Rich blend of vitality, style

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

CANNES, MAY 10: The Cannes International Film Festival opened its new millennium account with a director that most of us in India are familiar with, Roland Joffe. If his ``City of Joy'' made waves particularly in Calcutta that the movie itself was based on, his long association with Job Charnock's famous Mid-Day Halt and West Bengal is almost legendary now.

Joffe's ``Vatel'' may be in the English language, but the period and ambience are essentially French; it deals with the opulence and intrigue which were an essential part of the French court in the 17th century.

``Vatel'' is all splendour and not much stuff, and at a screening for the Press, organised hours before the actual opening ceremony (to be attended by the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, in what is clearly the first time that such a high dignitary is to grace the inaugural evening), Joffe's latest effort appeared a trifle too long and, in parts, a big yawn.

Yet, one could not but appreciate the excellent performance of Gerard Depardieu, who as Vatel, faithful attendant of a financially ruined Prince, is given the task of pleasing King Louis XIV. For three days and nights that the king and his entire court of Versailles are guests of the prince, Vatel evokes magic, even as his own life is troubled, tormented and briefly uplifted in sheer ecstasy.

Joffe's ``Vatel'' is among the eleven pictures in one of the three official sections termed ``Outside Competition''. Four others here keenly awaited are Barbara Kopple's ``A Conversation with Gregory Peck'', Brian de Palma's ``Mission to Mars'', Stephen Hopkins' ``Under Suspicion'' and Ang Lee's ``Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon''.

But it is the top Competition slot with 23 films that will evoke passion and pain as the Festival takes a formidable plunge for 12 days into the artistic universe of the seventh dimension. ``Eurekha'' from Japan, ``Kippur'' (Israel), ``Chunhyang'' (Korea), ``The Mood for Love'' (Taiwan) and several others from Asia have almost made this 53rd edition of Cannes some sort of invasion from that continent.

A sensational part of this is the creation of a 20- year-old woman director from Iran. Samira Makhmalbaf will make history, being the youngest director to be featured in Competition. Her ``Takhte Siah'' tells the story of a school- teacher out to educate smuggler children of displaced Iraqi and Kurdish populations. Unfortunately, apart from a representation on the main jury (Arundhati Roy), India goes virtually without a single movie in the entire official event. This includes ``A Certain Regard'', third category after Competition and Outside Competition.

Last year, there were two from India: Shaji Karun's ``Vanaprastham'' and Murali Nair's ``Marana Simhasanam'' (both Malayalam).

This May, although many Indian probables were sent up for the selection - and that included Shyam Benegal's ``Samar'' (Hindi), Aparna Sen's ``Paromitar Ek Din'' (Bengali) and Jayaraj's ``Karunam'' (Malayalam) - nothing found its way into a Festival that literally takes pride in celebrating the marriage between fiction and reality, between the camera and computer and between the celluloid and digital. Obviously, Indian entries were not found up to the mark for this magic.

Like India, the Eastern European nations, once renowned for their great cinema, were not able to make any headway this spring. The only exception is a Russian picture in Competition, Pavel Lounguine's ``La Noce''. However, the American continent has done well, as always. There are four from the U.S. and one each from Canada and Brazil in Competition and Outside Competition.

Nearly all films in the Festival are world premieres from a mind- boggling array of genres and themes. There are some with the classic touch, some are modern, some historical. Works built on a strong screenplay or around powerful actors or dominated by exceptional stagecraft make their way on to the big screen here. Then there is melodrama (Lars von Trier, Wong Kar Wai), comedy, science, detective stuff (Coen, Labute, Gray, De Palma) and combat fare (Oshima, Lee).

To get to this, the Cannes selectors saw a whopping 1,397 movies against 1,138 last year, a rise of 23%. Of these, 681 were features and 716 shorts from 75 countries (against 69 in 1999). Fifteen nations will be competing with 23 pictures. This selection is a mix of the great names in world cinema with newcomers to the French Riviera. There are some who are returning after many years, and one hopes that all these names will be provide a rich blend of vitality and style. Of course, they must entertain as they must inform to make this Festival, as any other, vividly memorable.

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