The most commonly heard question during the opening days of the Cannes film festival is: “What are you seeing right now?”, because everybody’s excited and no one wants to miss out. In the event’s closing stage it’s overtaken by others. How long does this last? What time does it end? As the clock ticks towards midnight, the invited guests start to flag. The heart remains willing but the flesh is now weak.
If the ticket holders outside the Palais have begun to move in the manner of tired pensioners, they find kindred spirits of sorts in many of the event’s biggest names. Octogenarians dominated the red carpet this year, from Harrison Ford to Martin Scorsese, Marco Bellocchio to Ken Loach, while the average age of Ruben Östlund’s jury is nearly 20 years younger than that of the directors at work in the main competition. Cannes, at its summit, has become a country for old men.
