Blog Day 2

Thursday the 18th

Today I got a bit of a late start but the rest was good for me. I saw an Australian drama film called The Death and Life of Otto Bloom and I absolutely loved it. It was a fictional story told like a documentary, which I’d never seen before. I found myself asking if the far-fetched story was real. I then made my way over to the American Pavilion for their member’s cocktail party along with a lot of other students in our program. We mingled and met a few professionals but I mostly enjoyed the country-style band whom kept referring to the party as a “hoedown” while yelling “AmeriCANNES” into the microphone. There also was cheese and wine. 

At the cocktail party a man offered me a ticket to the premiere for Blades of Immortal, which I gladly accepted despite the fact that I wasn’t exactly in formal attire and the premiere was in an hour. The section on the ticket said “Corbeille” which I hadn’t seen before. I googled the meaning and it said “trash can,” which seemed appropriate at the moment. After further research I realized that it meant the front section of the balcony.

I luckily had brought some heels in my bag and was wearing a semi-nice dress. Four people in front of me in line were not let in because they weren’t dressed properly, however I managed to scurry on in despite being ill prepared. A difference between this section and the balcony is that the entrance is at the front of the red carpet as opposed to in the middle, after the paparazzi. A man in a tux told me in broken English to take my badge off before I walked on so that it wouldn’t be in the pictures. I plastered a smile on, put my shoulders back, and walked onto the carpet. The paparazzi were not impressed and most of them looked down at their phones during my strut. I considered cracking a “do you KNOW WHO I AM” joke then I remembered I was in a foreign country and that I, in fact, was not somebody (yet). One photographer did take my picture but I think it might have been out of pity.

The movie was in Japanese and had French and English subtitles. I had been told it would be a “wild” film and I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but now I understand. The action was continuous and kept me on the edge of my seat. It was bloody but I wasn’t as bothered by that as I usually am. I enjoyed the brother/sister-like relationship between the main characters. It was a longer film so I was happy to call Karim the taxi driver after the film ended (only after we got to-go milkshakes from the Cannes Steak n Shake).