Cannes - The state of American society and politics has become an overriding theme at the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival, with no fewer than three major films dealing with that issue in the festival's first week.
US actor The Rock (L) and US actress Sarah Michelle Gellar wait during a photo call for the film 'Southland Tales' by US director Richard Kelly, running in competition at the 59th Cannes Film Festival, Sunday 21 May 2006 in Cannes. EPA/CHRISTOPHE KARABA
On Thursday, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation exposed the corruption and criminal recklessness behind the US fast food culture, while Saturday An Inconvenient Truth, featuring former US vice president Al Gore, challenged America's ignorance of climate change and its systematic abuse of the environment.
Sunday's presentation, Southland Tales, by 31-year-old Richard Kelly, is the most spectacular and, no doubt, controversial film in many years to deal with what the director himself called 'the sad situation we find ourselves in as a country.'
Part sci-fi flick, part comedy, part musical, part thriller, Southland Tales features action mega-star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, formerly of Buffy and the Vampire Killers, and pop star Justin Timberlake in leading roles.
The youngest director competing for this year's Palme d'Or for best film, Kelly described his puzzling, often hallucinatory work as 'a black comedy about the end of the world.'
It takes place in the year 2008 after a terrorist nuclear attack on Texas. Its opening line is, 'After the nuclear attack on Texas, things got real complicated.'
Kelly, who rose to fame with his first film, the 2001 cult hit Donnie Darko, said after the screening of the film that he knew it would present difficulties for some people.
'I always thought the film was going to push buttons,' he told journalists in Cannes. 'And I think it's going to continue to do so.'
Southland Tales takes on an ambitious array of issues, including the war in Iraq, the search for alternative fuels, government spying, the relationship between celebrities and politics, the Patriot Act and violent rebellion.
The film's baffling plot and its complexity were decided early on, Kelly said, to reflect the nature of America's problems.
'The film is meant to be a tapestry of ideas, all related to the biggest issues we're facing right now,' he said. 'It's meant to be a puzzle. There is no simple solution right now for our dilemma.'
He defended himself against any possible claims that he was anti-American.
'I love my country. I'm a patriot,' Kelly said. 'The film is intended as a patriotic piece.'
One of the film's accomplishment is its successful casting of known stars against type, with The Rock playing a man looking for his identity, Gellar cast as a very entrepreneurial porno actress and Timberlake in the role of a scarred and disturbed veteran of the Iraq war.
'When casting the film, I made a choice to find actors who had been pigeon-holed,' Kelly said. 'I was trying to put them in a new place. I love helping express something new about an actor.'
For the Rock, who is known around the world as a musclebound action hero, this was precisely what he wanted.
'I am trying to grow as an actor, to learn more,' he said. 'For me, this was a great learning experience.'
While Southland Tales provoked mixed opinions in Cannes, its scope, its audacity and its subject matter may sway festival jurors. In 2004, another audacious work about the United States, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a fierce attack on President George W. Bush, walked off with the festival's top prize.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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