Reality drives dark mood at Cannes

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

CANNES, France (AFP) — Of the 22 films competing for Cannes' precious Palme d'Or to be awarded Sunday, only six stuck strictly outside the boundaries of the socially relevant to focus on the strictly personal.

Poverty, rape, organised crime, political corruption, police bungling -- and how history deals with such issues -- all came under the cinematic spotlight during the 12-day orgy of film where the bleak mood mirrored concerns sweeping the world.

Setting the tone for the 2008 reality bites, the world's largest cinema showcase offered the red-carpet opening to a film highlighting a near-apocalypse and a government's inability to deal with a disaster -- "Blindness" by Fernando Meirelles.

"It's as if civilisation was built on a thin layer of ice that could...