LONG BEFORE Michael Moore held aloft the top prize of the Cannes Film Festival - the Palme d'Or - at the weekend, it was clear that politics would dominate this year's event. During the first few days of the festival, the streets were crowded with striking French arts workers and, although festival organisers finally reached an agreement with trade unions, peace wasn't restored before a few scuffles had broken out. Catching the mood of dissent, the staff of the Carlton Hotel - the festival's top schmoozing locale - staged a walk-out on the second day in protest at working conditions, leaving guests to press their own tuxedos and - quelle horreur - make their own beds. And then there was Moore. His provocative documentary about the failings of the Bush administration, Fahrenheit 911, made headlines before it reached Cannes, when Disney - owner of the film's producer Miramax Films - barred the mini-studio from distributing the film in the US. During the festival it emerged that Moore and Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein were in talks to buy the film back from Disney, and hope to sell it to a third-party distributor in time for a July 4 release. 'We have a distributor in Albania now, so every country in the world can see this film except one,' said Moore when he picked up the Palme d'Or. 'I have a sneaking suspicion that what you have done here will ensure that the American people will get to see this film.' Although a US movie took the top award, Asian cinema dominated, taking four of the eight jury prizes. Screening at the beginning of the festival, Nobody Knows, directed by Japan's Kore-Eda Hirokazu, impressed critics with its melancholic, but not overly sentimental portrait of four children abandoned by their mother. The film's 14-year-old lead, Yuya Yagira, was awarded the best actor prize. Old Boy, directed by South Korea's Park Chan-wook, which took the Grand Prix, was tipped early on as a favourite of jury president Quentin Tarantino, and the brutal revenge tale certainly had all the right elements to appeal to the director of Kill Bill. The first Thai film in competition, Tropical Malady, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, was deemed the artiest film in the competition. It divided critics, but shared the Jury Prize with Irma P. Hall, an actress in the Coen Brothers' The Ladykillers. Maggie Cheung Man-yuk's award for best actress may have been for a French film, Clean, directed by her ex-husband Olivier Assayas, in which she mostly spoke English, but it delighted the Asian press. Outside the main competition, the debut feature of mainland director Lu Cheng, Passages, received a special mention from the Camera d'Or jury. The biggest surprise of the festival was that Wong Kar-wai's 2046 came away empty-handed. Setting a new record for late arrival at Cannes, the film received a mostly favourable response from critics, although it appeared to still require some final polishing. The film's stellar cast centres on Tony Leung Chiu-wai, who plays someone with the same name and hairstyle as his character from In the Mood for Love. But rather than being a buttoned-down writer, he's been transformed into a rakish lothario who has affairs - some unconsummated, others quite the opposite - with a series of women, including Carina Lau Ka-ling, Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong and Gong Li. 2046 flips between the 1960s and the future, where Japanese actor Takuya Kimura romances an android played by Faye Wong. Cheung is also billed as making a special appearance in the film, although her part is of the 'blink and you miss it' variety. The film's ravishing images and dream-like storytelling had many critics predicting it would win the Palme d'Or. After its screening, Wong told the press that the film was in its completed form, although he hinted, half-jokingly, that there may be an extended version at some point on DVD. He also denied accusations that he'd held the film back until the last minute to create a buzz. 'They think too highly of me,' says Wong of his detractors. 'I don't have time to think of those kinds of tactics.' The omission of 2046 from the prize-giving was puzzling. Some suggested that the film was too similar to In the Mood for Love to merit a major award, but this would be curmudgeonly in a year in which the sequel to a mass-appeal animation, Shrek 2, featured in the competition line-up. Many of the jury's decisions were considered eccentric. Tony Gatlif was awarded the best director prize for Exiles, about a young couple travelling to Algeria, although many thought it suffered by comparison with Walter Salles' road movie, Motorcycle Diaries. Starring Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal, Salles' film had critics cooing over its depiction of the South American travels and subsequent political awakening of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. When it screened, towards the end of the festival, many agreed it was the best movie in the competition to that point. The charismatic Bernal also starred in the festival's opening night film, Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education, which screened out of competition. It was the first time a Spanish film had opened Cannes, and the Almodovar contingent threw a party - complete with fireworks and transvestite backing singers - that wasn't equalled for the rest of the festival. Also screening out of competition, but in official selection, was Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, which was declared the most visually thrilling film on offer. Like 2046, Flying Daggers is regarded as a companion piece to the director's previous work, but in each case the directors insist their new film is totally different. In one respect they're right. Whereas In the Mood for Love and Hero are films in which emotions are either repressed or absent, 2046 and Flying Daggers both have passion in spades. Both films also feature impressive performances from Zhang Ziyi, who has evolved from a high-kicking ingenue into a fully-fledged romantic heroine. Eager to claw back credibility after last year's lacklustre event, festival programmer Thierry Fremaux promised that Cannes 2004 would be a festival of 'confirmations and discoveries'. With strong entries from Almodovar, Zhang Yimou, Kore-Eda, Wong Kar-wai and Walter Salles, there were probably more confirmations than discoveries. But one thing everyone seems to agree on is that this year's Cannes festival was a huge improvement on the last.
