Friday, May 13, 2005

It's Cannes time again!

So, the newspapers are agog with news from the Cannes. I opened The Hindustan Times and there were pictures of Aishwarya, along with a French actress', her seductive smile bewitching the photographers. Thankfully her (black) dress looked fine unlike the last time and seemed to complement the dress of the French actress (she was in white). B&W!

The New York Times also has Aish on the first slide of its multimedia review of Cannes. I could see Nandita Das on the second slide, in a resplendent sari, standing along with other members of the jury.

NYT has an interesting section on Cannes. I loved Emir Kusturica's profile. Kusturica (pronounced KOOS-toor-eet-sa) is leading the Cannes jury this time. I knew so little about this man.

"Born in 1954, Kusturica grew up an only child in a secular Muslim family in Sarajevo, the capital of the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At 18 he was packed off to Prague to study at the Czech state film school, FAMU, in part thanks to the older Kusturicas' anxiety over the young Emir's enthusiastic interest in minor acts of youthful criminality. It didn't take him long to be noticed. By the time he was 40, he had already won most of the major prizes the film world has to offer. "

The guy hates Hollywood. He says:

''What you have now is a Hollywood that is pure poison,'' Kusturica says. ''Hollywood was a central place in the history of art in the 20th century: it was human idealism preserved. And then, like any great place, it collapsed, and it collapsed into the most awful machinery in the world. Why don't I see a Frank Capra today? Because people aren't like this anymore? People haven't changed that much in 60 years.''

I cannot disagree with him. What do you think?

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