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Competing at Cannes

by Tippi Blevins April 18, 2008 4:44 PM

In under a week, the Cannes Film Festival will announce its 2008 line-up. Stalled by an impending writers strike, American filmmakers last year were too worried about what this would mean for the future to come up with much in the way of "avant-garde" movies in time for Cannes. Where last year saw several promising entries, including No Country For Old Men, this year it seems as though only Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is headed for the competitive category, reports guardian.co.uk. According to the report, big-budget films like the new Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda are slated for "glitzy" showings, but will naturally not be vying for the chance to accidentally poke themselves on the prestigious (if spiky) Palme d'Or.

Only one American film in competition? Filmmakers aren't trying hard enough. George Lucas has already been lowering our expectations; why not go a step further and change expectation? At least long enough to slide Indy under the Cannes door just in the nick of time, like the adventurous archaeologist he is. People are paying attention to Lucas leading up to the film's opening, so he has their ears. Tell them the movie is about a sixty-something man, reliving the travels of his youth, as he hallucinates Shia LaBoeuf into existence. That "crystal skull" thing is actually a metaphor for a world that Indy no longer understands, and maybe doesn't even want, even as he desperately seeks it out. As for that panda movie, frame it as an environmental statement about how the disappearance of its natural habitat have forced the hero to turn to fighting to make a living. Slap on an intro by eco-darling Al Gore and you've got a contender.

All right, neither of this is going to happen. I'm not really suggesting they should. But if we don't send more films to Cannes, we'll have to spend from May until the end of the Oscars listening to all the entertainment news show hosts as they try to pronounce synecdoche.

TAGS: cannes film festival, george lucas, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, kung fu panda, Shia LaBoeuf

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