RAPPORT FRINGE ... MARGINAAL VERSLAG ... FRINGE BERICHT
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drinks Monday 1 September 08 Edinburgh Reunion in London
Topping And Butch Hit Leicester Square 26-27 September 08
Rachael in Cannes
Cannes 2005. Can gorgeous Rachael Booth survive Tokyo porn, Revenge of the Killer Nuns - When Catholics Go Bad, Barefoot & Horny Peach-Bummed Girls? Can Rachael crash the MTV party while dodging poodle-poo?
DO THE CANNES CANNES CANNES
It’s Day 5 in the big Cannes House (writes Rachael Booth), and I can afford the time to scamper across the Croisette like a happy puppy hyped-up on café au lait looking at shiny shoes - while dodging sharp-elbowed old ladies clutching Hermes and life, and platform-heeled painted dollies holding up the crumbling bones of their cravat-wearing partners.
I'm here to watch films, not to pitch, ply, sell or PR - and I've seen a lot. Films about psychotic lemmings and possessed partners, films about physics, mystics, the Yukuza noodles, terrorism, Tokyo porn, and the terror of tomorrow. Great graphic animation, films about self-discovery, self-destruction self-harm, self-help. About muses, Icelandic music, mental health, buried forests, apartheid, total shit, and zombies. Hopefully I get to see Star Wars Episode 3 later.
This is the place where the B-List come to die. Celebrity is the focus. Films that will never grace Blighty's shore - and many other shores, come to think of it - with catchy titles such as Revenge of the Killer Nuns: When Catholics Go Bad, Barefoot and Horny Peach-Bummed Girls, Russian Idiots: Retarded and Dangerous, and I Love My Mum. It’s a place full of women wearing too much make-up with a dead look behind their eyes. They’re all aspiring for what Cannes craves and breathes – beauty. Looking around the old hags, all seem to fail. Perhaps it’s the stress and need to conform to unreachable perfection that makes them look so tired and worn.
Opening Night. I’ve arrived on the steps bedecked in H&M - no, that’s not Hermes & Missoni - and fought through the throng. Everyone wants a ticket for the opening film, all are decked in evening wear already – though there’s little hope of them getting in.
It’s a deluge of Manolo, an array of feathers, sequins, satin and tulle, the most impressive if not shiny - says the girl with the magpie eye - is a bolero-style jacket with a Gaudi-style design worn by a small Japanese lady. And a gold lamé Paisley jumpsuit by a woman old enough to know better. As my Grandmother says God Bless ’er. It’s a town where ladies grow old with nether style nor grace.
As the saying goes: Cannes is where all the women want to look like Brigitte Bardot - and now they do.
Here are celebrities who walk with a self-possession that withers the average human. And an eager glint in their eye - knowing that for this particular second they are at the centre of their dreams. For their career and egos it probably doesn't get any better than this.
We’re all crammed and pushed into the Lumiere for the ceremony. Once it’s over, and before the film starts, a third of the audience exits. It’s as if celebration of the entertainment of film has become more entertaining than the film itself. It feels like a facade. Once actress Salma Hayek has done her thing, a thousand techies start to dismantle the set before our very eyes - without even closing the curtain. The biggest round of applause comes for the lady frantically vacuuming the stage.
I've paid 6 euros for a coke and it’s not even in powder. I’ve listened to bad pitches and people who know everyone in town. We’ve all tried to get in to the MTV Party and failed, and sat on the Rue Antibes sipping rosé listening to the local greased monkeys whistle through their teeth at us - which I’ve always found beguiling. I've got soaking wet. trodden in poodle shit - and queued endlessly for films wondering where all the glamour has gone.
I haven't however got mindlessly drunk on white wine in the Martinez and ended up snogging the quirky Dutch animator on the beach (who suddenly became cute after the second bottle). But there's always time.
It's fun, fucked up, surreal and sad. And now I must bid you bon nuit. I have to queue endlessly for a film. A villa on the hill awaits alongside, and a bottle of rosé. And maybe if I'm unlucky, a quirky Dutch animator.
END
(c) Rachael Booth 2005
Sunday 15 May 05 / Cannes
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2005
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
