You may think Cannes is a cinematic utopia where Hollywood glamour coexists with the heights of art- cinema seriousness; where Julia Roberts grins on the Palais steps while critics mutter ecstatically about the latest Belgian or Iranian revelation. Yes, yes, all that - but really Cannes is a trade convention, upmarket and greasily downmarket all at once. And everyone is after something. The grand mandarins in competition want the world to see their latest oeuvre, while the no-budget hopefuls hope that someone, anyone, will be rash enough to finance them in the first place. The hard-core cinephiles anxiously gather at 8.30am press screenings and, afterwards, rush off to interview anything that moves. It doesn't matter if you're in a group of ten quizzing Calista Flockhart on her love life, or buttonholing a faded action star still big on the Australian video market: it's all money in the bank.
For our national film industry, Cannes is a sporting event - one British participant comes home with a bronze medal and it's acclaimed as the start of a brave new era. But there have been only a few occasions over the past decade when claims of a British triumph have had any grounding in reality. In 1996, Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies won the Palme d'Or; the following year, Gary Oldman's Nil By Mouth caused a real stir among international critics. But we are probably proudest of our PR successes. In this respect, the annus mirabilis was 1996, the year of Trainspotting - not the film itself, but the launch party, attended by the aristos of what was then Brit-pop. You could feel the excitement welling from around 7pm, when one or other Gallagher was spotted eating soup in a restaurant in the Old Port.
The first shock when you arrive in Cannes is the realisation that you're not actually in another country at all - you're simply visiting Wardour-Street-on-Sea. You see all the same critics usually found moping over their notes in Soho screening theatres, together with hordes of arts correspondents hoping to file any piece that will fit the headline "Cannes Furore Over . . ." Then there are the camcorder docu- mentary crews making cheeky exposes, the TV comedy wind-up merchants (last year Ali G, before him Dennis Pennis) and the occasional trendy neophyte, Amy Jenkins or whoever, filing "It's crazy down here" pieces for the Sundays.
Most British visitors cluster in the same places. The jeunesse doree favour the boat hosted by the media club Soho House. Hacks and lower-budget industry people religiously assemble to guzzle rose night after night, till 4am and beyond, outside a spit-and-sawdust bar called the Petit Majestic. During the day, there's the British Pavilion, which, grand as it sounds, has been steadily shrinking over the years, and has rarely been in the same spot two years running. It was once behind the Palais, next to a sumptuous pool, but recently it has been more like a village fete tea-tent; one year, the patch of grass surrounding it was so small that I fell off it when I was nudged.
Trying hard to make the most noise are the no-budget independents who drive across France with a Transit-load of up-for-it mates and plenty of cheap handbills. Chances are, no matter how bad their film is, they'll get the publicity they want. A colleague of mine once met a young British hopeful mooning around in a bar with his can of film under his arm. The landlord was instantly badgered into putting on a midnight screening, and my friend got his scoop about the British film so shocking that it could be shown only outside the festival.
You always dream of a British discovery - last year, in fact, it was Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher - but you know in your heart that the offering from Liechtenstein or Albania is probably a better bet. The map of British cinema may, in any case, be about to change: the new Film Council recently announced a vision of British film that concentrates on bigger-budget, mainstream productions. And there is provision for alternative film-making in the form of a £5m New Cinema Fund, the Film Council having absorbed what was the production division of the British Film Institute. It is worth remembering that, in recent years, many of the best British films in Cannes have come from directors who, at one time or another, have worked under the BFI aegis: for example, Ramsay, Terence Davies, John Maybury and Jasmin Dizdar, whose BFI film Beautiful People won the prize in the Un Certain Regard section.
Some of the British films most hotly tipped for Cannes this year were by alumni of this school: the new names Jamie Thraves and Sara Sugarman, as well as the old hand Terence Davies. But, for whatever reason, they are notable by their absence: Davies's powerful adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth isn't in competition. There's no sign, either, of the new film by the promising director Christopher Nolan, who made the low-budget thriller Following.
Instead, there's a solid, safe British selection: in competition, Ken Loach (but then there's always the latest Loach) and those lofty American expats James Ivory and Henry James, reunited on The Golden Bowl. The Director's Fortnight section includes the first film by the theatre director Stephen Daldry, and Some Voices, written by the playwright Joe Penhall. They may be brilliant, but as so often, there's a sense that our film industry favours names proven in other fields and distrusts anyone primarily devoted to cinema. In fact, the best British film on show, tucked away at the bottom of the Director's Fortnight section, will probably be Paul Bush's brief, brilliant animated short, Furniture Poetry, which puts apples, plates, tables and chairs through rigorous balletic paces.
No doubt we'll watch enviously the international selection roll by and wonder when we're likely to see a British director as distinctive as Lars von Trier or Wong Kar-Wai or the Coen brothers. But you know how insular the British can be. Nobody was too surprised when, a few years ago, the then heritage minister, Stephen Dorrell, arrived in town and paid gracious tribute to the chair of the jury, the "illustrious Frenchman" Jeanne Moreau. Are we proud to be out of step with world cinema, or is it some strange effect of the rose?
