Peasanthood

We woke up to a train strike. Apparently this is very typical for France. Everyone strikes and everyone smokes. The quintessential S's I suppose.

Instead of stopping altogether, the trains only run about 6 times a day and are usually about twenty minutes late or twenty minutes early, a very fun guessing game when you haven't had coffee and it's 6:41 AM.

We missed our train this morning. It sped away unapologetically as we were left in the dust with European chocolate wrappers and a woman in snakeskin boots.

So we did what most college kids do: went back for a power nap.

We woke up again, this time a little early in fear of missing another train and resorting to the bus system. Victoriously, we made it just in time to break off to go to movies.

A fan of Adam Driver, Jim Jarmusch's Paterson was playing at noon on the dot.

Like I have mentioned before, theaters right now are a pain. People are trying to cram in official competition films because either they've been slacking off all week or they just arrived to Cannes.

We got in line at our standard hour and a half early, patiently waiting and laughing in line.

The line starts to move and we are thrilled to be going to this film, even though I have heard the best part is the dog (side note there is a special award for best dog at Cannes. It's called "Palm Dog") and not Adam Driver's monotonous poetry. Sorry Jarmusch.

We were pretty close to the front, but this horrible thing happens where people associated with the film can pull film distributors to the front of the line and usurp the fine people that have been waiting for a lifetime. It's the worst.

So here we are. The film starts at noon. It is now 11:58 AM. Some British tool wearing a fedora is walking around pulling distributors. At 12:05 PM, the man counting how many open seats are left in the theater yells "11 open" and we are within the first 11 people. VICTORY!

But alas! We hadn't seen the last of His Royal Highness Fedora Hat who comes sweeping around the corner with 11 distributers.

"This must be a nightmare for you!" he snakily says. "Sorry."

"We've been waiting for an hour and half. Not cool." says a guy on my trip.

HRH Fedora Hat breezes by us peasants and into the film.

I was mad for a while. And then I realized that he is the true loser because if a film hasn't been picked up by a distributer by it's third viewing, the production company must really be having a panic attack.

We moped in the American Pavilion for a while which was just me sassily confronting the incompetent waitress when she told me there were no more umbrellas and clearly there were. I should not have a complex but also please do your job!!!!!!!!!!

We high tailed it over to Studio Ghibli's latest film The Red Turtle. Visually it was stunning. A masterpiece with no dialogue chronicling a shipwrecked man and his life on the island. The story is odd but beautiful and a celebration of life.

Since it was the premiere, Toshio Suzuki (head of Studio Ghibli) came out on stage and was going to speak. The director spoke in French and was wearing a suit. Suzuki wore flip flops and said very loudly into the mic: "I. DO. NOT. SPEAK FRENCH. THANK YOU."

Honestly me neither. I get it.

We went to dinner at a very swanky restaurant. We began the meal by sitting outside and then BAM all of the sudden the walls were coming down and it became indoor seating. I am also still confused how this happened.

We ended the night by seeing Brazil's official competition film Aquarius which follows the life of protagonist Clara, who is the only person left in her apartment building.  Having raised her children and been in love here, she refuses to leave and falls victim to horrible treatment by the company that owns the rest of the apartments. She is not one to be messed with though. She has enough bite to fight back, even as a seventy-plus year old.

While the movie dragged on (three parts that felt like twenty hours), I couldn't help but realize I would want to be actress Sonia Braga in my old age. She is stunning in every way and a firecracker. Sign me up.

I walked out of the film tired and confused, but that's okay. You can't win them all and at least we weren't wrongly turned away from the film.

Side note: everyone should know that at the McDonald's in France, a children's menu option is a caprese salad. I will never be over that.