Cannes 2015: Reporter's Diary

The 68th Cannes Film Festival kicks off this year, not with a Hollywood feature but rather a French drama directed by Emmanuelle Bercot.

Her film La Tete Haute, starring Catherine Deneuve, gives Bercot the dubious honour of being the first woman to open Cannes since Diane Kurys in 1987.

In fact, it's rather a defiantly European slate of films in competition for the Palme d'Or, including directors Paolo Sorrentino, Nanni Moretti and Yorgos Lanthimos in the running.

That's not to say Cannes will be without A-list powerhouse stars with Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender among those expected on the red carpet.

Over the next week, we'll have more of the daily goings on at the world's biggest and oldest film festival.

MONDAY 18 MAY 1200 (1100 GMT)

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans premiered in Cannes on Saturday

There are some interesting people to be met in Cannes.

Last night, I attended an event onboard a yacht which is looking to award film trailers - best actor... in a trailer; best actress... in a trailer; best hairstyle... in a trailer. (Okay, the last one I may have just made up.)

I spoke with a former child actor who is now a director/producer in Thailand. He was in Cannes in a semi-official capacity to promote the country's film industry and to sell Thailand as a location for film productions.

I also met a very confident young German in an evening suit, possibly the only one on board, who has a film showing in the short film strand at Cannes. He is currently working on a very high concept script which he described as an "underwater film noir".

Like I said, interesting people.

No less interesting was the son of late actor Steve McQueen, in town to promote a documentary about his father's struggle to create the racing film Le Mans in 1970.

Now a custodian of the McQueen estate, he himself is a former racing driver who still bears the some physical scars from an horrific crash which almost cost him his life.

He is also a former actor (and this is where I get really geeky) who played one of Danny Laruso's tormenters in the original Karate Kid film.

"My son is an actor, he's in a TV show called Vampire Diaries so I tell him not to worry, that talent in our family clearly skips a generation, so he should be fine," he joked.

And, sadly, that is it for this reporter's diary at Cannes this year, as we decamp the Croisette.

Highlights were the fantastic Amy Winehouse documentary and the weird and wonderful Colin Farrell film The Lobster.

Sadly the biggest low was Gus Van Sant's misfiring Sea of Trees, one which I had been looking forward to. Never mind Gus, there's always next year.

SUNDAY 17 MAY 1700 (1600 GMT)

Green Room: "A treat for gore aficionados"

Showing as part of the director's fortnight at Cannes is the film Green Room and, with more than a week of the festival yet to run, it is already a contender for the most brutally violent film to be given an official screening.

On top of that, British national treasure Patrick Stewart plays the leader of a white power gang.

The basic premise is that a travelling punk band are offered a gig at a skinhead bar deep in the backwoods of Portland. There they witness the aftermath of a murder and are barricaded inside the bar's dressing room - the Green Room of the title.

What follows is an hour and half siege/horror movie, during which the Nazi gang try to break into the room as the band frantically try to find a way out.

There are slashings, shootings, dog attacks and a particularly gruesome disembowelling. And it's all to a thrashing hardcore punk soundtrack. It's really quite a lot of fun. If you like that sort of thing...

Stewart's accent veers between RSC and generic American, but Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin is good in his role as the softly spoken yet surprisingly resilient guitar player.

There is also a neat running gag about picking one band you could listen to if you were deserted on an island, with a great pay-off in the film's closing moments.

Not one for the faint-hearted or weak of stomach, but a treat for gore aficionados.

SUNDAY 17 MAY 1300 (1200GMT)

Carol is based on a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith of The Talented Mr Ripley fame.

American director Todd Haynes has announced his return to Cannes with a finely crafted feature which is already generating buzz as a genuine contender for this year's Palme d'Or.

Carol, a love story between two women set during the socially uptight 1950s, stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara - best known for the US remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

It is based on a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, then considered hugely controversial for its portrayal of a lesbian relationship but now recognised as a ground-breaking work.

Mara is impressive as the younger women transfixed by the older socialite, who leaves a pair of gloves behind during their first meeting at a department store. At one point during their exchange, Blanchett remarks on Mara's oddness saying she seems to have fallen from space.

