Beyond the Multiplex: Cannes edition

With the "Da Vinci Code" appetizer out of the way, the Cannes throngs tuck into new fare from Linklater and Almodóvar.

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Movies, Movie Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Reviews, Beyond the Multiplex

Penelope Cruz as Raimunda and Yohana Cobo as her daughter in "Volver"

May 19, 2006 | CANNES, France -- At a press conference here after Friday's world premiere of "Fast Food Nation," Richard Linklater's adventurous effort to make a narrative feature film out of Eric Schlosser's nonfiction bestseller, a Canadian journalist got up to thank Linklater for his contribution to the craft of adapting books into movies. "We all saw that take quite a hit a couple of days ago," the reporter added.

He got a big laugh. Yeah, two days into the 59th Cannes International Film Festival, journalists here are still cracking wise about "The Da Vinci Code" (a film not many of us actually saw). But as the two-week onslaught of cinema on the Riviera begins to hit its stride, that shared object of ridicule is fading in the rear distance. The common experience at this point is more about absorbing a bad sunburn while waiting outside in a long, motionless line (often a line that entitles you to wait in another line) and confronting implacable phalanxes of tuxedo-clad security personnel whose favorite words are "Non," "C'est complet" (it's full) and "J'suis désolé, m'sieur" (I'm sorry, sir, said in a manner that very clearly conveys and now go away).

I waited in just such a line for a screening of Lou Ye's Tiananmen-era Chinese romance, "Summer Palace," before being dismissed, so I can't tell you much about it (although the trailer sure is pretty). Along with Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," an earnest, gloomy, by-the-numbers historical work about the Irish revolution and civil war of the 1920s, Lou's film opened the Palme d'Or competition, screenings of the 20 films up for Cannes' biggest prize. Reviews of both of those have been mixed (in the case of "Summer Palace," rather less than that), and the consensus seems to be that they were post-"Da Vinci" palate cleansers rather than serious contenders.

With Linklater's "Fast Food Nation" and Pedro Almodóvar's "Volver," however, which both premiered Friday, the wine-soaked, sun-baked throngs finally got to sink their teeth into some meat. In the case of "Fast Food Nation," the metaphor is pretty much literal. Linklater's film (co-written with Schlosser) is an episodic docudrama about a large group of fictional characters connected to the corporate beef industry in a single Colorado town -- from a fast-food chain executive to burger-flipping high school students to ranchers and undocumented immigrant workers -- and concludes with horrific real-life scenes of cattle being slaughtered and rendered into hamburger in a meat-packing plant.

"Volver," on the other hand, is a classic Almodóvar female-centered melodrama of buried secrets, love and death, anchored by stunning performances from his longtime gal-pals Penelope Cruz and Carmen Maura. The title itself means "to return," and in returning to the most basic themes of his career, especially the struggles of women who seek to build dignified lives without men and without much money, he's made perhaps his most graceful and accomplished film. It's the smash hit at Cannes so far. The applause at this morning's screening was uproarious, and the mood at the overcrowded press conference afterward was one of giddy triumph. ("Volver" is already a huge hit in Spain, where it was released in March.)

Next page: "Oh, meat comes from some cozy little farm somewhere, they've got corn and maybe a few chickens running around"