationwide general strike in France stopped the festival in its tracks and led to the formation of the rival Directors Fortnight event.

No one expects anything quite that cataclysmic this year. But after a soul-searching French presidential election so recent it still dominates newsmagazine covers--not to mention Sept. 11 and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian crisis--nothing looks the same anymore. Even the rash of “Attack of the Clones” French movie covers (the latest “Star Wars” episode screens here on Thursday) can be viewed as reminders that the federation itself is not immune to political crisis.

Hoping to calm the waters after Sept. 11, festival president Gilles Jacob wrote to concerned Americans that “the festival security services, working in coordination with the police forces, are already putting measures in place to reinforce security” including bomb-sniffing dogs that can be seen around town and in rail stations around the country. Anti-Semitic incidents in France led the American Jewish Congress to place “For Your Consideration at Cannes” ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter darkly comparing France in 1942 with France in 2002 and announcing that “Jewish travelers to France are urged to ‘exercise extreme caution.’”

Even the films in competition, it turns out, have political connections. For the first time ever, there is both an Israeli and a Palestinian film in the main event. The former, “Kedma,” about newly arrived 1948 refugees pressed into military service, is by veteran director Amos Gitai (“Kaddosh”). The latter, “Intervention Divine,” a present-day love story with political implications, is by Elia Suleiman, whose “Chronicle of a Disappearance” won a major prize at Venice.

Also highly politicized is “Ararat,” the new work from Canadian Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter.”) A modern-day drama that focuses on the 1915 massacre of Armenians, the still-unseen film has drawn so much protest from Turkish groups, including a Web site with a boycott-threatening form letter to be sent to distributor Miramax, that Egoyan took the unusual step of declining a spot in the competition because he didn’t want to add to the controversy.

Even films from the U.S., which don’t necessarily go in for this kind of thing, have their political moments this year. Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” taking what is sure to be a controversial look at guns and violence, is the first documentary to be allowed in the competition in decades. And Rosanna Arquette’s out-of-competition documentary “Searching for Debra Winger” deals with the sexual politics actresses face as they age.

*

Aside from Moore’s film, two other American features are in competition, and they look to be among the most interesting in the entire festival. Screening first is “Punch-Drunk Love,” the highly anticipated offbeat romantic comedy from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia”) starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson.

After that, Sandler’s co-star in the currently filming “Anger Management,” Jack Nicholson, gets his turn in the Cannes sun in the new film “About Schmidt” from “Election’s” Alexander Payne. The film casts the actor against type as a conventional mid-’60s insurance company actuary dealing with the vagaries of retirement.

One of this year’s most closely watched events is the screening of twentysomething minutes of Martin Scorsese’s perennially forthcoming “Gangs of New York.” When “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” executed a similar maneuver last year, it had to rent a theater. But Scorsese being Scorsese and distributor Miramax being Miramax, those minutes will be combined with the director’s tribute to Billy Wilder and shown as an official festival event called “An Hour With Martin Scorsese.” As Mel Brooks once said, it’s good to be the king.

Also being treated like a king is Woody Allen, whose first-ever personal appearance at Cannes was announced by a rapturous Gilles Jacob as “an almost unimaginable event, a dreamlike apparition.” DreamWorks, which is using the Cannes event as the centerpiece of its French ad campaign, will also attempt to match the success it had here last year with “Shrek” with an out-of-competition screening of the animated “Spirit,” accompanied by a live musical performance by Bryan Adams and Hans Zimmer.

Having at least as good a year as the Americans are British filmmakers. In the competition are new films by Palme d’Or-winning Mike Leigh (“All or Nothing”), the veteran Ken Loach (“Sweet Sixteen”), Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People”) and Canadian-working-in-England David Cronenberg (“Spider”).

Not in the competition is the much-awaited follow-up to “Ratcatcher” by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, “Morvern Callar.” The film was originally set for Un Certain Regard, the same competition auxiliary in which “Ratcatcher” played, but Ramsay bowed out of that to take a Directors Fortnight bid.

American films in the fortnight include “Laurel Canyon” by “High Art’s” Lisa Cholodenko; Joseph and Anthony Russo’s takeoff on the Italian comic gem “Big Deal on Madonna Street” called “Welcome to Collinwood”; and “Only the Strong Survive,” D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’ delightful tribute to still-working soul singers like Wilson Pickett and Sam Moore. Also on the fortnight schedule is a one-of-a-kind event titled “Polissons et galipettes” and described as a collection of pornographic shorts from the turn of the last century. Predicted Peter Bradshaw in the Manchester Guardian, “Connoisseurs, anthropologists and hard-working critics will be queuing around the block.”

Aside from Mike Leigh, two other Palme d’Or winners have films in Cannes: Belgium’s the Dardennes brothers (“The Son”) and Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami (“10”). In fact, 14 of the 22 films in competition are by repeat directors, including such rarefied folk as Italy’s Marco Bellochio (“The Religion Hour (My Mother’s Smile)”), Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki (“Man Without a Past”), Portugal’s 93-year-old Manoel de Oliveira (“The Principle Indecision”) and Russia’s Alexander Sokurov, whose “Russian Ark” is said to consist of a single take lasting something like an hour and a half. And back for the first time in a long time is Roman Polanski, with an Adrien Brody-starring Holocaust drama, “The Pianist.”

Though much sounds familiar about Cannes, artistic director Thierry Fremaux, in his second year, has made some changes. Public outdoor screenings, an attempt to make the festival friendlier to locals, are on the upswing, as are reasons to show restored versions of older, classic films.

Cannes 2002 will also try to tidy up unfinished business from earlier festivals. Alain Resnais’ 1968 “Je t’aime, je t’aime,” unseen at the festival because of the year’s disruptions, will finally get to play here. And seven films from that truncated 1939 Cannes will screen as well, with a special jury convened to present a better-late-than-never award. Blissfully unchanged, however, even in the face of world events, is the Marche du Film, the brash market that takes on all comers, unveiling upward of 700 films for buyers worldwide.

Among the more unusual titles on offer this year are “Guns, Money and Homecooking,” “Duct Tape Forever,” “Trophy Wives and Toy Boys” and “How Harry Became a Tree.” They aren’t eligible for any awards, they may not be politically significant or even politically correct, but they’ll always have a place in our hearts.