How To Survive Cannes

Much as I enjoy the film-watching part of the Cannes Festival, I confess that I find the endless round of socializing in between to be so enervating that after a couple of days I am fit for little more than to lie in a darkened room with teabags over my eyes. So when I met my English journalist friend Rupert on his sixth day there, looking as fresh as a daisy despite knowing ten times as many people as I do, I was impelled to ask him his secret.

Photo by Jannis Lucas

“Meet me where I’m staying at 10.00 tomorrow morning,” he said, “and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Rupert was staying in an apartment in a sleepy little suburb just outside Cannes proper.

“Rule Number One,” he said as we set off. “Never stay in an hotel. People can find you.”

We strolled the morning-quiet streets of the suburb to the bus stop.

“Rule Number Two,” he said as we boarded the bus. “Never stay in the center of town. Same reason as Rule Number One.”

We got off the bus near the Palais des Festivals and made our way to the Village International, the collection of temporary pavilions representing various nations that line the beach, where the festival-goers hang out, refresh themselves, and catch up with one another in their off hours.

“Rule Number Three,” he said as we approached the UK Pavilion. “And this is the most important rule of all. Keep moving.”

We entered the UK Pavilion, where Rupert was hailed by a gaggle of British journos drinking milky coffee and munching on jam-smeared croissants.

“Morning, Rupert,” they said. “You all right, mate?”

Rupert sighed, and raised his eyes heavenwards, looking distracted.

“It’s a circus, isn’t it?” he said. “Not yet 10.30 and already …”

He puffed his cheeks, sighed again, and shook his head at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” he said. “I’ll try to catch up with you later. Can’t do it now. This is lunacy! Lunacy!”

Poking an authoritative finger into my back, he wheeled and hustled us both from the tent.

Next we went into the American Pavilion, where he was greeted by a bunch of Hollywood reporters wearing baseball caps backwards, drinking designer water and downing vitamins.

“Hey, buddy,” they said. “What’s up, bro?”

Rupert glared at them with the crazed Richard E. Grant stare of a deer in the headlights remembering that it has left the beluga caviar outside in the sun.

“I can not believe this!” he exclaimed. “It gets crazier every year! Just when you think you’ve got enough stuff to do … people want you to meet … and then someone else suggests … and I haven’t even had time to … and … oh, my God!”

He looked down at his wristwatch and started.

“Gotta go!” he said. “Catch you later – somewhere, somehow, sometime that’s not now!”

We left that tent pretty speedily too.

We left the Village, crossed the Croisette and went into one of the fancy hotels in town. In the lobby we ran into a famous and elegant television newscaster.

“Well, hello, stranger,” she cooed at Rupert, raising her famous and elegant cheek for a kiss.

With the look of a man drowning, Rupert grabbed her famous and elegant wrist.

“Oh, thank God,” he gasped. “A real human being at last. You can’t imagine what we’ve been surrounded by all morning. And, oh, God, look at the time, the nightmare continues – look, I’ll try to find you later and catch up properly, but for right now …”

“It’s unending, isn’t it?” the newscaster smiled sympathetically as we raced from the hotel.

We walked up the hill and into another hotel where – since, contrary to what you might by now be wondering, I am not entirely bereft of friends of my own in my chosen profession – we actually found a couple of them.

“Join us for coffee,” they said.

In fact, a leisurely half hour sounded attractive right then: against the heat of the morning the hotel’s café was pleasantly cool, and wafts of freshly ground beans were mingling enticingly with those of, not just morning pastries, but French morning pastries. Posh ones.

Then I felt Rupert’s eyes staring laser-like into my own.

“Rule Number Three,” he mouthed.

“You know what,” I said. “That sounds really good but, oh, lord, I just can’t. We have to be somewhere. In fact, we have to be there five minutes ago. I’ll find you later.”

I was rewarded, as we scurried towards the door, by an approving nod and a murmured, “You learn well, Grasshopper.”

Another block, another hotel. This was the grandest hotel of all, in whose august interior one admitted to neither rush nor rufflement. This time the person we ran into, sitting in state over a café filtre and a canelé, and surrounded by a group of eager acolytes, was a lion-maned award-winning director of both stage and film.

“Rupert, dear boy,” he boomed, because that’s how he talks. “Goes your day well, old chap?” He really does talk like that.

Rupert approached the throne respectfully, looking both just a little nervous and just a little excited.

“I’m not quite sure yet,” he said. “But between you and me, it might just turn out to be really quite interesting. I’m actually on my way right now to a meeting with … well, with a couple of people, in fact.”

He nodded importantly. The director raised an impressed eyebrow.

“I can’t tell you their names,” Rupert apologized, casting the merest glance towards the acolytes.

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” the director affirmed.

“But just…” said Rupert.

He gulped dramatically and raised both hands with crossed fingers.

“… wish me luck,” he finished.

The director inclined his leonine head.

“I wish you all the luck in the world, dear boy,” he declared, and Rupert placed his hand over his heart and bowed in grateful acknowledgement before we exited, with dignity, stage seaside.

There was a bus waiting at the terminal, and traffic out of town at that hour was light to non-existent. We stopped off at the marché to buy bread and cheese and olives, and were still back at the apartment in good time for our meeting with those notable film movers and shakers Mr. Los Angeles and Mrs. Rupert, whom we joined on the balcony just as the church clock rang the Angelus bell.

“Everyone we met this morning,” said Rupert, “will remember that they saw us at Cannes but that we were too busy having meetings with other people to have time to chat to them. Does anyone want a glass of champagne before lunch?”

I must admit, I was impressed.