The 75th anniversary celebration of Cannes was very much a “celebration of cinema,” a my-God-it’s-full-of-stars-studded affair intended as a show of power that, rightly, would make any other such movie-based event jealous. As witnessed by its anniversary trailer, which added (seemingly via Photoshop) the names of Cannes-branded auteurs like Federico Fellini, Xavier Dolan, and Maiwenn to the famed red steps as they ascend toward the heavens to Le carnaval des animaux, Cannes waved its big balls high in the air, proving that they are able to attract seemingly anyone in the film world it wanted (except for David Lynch), and have the money to fly them in for a couple of nights, show their faces and pose for pictures on the red carpet wearing sponsored designer garments and gems, and eat a gourmet meal prepared by a two-star Michelin chef. “Celebration” is indeed the appropriate word, as Cannes is not so much a “festival” in the way that the rest of the film world considers a festival a festival, what with the almost total lack of a general public aside from the “Cannes cinephiles” and the occasional Riviera resident who might walk the red carpet then vacate the premises the second they find out the film they’re about to watch is 165 minutes long and the most famous French celebrity on hand is Benoît Magimel. Forget about Cannes—this thing might as well take place on the moon.
As life on the Croisette very much returned to a pre-2020 normalcy, more so than ever I felt surrounded by not just vulgarity and bad taste but also pure, unabashed elitism. The ultimate awarding of the festival’s main prize to an intermittently amusing feel-bad comedy that makes fun of rich people left quite the rotten taste of shit in our collective mouth, and presented an irony that flew fully over the heads of the event’s organizers. By, for, and about the they last—to the point that this year’s coverage depressingly (though not unpredictably) ran with just that, as almost each official Competition screening was followed by an immediate post with a headline detailing how many minutes patrons, many of whom were involved in making said film, were on their feet applauding (themselves, for being there and bearing witness).