Mara's stillness gives a sense of the character's struggle to understand the new feelings she has for this woman. She quizzes her boyfriend on what he thinks about two women or two men who fall in love. It is a test of herself as much as a test of him.

But the film belongs to Blanchett, whose latent ability to disappear into every character she plays continues to wow audiences and delight critics.

Every look, every elegant gesture is loaded with meaning and yet the performance is understated, in comparison with Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine which earned her an Oscar two years ago,

And, as early in the year as we still are, some are already suggesting that, come awards season, this performance and this film, will be recognised with some nominations.

French stars Emmanuelle Bercot and Vincent Cassel play opposite one another in Mon Roi.

Another film in competition, is the French relationship drama Mon Roi (My King).

Starring Emmanuelle Bercot - whose film Standing Tall opened this year's festival - and Vincent Cassel, who has already been seen in the Matteo Garrone fairytale Tale of Tales, it's a story of addiction.

Bercot's lawyer is addicted to Cassel and his joie de vivre and over ten years we watch their relationship develop. They fall in love, they fight, they separate, they reunite. Neither can live without the other, nor can they live with each other.

Funny and sad, plus two great performances from Cassel and Bercot.

SATURDAY 16 MAY 14:00 (13:00 BST)

Amy Winehouse rose to worldwide fame with her Back to Black album

Asif Kapadia's Amy, about the life of singer Amy Winehouse serves as a sad reminder of the huge talent that was lost when she died in 2011 at the age of just 27.

Using archive footage of Winehouse from childhood and throughout her glittering but all too brief career, the BAFTA-winning filmmakers paint a portrait of a smart, funny, emotional, supremely talented but troubled young woman.

The story is told by those who knew her best, her oldest friends who stuck by her from childhood throughout her later fame, alcoholism and drug abuse.

It includes testimony from her former husband, managers and musician friends such as Salaam Remi - who produced her Back to Black album - Mark Ronson, rapper Mos Def and her idol, Tony Bennett.

Her father Mitch Winehouse is also featured, as is her mother, but the family have since distanced themselves from the film and it's not difficult to see why.

They do come in for some criticism, Mitch in particular. An example being when he brings his own TV crew to St Lucia, where his daughter was trying to stay clean from drink and drugs.

An awkward exchange with some fans starts a small row, as she tells him that his cameras make her feel "like a mug".

Winehouse performed at Glastonbury in 2008

Inevitably the finger of blame is also pointed at the media, in particular, the British tabloid press and its voracious appetite to document the fall from grace of a young singing superstar.

What comes across from the combined testimony, and clips of Amy herself, is that she never craved fame, never wanted celebrity and was never happier than when in the studio armed with a guitar and a microphone. Or in front of an audience of 50 at some smoky jazz club.

Footage shot just months before her death, singing opposite Bennett for a duets album, are touching, the shy 20-something eager to impress a man, a music legend, whose songs she has held dear since childhood.

"I'm like you, every take is different," the older singer says soothingly to the bashful and starstruck young artist.

"No, I'm like you is what you mean," she counters. "I'm like you."

Somewhat fitting the final words are left to the 88-year-old jazzman as he eulogises: "Life teaches you how to live. As long as you live long enough to learn."

Wonderful words spoken tragically too late for Amy Winehouse to hear.

SATURDAY 16 MAY 06:30 (05:30 BST)

Carol, starring Cate Blanchett, will have its first screening on Saturday evening

Day three of the festival and already so much has happened, the Mad Max juggernaut rolled into town, there were boos for festival favourite Gus Van Sant's new film and today journalists will get the chance to see the new documentary about Amy Winehouse.

Amy, directed by Asif Kapadia, whose documentary about the late F1 driver Ayrton Senna was a huge critical hit around the world, has already generated some controversy. Winehouse's family, which initially backed the film has withdrawn its support.

Her father in particular, has complained that it paints an unfair and inaccurate portrait of their relationship.

Later tonight is the first screening of Todd Hayne's film Carol which stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as women in love in the 1950s set drama.

The early word is that, once again, there's a towering performance by Blanchett.

