Sneak Preview Of Cannes

Glitz and glamour, or art and politics?

Starlets glistening in skin-baring sheaths, or intellectuals with messy hair puffing on cigarettes?
It's time for the Cannes Film Festival again, and the perennial question is: What is this festival about, anyway?

At this year's festival, which opens Wednesday, the question may have even more relevance. Last year left a strange aftertaste, with results that many felt were the most bizarre in years.

Remember Emmanuel Schotte and Severine Caneele? Probably not. But they won two of the top acting awards last year, though they'd never acted before. They beat out popular veterans like Richard Farnsworth, an Oscar nominee this year for The Straight Story, and Bob Hoskins for Felicia's Journey. Not to mention the acclaimed actresses in Pedro Almodovar's popular All About My Mother.

And remember Humanity, the slow-moving and sexually explicit tale of a simpleton cop investigating a sordid murder? No? Don't feel bad—the film wasn't seen by many even in its native France. But it won three of the top five awards, including for the two amateur actors.

Then there was the best screenplay award to Moloch, a movie that told us much more than we wanted to know about the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun (according to the film: not a good one). During press screenings, journalists deserted the plodding film in droves; the jury headed by Canadian director David Cronenberg saw differently.

And there was the award ceremony itself. It fell apart when steamy French actress Sophie Marceau emerged to present the Palme D'Or, or Golden Palm, to Belgium's Rosetta. The badly unprepared Marceau rambled on so mysteriously and incoherently that hostess Kristin Scott Thomas had to cut her off in mid-speech.

The next day, most newspapers savaged the awards, and festival head Gilles Jacob felt compelled to issue a statement. Though he stood by the jury's freedom of choice, he changed the rules to ban the awarding of too many prizes to one film. Cronenberg defended his choices, saying the jury was not in the business of playing slave to public tastes.

This year, the festival is looking to start afresh. The jury is headed by Luc Besson—a Frenchman, but as Hollywood as they come here.

Besson, director of 1997's futuristic The Fifth Element and the recent Joan of Arc," would "lead the festival decidedly into the future," Jacob said. And Besson's role at Cannes was heralded by the French film magazine Premiere:

"His presidency at Cannes is a consecration," it said, praising his vision of "a cinema liberated from the heritage of the New Wave, which left the Americans with a monopoly on entertainment."

And what of the films? As usual, they are a hodgepodge of established names and new faces, with a heavy dose of Cannes favorites, such as veteran British director Ke Loach, Denmark's never-boring Lars Von Trier, and the famous American brothers and Cannes darlings, Joel and Ethan Coen.

Among the films garnering attention:

O Brother, Where Art Thou, directed by Joel Coen.color>

The Coen brothers ruled Cannes in 1991 with Barton Fink, starring another Cannes regular, John Turturro, who's back in this story about three chain-gang escapees on a musical journey through 1930s Mississippi. Also back is John Goodman and another Coen favorite, Holly Hunter. But if the star quotient here is off the charts, the reason is George Clooney, the erstwhile Dr. Doug Ross of ER. His journey up the famous red steps of the festival palace should bring the loudest screams of the fortnight.

Dancer in the Dark, by Von Trier.color>

The Danish director scored big with Breaking the Waves, then reduced many to head-scratching with The Idiots, his study of young people pretending to be idiots to get in touch with their inner selves. His new film stars French icon Catherine Deneuve with the Icelandic pop singer Bjork—surely already a winner in the strange-pairing category.

Bread and Roses, by Loach.color>

With My Name is Joe in 1998, this veteran of social drama looked at a former alcoholic struggling to keep his life together in gritty Glasgow. This time, Loach looks at immigrants in Los Angeles.

Kippur, by Amos Gitai of Israel.color>

Last year, Gitai brought Kadosh, the first Israeli film chosen for official competition in a quarter century. He's at Cannes for the second year in a row, a virtually unheard-of feat. Kippur, still furiously undergoing finishing touches in Gitai's studio in Israel, looks at the 1973 war that began on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and centered around the Golan Heights. With Israel now considering a return of the strategic plateau to Syria, the timing could hardly be more prescient.