As ever, the opening ceremony of this year’s Cannes film festival, on Tuesday, was a confusion of glamour, weirdness and sheer excruciation.
Its host, the actor Eye Haïdara, began with one of the passionate “odes to cinema” that Cannes so loves. While images of greats appeared behind her, she attempted impersonations of everyone from Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver to Julia Roberts in Notting Hill.
Shortly after that we moved on to a presentation of an honorary Palme d’Or for the film-maker Peter Jackson that ended with him perched on a stool listening to the duo Theodora et Oklou sing a tortuously slowed-down version of The Beatles’ Get Back.
Things picked up, happily, at the end when Jane Fonda and her fellow actor Gong Li popped up to announce the festival open. All very French. All very odd. And all over in about 40 minutes.
As Cannes kicks off, news emerges about the absence of a much-anticipated Irish-shot production. The Irish Times was among many predicting that Werner Herzog’s juicily titled Bucking Fastard would be a late addition to the official selection.