FRIDAY 15 MAY 23:00 (22:00 BST)

So the first real boos at this year's Cannes and it was for a former favourite on the Croisette Gus Van Sant. His new film Sea of Trees sees Matthew McConaughey as a suicidal scientist who travels to a beautiful forest at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan to do the deed.

There he meets a similarly lost and blooded soul, in the form of Ken Watanabe, who forces him to re-evaluate his decision to kill himself.

Such a sensitive subject matter is not handled particularly well and the film quickly becomes a buddy movie survival-style romp. Flashbacks to McConaughey's troubled marriage to Naomi Watts and a fireside confession scene end in a denouement which was easy to see coming and dripped of sentimentality.

As the credit rolled, there were sounds of boos and jeers from the balcony. Which would not have been music to the ears of the director who is due in town with his stars to promote the movie.

It's in the running for the Palme d'Or but on the reaction of this crowd, a win is not particularly likely.

FRIDAY 15 MAY 13:00 (12:00 BST)

Single people are sent to a hotel to find love. If they find a mate who shares similar attributes, they can return to the city to live in happiness. If they fail, they become animals and are allowed to roam the forest. Or they can choose to be loners and live a feral existence in the woods, where they risk capture and involuntary metamorphosis into a creature.

Yup, The Lobster, by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is definitely as weird as it sounds.

We follow David, the only named character (played by Colin Farrell) as he tries to find love in the most oppressive of places, the tightly regimented hotel - run by Olivia Colman.

He is joined on his quest for love by John C Reilly as Lisping Man and Ben Whishaw as Limping Man. Extras star Ashley Jensen plays Biscuit Woman. Seriously...

What follows is a bizarre, frightening, moving and darkly funny tale. And one which is very much open to interpretation.

Rachel Weisz, who - as short-sighted woman - may be David's saviour said: "One of my friends thinks its a scathing satire on suburbia. To me, the first thing I think of is narcissism, that you have to fall in love with someone who has similar qualities to yourself."

"I don't think I really know what the film is about," said Whishaw - who is yet to se the completed film. "I suspect it's a film that would make you feel differently every time you see it."

Farrell, who sports a moustache and middle-aged paunch throughout the movie, added: "One thing that stayed with me after I read the script was the deep loneliness that permeates it.

"But just being in it doesn't mean I know more about this than any audience member who will see it."

As an audience member I can attest to that. I enjoyed it but I'm still trying to decide what it was all about.

Maybe I never will.

Friday 15 May 08:30 (07:30 BST)

Possibly the strangest film in competition this year is about to begin. The Lobster is set in a near future when people have 45 days to find love in a hotel or they must be turned in to an animal and released into the woods.

Actors who signed up for this bizarre take include Colin Farrell, Ben Whishaw and Olivia Colman. Expecting some weird goings-on.

Elsewhere, the new documentary Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans, about his torturous labour of love, a movie about motor racing shot at top speeds, has screened.

It's an interesting insight into the actor and the behind the scenes struggles to get the movie made. For some, the film was a pure recreation of what makes a man drive a car at over 200mph, for others it's massively self-indulgent and almost unwatchable.

I'll be speaking to the filmmakers and McQueen's son Chad on Monday.

Thursday 14 May 15:00 (14:00 BST)

Managed to see last night's opening film at Cannes, the French drama La Tete Haute (or Standing Tall in English).

Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot and starring Catherine Deneuve and first-time actor Rod Paradot, it tells the story of a young delinquent and the exhaustive attempts by the local authorities to help him curb his anti-social behaviour which revolves mainly around bunking off school and stealing cars.

Deneuve is a steely, yet kind-hearted juvenile court judge, perhaps the one authority figure who can get through to the volatile and violent teenager.

In Paradot, there is a refreshing un-actorly performance, often raw and explosive and he exudes cockiness and vulnerability in equal measure. However, the untethered performance of an amateur performer brings its own problem as there is little to show in the way of character development, permanently rooted as he is in the role of angry teenager.

The drama often relies on the procedural, with frequent expository explanations of how the French juvenile system works. His mildly drug addicted mother is also something of a stereotype.

That fact this was selected as the opening film for this year's Cannes however, over a Hollywood crowd-pleaser, is not to be overlooked.

