The Cannes film festival throws its gates open to film-makers from around the world; to male film-makers and female film-makers; gay film-makers and straight film-makers. Down on the ground, however, the place remains gently segregated. The stars walk up one red carpet and the hacks patrol another.
Inside the Salle Debussy, the press take their seats for the evening screening of Spring Fever, a Palme d'Or contender from the Chinese film-maker Lou Ye. Before this begins the screen plays a live feed from that other red carpet, not 50 metres away; sitting in the semi-darkness, we peer into a hyper-real world of glowing flesh, designer frocks and fluorescent smiles. There is an army of ballet dancers on the Palais steps – two platoons of fairy princesses holding poses that should by rights turn their muscles to jelly. Between them wander all the jury members and honoured guests: regal Isabelle Huppert, sultry Asia Argento, luminous Aishwarya Rai. They are waving and smiling, smiling and waving. None of them seem in any hurry to enter the cinema.
When these pictures fade out the audience howls as one. They feel denied; they feel cheated. They were loving staring at all those celebrities and now, goddammit, they've got to sit through some Chinese film instead.
I'm not sure what this says about the priorities of those attending the Cannes film festival, but chances are it isn't good. Now admittedly Spring Fever is not a picture for all tastes. It is an opaque, grainy account of homosexual liaisons in modern-day China; a tale of illicit love that is itself illicit (Lou was forced to shoot it in secret, contravening a five-year ban by the Chinese authorities). But it is still an alluring, intriguing film that packs a considerable emotional wallop.
Bear in mind, too, that the audience at last night's screening was predominantly comprised of international film critics. This is potentially the most receptive crowd the film will ever get, and yet these people would still – truth be known – prefer to see what dress Elizabeth Banks is wearing. Just 24 hours ago Lou Ye was being tipped as a frontrunner for this year's Palme d'Or. Now his standing has taken a knock. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
In the meantime, God forbid that any of these hacks should be presumptuous enough to attempt to cross the line; to dream of stepping from one red carpet to the other. I'm running late to the screening of Tetro, the new film from Francis Ford Coppola, and the line is stretching around the block. But that's OK, no problem, because the PR has assured me that she has put my name on "the VIP guest list". This sounds wonderfully impressive – Cannes's golden open sesame – and I repeat these words to the security guard at the door, reciting them like some magical incantation. He studies my press pass and then laughs, genuinely tickled by the absurd specimen that has come before him. "Since when was a journalist a VIP?" he says.
