Beyond the Multiplex: Cannes

Gore gets standing O. Mitchell unveils his real-sex-orgy film. Plus: Gellar plays porn star in Richard Kelly's latest.

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Al Gore, Cannes, Movies, Arts & Entertainment

© 2006 Paramount Classics

"An Inconvenient Truth": Peru in 1980, left, and 2002

May 22, 2006 | CANNES, France -- It has felt almost like an American weekend on the Côte d'Azur. Cannes has extended uncharacteristically warm receptions to a varied group of Yanks, ranging from the decidedly nondebonair Al Gore to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" creator John Cameron Mitchell, who premiered his real-sex ensemble drama "Shortbus" at a packed and rapturous late-night screening Saturday. And this year's first major disagreement broke out over an American film, Richard Kelly's 160-minute apocalyptic opus "Southland Tales," which a few influential critics have apparently deemed a masterpiece (although at least 10 percent of the press-screening audience walked out).

Hollywood veteran William Friedkin, who brought sleepless nights to many moviegoers 33 years ago with "The Exorcist," has been one of the unexpected surprises at Cannes with his paranoid thriller "Bug," showing in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar competition. Then there's Oliver Stone, a longtime Cannes favorite, who's here for a special commemorative screening of "Platoon," and will also show a 20-minute reel from his upcoming "World Trade Center."

Mind you, this festival is so thick on the ground that if you wanted to ignore American movies entirely this weekend, you pretty much could. I've been focusing on the major competition titles that have some vestige of a U.S. box-office future, but there are lots of intriguing films playing around town that I'll try to squeeze in before I go home, from Hungarian director György Pálfi's reportedly gruesome and spectacular "Taxidermia," to Albert Serra's "Honor of the Knights," a minimalist, modern take on the Don Quixote story, to Jean-Claude Brisseau's kinky thriller "Exterminating Angels," to the new Korean action flicks "The Host" and "The Unforgiven."

As of Day 5, Pedro Almodóvar's richly affecting "Volver" remains the leading contender for the Palme d'Or, but "Red Road," the debut from British director Andrea Arnold -- and the only first film in the major competition -- is also highly regarded. I haven't seen "Red Road" yet, but it's part of an intriguing project developed by Lars von Trier's company in which three different directors will make three different films using the same characters and actors. Arnold's film is apparently a claustrophobic thriller of crime, revenge and redemption set in the notorious housing projects of Glasgow, Scotland, and several viewers I've spoken to have described it as the festival's breakout movie so far.

I'll review "An Inconvenient Truth," the striking and surprisingly endearing film about Gore's global-warming crusade made by director Davis Guggenheim, in a day or two. (It opens in the United States on Wednesday.) The former vice president turned up in black tie and tux for the Saturday evening premiere, even though he didn't have to, and that's the sort of gesture the manners-crazed French appreciate. ("An Inconvenient Truth" screened out of competition in the third-tier Salle Buñuel theater, so formal dress was not required.)

He looked a little gray and tired (and he seems to be gaining and losing weight on an Oprah-like cycle ), but Gore received a movie-star welcome and a hearty ovation. Throughout the bistros and hotel bars of Cannes, you could hear people expressing their mystification in various world languages at the fact that he wasn't president. I didn't offer any of my lame reasons for voting for Ralph Nader in 2000, let alone try to explain that it wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't.

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