Perhaps still stinging from the vicious reviews for last year's Grace of Monaco and the lukewarn reaction to The Great Gatsby a year earlier, the festival organisers are putting a French stamp on Cannes.

And Standing Tall, though not a perfect film, was certainly an admirable choice on their part.

Thursday 14 May 11:00 (10:00 BST)

Think Point Break, an undercover thriller but without Patrick Swayze, amazing action sequences and surfing, set it in France over a century ago and you're in the right ballpark for the film The Anarchists.

It stars two actors who both made a splash at previous Cannes festivals.

Tahar Rahim, whose blistering performance in A Prophet made him one of Europe's hottest talents, stars as Jean, a lowly policeman in 1899 Paris, sent by his senior officer to infiltrate a gang of anarchists - bent on ending the subjugation of the poor working classes by destroying the bourgeois,

There, he is inevitably drawn in to the close inner circle of the band's passionate leader and his beautiful girlfriend, played by Adele Exarchopoulos, who shared the Palme d'Or award at Cannes with Lea Seydoux and director Abdellatif Kechiche for the explicit lesbian love story Blue is the Warmest Colour.

Jean's loyalties are tested and he is torn between his duty to serve, his growing friendship with Elisee and his feelings for Judith.

The grimy underbelly of working class Paris is well recreated and the performances are strong. It moves a little slowly in places but the stakes are high as the conclusion moves towards the planning of a violent attack.

What is perhaps a little disappointing is that, for a group calling themselves anarchists, actual anarchy is in short supply. These would-be rebels prefer instead to sit about drinking and musing on whether social change should ever justify violence.

There is a bank heist, which naturally ends with a casualty, like I said Point Break but definitely not as slick as the Ex Presidents. But at least they too never go for the vault.

The film is screening as part of the critics fortnight strand. There's a lot there to like but I was frustrated at a lack of genuine suspense. Like Jean, I was torn.

Thursday 14 May, 08:00 (07:00 BST)

Every once in a while a film comes along which is just a little bit different than everything else you will see at Cannes.

Such is the case with the new film by Italian director Matteo Garrone. This is his first film in the English language and his first in the realm of fantasy.

Tale of Tales is a twisted fairytale portmanteau of three separate stories, which nevertheless are also finely connected.

Based on the stories of the 17th Century writer Giambattista Basile, this is a world of sea monsters and ogres, witches and magic.

One story tells the tale of a lustful king who mistakes the voice of old crone for that of a young girl and goes all out to woo her. Another tells of a distracted monarch who is more obsessed by his pet flea than the daughter he is about to marry off to a mindless giant.

Salma Hayek plays an obsessed queen whose desire for a child robs her of everything else she holds dear.

It's an all-star cast, with appearances from the likes of Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel, and John C Reilly. Much has been made of Garrone's foray into English, perhaps to broaden his appeal beyond Europe's borders. But the film has such a defiantly European sensibility that it's a risky move by the director, who may alienate his existing audience.

However, it's lavish, beautifully realised and darkly funny.

An interesting proposition this morning is a film screening as part of the critics' fortnight. The Anarchists stars Tahar Rahim, who made his name in the film A Prophet, and Adele Exarchopoulos, who shared the best actress title with Lea Seydoux for Blue is the Warmest Colour at Cannes two years ago.

Set in Paris in 1899, the period drama tells the story of a humble police corporal sent to infiltrate a group of anarchists, who finds his loyalties tested when he falls in love with one of them.

Wednesday 13 May, 14:30 (13:30 BST)

So we begin this morning, whisked off in people carriers with tinted windows to the impossibly glamorous and exclusive Hotel du Cap, about 30 minutes outside of Cannes, to meet the director and cast of the post-apocalyptic Mad Max: Fury Road.

Sadly there was no grand entrance through the hotel lobby - instead we were taken around the back of the building, through the tradesmen's entrance as it were.

Luckily any fears of feeling a little bit like a dirty secret were allayed by the youthful enthusiasm of the film's 70-year-old director George Miller. It's been 35 years since he first burst onto the screen with Mad Max and its then unknown star, Mel Gibson.

"Mel sat beside me at the premiere with Tom Hardy sat behind us and Mel is one of those people who can't censor himself... I kept seeing him chuckle.

