SPEND A DAY AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL!

By JOHN HARKNESS

6:55 – Open eyes. Curse the darkness.

6:56 – Take off sleep mask. Curse the light.

6:58 – Shower.

7:20 –Pack shoulder tote to spend day out of apartment. Sunglasses, notebook, mints, daily papers. Throw away sports section. You will not get the score for last night’s games until tomorrow. Go out for $10 continental breakfast – croissant, hard roll, juice, mediocre coffee.

7:50 – Walk home, climb 78 steps to someone else’s apartment, find seat among the 37 people in the TV room. At least six of them should not have bathed within the last three days.

8:30 -- Watch long, obscure foreign film. The longer, the better. Something in Croatian with French subtitles would be ideal. Every seven minutes, you have to scrunch or stand up so that one of the 37 people in the room can leave. This will enhance the Cannes-ness of the experience.

10:45 – Go to Kinko’s. Write lengthy email to friends describing the film you’ve just seen, the quality of light over the Mediterranean, and embellish with witty excerpts from the daily papers.

12 – Go to high end coffee shop for iced blended coffee drink. Discover that due to power failure, they have no ice. Resign self to fact that no one has any damn ice. In fact, nobody will have any damn ice for the next ten days.

1 pm. – Go to Carlton Cinemas. Tip ticket taker to refuse you admission until the last possible second before the film starts, so you can try to find a seat in the dark. See obscure foreign film.

4 pm. – Repeat step for 1 pm.

7 pm. – And again.

9:30 pm – Back to Kinko’s organize notes on films.

10 pm – Go for large meal with friend, who has had the same day as you, only at different films, while losing her cell phone.

Repeat ten times.

For the advanced version, after the evening meal, find a cruddy bar and drink until three in the morning with German film buyers.

KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR -- Beijing Rocks!, written by Alex Law and directed by Maggie Cheung, the story of a sensitive singer-songwriter from HK who winds up in Beijing with his record company threatening to jettison his contract and finds himself hanging out with the Moonwatchers, a vital part of Beijing’s underground rock scene. (Who knew?). Energetically shot – Oscar-winner Peter Pau was the cinematographer – and filled with knowing lines about the music business, which is apparently universal. My favorite is “You’re not big because you say you’re big. When the People’s Record Store carries your pirated CDs, THEN you’re big!”

PRIZES – Unless there’s a surprise or two from the late films, Nanni Moretti’s The Son’s Room, about an Italian family’s response to the death of its adolescent son, is shaping up as a very strong contender for the Palme d’Or. Though I do find it worrisome that a review in one of the English dailies said “If Nanni Moretti is Italy’s Woody Allen, then The Son’s Room is his Interiors.” I’ll see it Sunday.