Teenagers

And we're back. I certainly gave the writers of Lost a run for their money with that cliffhanger, didn't I?

So for those of you too lazy to read the last entry, I'm in Cannes and about to see the latest Paul Verhoeven film, Teenagers (and couldn't be happier). Until the film started.

I remember thinking to myself "gosh this opening logo looks a lot like it's been created on iDVD". 10 seconds later the real truth dawned on me - there's more than one Paul Verhoeven. This didn't come from the mind that gave us such dialogue as "I've got my period. See?" and "People got AIDS and shit." It seems the entire audience reached that conclusion at the same point because the crowd stood up en masse and evacuated the cinema with such haste, you'd think Carrie had just stood up drenched in blood and started looking at us through bulging eyes of hatred.

The 10 of us remaining just sat there dumbly in a state of confusion as two teenagers appeared floating in space. It was kind of like the opening of Dune except the stars looked like they'd been borrowed from the opening credits of Young Talent Time. The boy and girl (the last time we'll be seeing one of those pesky females for a while!) spoke about the themes of the film in French. I can't say I remember what they were saying because my heart was still breaking a bit that I wasn't watching a film from the mind that gave us Starship Troopers. Plus I have the sneaking feeling that the credits were translated using Babelfish because they didn't really make one word of sense.

Luckily we'd been handed a manifesto for the film as we walked in which the remaining 10 of us in the audience quickly reached for to try to work out what the hell was going on. We soon learned that the film we were watching was told in 3 chapters and I soon realised that each of these chapters would be introduced by the outer space narrators. So far so good. Then I read the paragraph about all the scenes of "naturism" being absolutely legal and young people having no problem with it as they are accustomed to it in their sport activities. Hmmm.. I can't say I did a lot of sport as a child so maybe I just missed Nude Little Aths day.

Chapter #1 starts in 1983. It involves a 15 year old boy called Erwan who has been abandoned by his parents and now doesn't like folks. He takes it out on young Lucas who has been unceremoniously dumped with Erwan for the week by his parents. Lucas isaA 12 year old boy who is strangely non-resistant to Erwan's demands that he take off all his clothes (yep! briefs too!) and act like a dog for the duration of his stay, albeit a dog who can also make breakfast and serve it to Erwan in bed. One day Erwan accidentally whips Lucas 50 times with a stick and Lucas almost dies. Erwan realises he and Lucas are in love. They have sundaes. With me so far? They make out. And no, seeing a 12 year old naked boy make out with a 15 year old who treats him like a dog isn't creepy at all, you conservative prudes! They eventually go their separate ways because Erwan realises that Lucas is angelic and he doesn't want to corrupt him. As if you could, Erwan! You've got a heart of gold too underneath all those brambles you keep whipping naked boys with! So that's chapter #1. I'll skim through the next chapters because they're too damn confusing, I fell asleep and then left the cinema midway through in a state of utter bewilderment. I will tell you though that I did see a 27 year old Lucas start a relationship with a 14 year old called Said in 1998 that involved sundaes, making out and a homosexual suicide pact. Luckily the purity of their love turned them into angels so they could return to earth in the directionless present day and inspire a street gang to stop mugging young boys and start hugging them instead. I don't know why I walked out either. I'm just nuts like that. If anyone wants my T shirt, go to Ebay pronto!

I wandered the Palais in a fragile state after evacuating the cinema until I met up with the gang to see Nymph, a splendid new Thai addition to the eco-porn genre. I don't know about you but I can't wait for VideoBusters on Smith Street to finally start up their eco-porn section. They say they don't have enough room but I'm sure if they moved the 10 packs of water to the left and the Buddhist heads to the right, they could slide it in there next to their internet kiosk. Once again, we upped the ante for sleeping in a cinema when all 5 of us passed out within minutes of the film beginning. Later we were able to piece together the plot as it seemed that we all slept through different parts. I slept through the part where a man fell in love with a tree while somebody else slept through the part where his jealous wife chopped it down. Together we made a story! A beautiful beautiful story.

So by this point, I really needed some sleep but I had one more film in me - Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void!

By this point I'd dealt with incest, paedophilia, underage S&M, preachy kids in outer space, eco porn, gypsy curses, eye gouging and detailed descriptions of what Charlotte did to herself in Antichrist so why not see a film from the director of Irreversible? And Gaspar certainly still had some tricks up his sleeve for us! Ever wondered what sex looked like from the cervix's point of view? Well kids, you're about to find out.

It's hard to comment on Enter The Void as what we saw was a work in progress but I was blown away. And not in the way that I was when I saw Teenagers. With the exception of Drag Me To Hell, Enter The Void was the only film in Cannes I didn't fall asleep in. High praise indeed! It's hard to talk at all about what the film is about without giving the whole shebang away but it was a bold, ambitious, challenging film that like Inland Empire was simultaneously breathtaking, frustrating, confusing, pretentious, overwhelming but ultimately inspiring as it came from such a strong artistic voice. I'll be interested to see what he does with the film. Apparently there's still a lot of effect work to be done but the effects that were in the film were pretty stunning and transcendent. I think the film would be stronger if it had 20 minutes trimmed out of it - at close to 3 hours, it became a little repetitive and monotonous but one could argue that was also half the point as repetition and aimlessness were major themes of the film. While I kinda knew that Haneke would take the Palme D'Or, I really hoped that this film would win it. But considering this is so early in his career, I look forward to seeing what he does with this film and what he does beyond it. It took some pretty big risks, one that resulted in a good third of the audience walking out and missing the final scene that brought the whole film together, but it's one I'd definitely watch again. Cinematic mescaline.

And that's "SCENE" from me in Cannes. I'm back in Amsterdam now and set for a choc-a-block month of workshops and shooting which will see me wrap up at Binger Lab before heading to Poland where I may be beaten with sticks in the name of art. Joy.