Ken Woroner/Courtesy of Miramax Films
Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo in "Blindness."
CANNES, France -- Is it really too late to call Carrie Bradshaw? Opening night at the 61st Festival de Cannes needed her badly.
There was a woman a few rows behind me who clapped long and loud after the press screening of "Blindness" concluded here on Wednesday afternoon. One can only admire her bravery, but she was very lonely. Maybe her favorite cousin was the production designer. Maybe she hadn't traveled for 16 hours in an array of subway trains, airplanes, buses and taxicabs to get here just before the movie started, the way I had. If my own foul and sweaty mood -- and my almost irresistible desire to sleep through the middle portion of Fernando Meirelles' earnest and dreary film version of José Saramago's 1995 novel -- were directly attributable to jet lag, the general tenor of the room was unmistakable. The 2008 Cannes kickoff was a dog.
Things improved dramatically and almost immediately, with the next two competition films. After witnessing Meirelles, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover ascend the carpeted steps of the Grand Théâtre Lumière for their gala premiere, the press adjourned next door to watch Ari Folman's devastating, dreamlike "Waltz With Bashir." If any of us were wondering why an unknown Israeli director's animated quasi-documentary about a largely forgotten war was scheduled so prominently, we're not wondering now. On Thursday morning, Argentine director Pablo Trapero's absorbing, emotional prison drama "Lion's Den," built around the marvelous actress Martina Gusman, provided Cannes with its first legitimate Palme d'Or contender.