Ooo-la-la and a Lot Of Groveling

CANNES -- May 16 afternoon

The first official day at Cannes is atypical, with most journalists still arriving and people just starting to establish a routine. The biggest theater at Cannes is the Lumiere, a massive single-screen complex that houses 1000+ journalists in a room with a massive balcony, loads of security and an exposed ceiling of pipes and gridwork that seems to say: we take movies very seriously. For most of the fest, the first screening of the day is a major film in competition and is shown at the Lumiere, where every critic is guaranteed a seat. For the rest of the day, it's catch as catch can in a series of other theaters where your badge color determines when you can enter. Pink, delightfully, is better than blue and blue is better than the lowly yellow. I have a yellow badge, which means I will stand forlornly in line as people with pink and even white badges stride in (I don't even know anyone with a white badge, it's so rare and powerful), and then five minutes before the film begins and then and only then if all the blues are in and there are still seats left the yellow badges might get to trickle in. Half of navigating Cannes is figuring out what screenings to shoot for and when you should get in line. But today is not typical.

The opening film is Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights and it's showing at the Debussy. The second nicest theater, it only seats about 800; a hot ticket can be very hard to get into with a yellow badge. The director is a favorite of Cannes so of course the screening is mobbed and not even all the blues get in. More than a hundred people are turned away, including all of the yelow badges (like myself) who fruitlessly got in line. So I spend the rest of the morning going around to publicity offices and begging and pleading and groveling for invites to parties and events like the Golden Compass screening and party. It's a holiday fantasy film and Compass is following the same path as Dreamgirls and The Lord of the Rings by screening some footage and holding a lavish party to build buzz. Stars Daniel Craig and Eva Green (both of James Bond, of course) will be here and it's one event I'm loathe to miss.

As a final task, I head back to the Palais and go through the security gauntlet to pick up my mail at the press boxes. There's a line to get in, with guards pointing you to women who search rather dismissively through your bags before passing you on to another person who "wands" you before letting you in. I'm right at the front of the line, waiting while the woman ahead of me has her bag searched. She leans over the table and the elderly guard holding me back casually points at her pert bottom (quite fetching, I must admit) and smiles and laughs and says in heavily accented English, "Very nice, no?" I burst into laughter and say "Oui, tres bien" and we both look at her admiringly until she moves on and I'm waved in. Welcome to France. -- Michael Giltz