"He's directing a movie in Australia now and would ask, 'Oh who's that actor?' He really loved it and it meant a lot to me and he gave me a hug.

"He's a great film-maker and I know he's had awful problems but he's a really good man struggling with his demons. I got his respect as a film-maker which was great."

Tom Hardy as Max

Hardy stars as the largely silent Max, while Nicholas Hoult plays "war boy" Nux, a devoted follower of the movie's bad guy Immortan Joe.

The original film was already more than a decade old by the time Hoult was born, and he admits he'd never seen it before he auditioned for the part.

"I had seen George's other films, like Happy Feet, but I was amazed that no -one had told me about them.

"But then all these pop culture references made more sense to me, watching Tupac and Dr Dre's California video and seeing this is where all of those guys got their ideas from."

Hardy's first exposure to the violent films was a little more damaging, he says.

"I was about six or seven and I saw my cousins watching it and it was just weird because I was young and it's quite grown-up.

"It's very unusual and I didn't understand it, a bit like the first time I heard Jimi Hendrix as a kid, it was too grown up for me.

"I felt a little bit dirty and a little bit abused and I kind of left it because it's odd. Then later when I was about 15, I knew about it. I knew about the character and the Interceptor (Max's power V8 engine car) but I still had never seen it.

"I got a dog called Mad Max when I was 17 and I didn't like the name because I remember the film and it was weird. So I changed his name and he died the year I was offered Max, and then I watched the movie and then I got it."

That would make his dog about 20 when he died, which is pretty old.

Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa

Charlize Theron, Imperator Furiosa in the movie, arrived with a glass of tomato juice, which could have been mistakenly identified by yours truly as a Bloody Mary.

"No, this is virgin all the way," she insists. "There are too many studio people about, I don't want to get fired."

The film, surprisingly, has a strong feminist streak. Her character is, to put it simply, a bit of a bad ass - not to be messed with, she drives a massive rig called the War Machine and is central to the film's plot.

More importantly, she is not there to serve out a romantic storyline between her character and Max.

"You can't say 'the stakes are this high' and you're literally in a driving war and we cannot stop because 'if we stop, we die' - and then have them pull off to the side of the road to have sex, like fall in love, because then immediately the anxiety has been relieved for the audience.

"Unfortunately some film-makers think you can have both. What was great about this is that the luxury of a love story was not where we were, I mean they can't even talk to each other.

"We never even talked about it - it was never there, no one said 'maybe', we never had to fight against it.

"It was always going to be two warriors on par, starting off with very little respect for each other and ending up with a massive respect for each other."

Mad Max: Fury Road is showing out of competition. Find out what else is screening at Cannes this year with our guide to the films to watch out for.

Wednesday 13 May, 08:00 (07:00 BST)

You know it's going to be a Cannes Film Festival of excitement and unpredictability when, on arriving at the airport in Nice, you spot - in no particular order Charlize Theron, John Legend and... former This Is Your Life host Michael Aspel.

I should add they didn't all arrive together. Which would have been weird.

The festival itself kicks off later, not with a Hollywood movie, but rather a French drama Standing Tall, directed by Emanuelle Bercot. Perhaps the organisers have learned a lesson after the lukewarm reception given to Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in 2013 and the all-out pasting meted out to last year's opening movie Grace of Monaco.

Or maybe it was just a great opportunity to open the oldest and most French of film festivals with a local tale, starring the first lady of French cinema Catherine Deneuve.

Either way, there is a lot of excitement ahead of the first opening film at Cannes to be directed by a woman since 1987.

Theron is of course here for the screening of Mad Max: Fury Road in which she stars with Tom Hardy. He's taken on the iconic role first played by Mel Gibson more than 30 years ago.

Aimed squarely at petrolheads and Fast and Furious fiends, the film nevertheless has a strong feminist streak slicing through the male machismo.

There is some truly astounding stunt work on the chase scenes, filmed in a north African desert, and the cinematography is incredible. And it has souped up cars and trucks - lots of them. All very powerful and very, very loud.

Bercot's drama, about a French delinquent, seems almost sedate by comparison.

Which one is Mr Aspel looking forward to most?