Cinema Romantico's Cannes Brûlé Palme

The 72nd Cannes Film Festival concluded this past weekend. There were, per reports, possibly up to twenty-nine masterpieces screened. And while Antonio Banderas won Best Actor for “Pain & Glory”, and while Willem Dafoe’s turn in “The Lighthouse” was equally lauded, Taron Egerton nevertheless emerged as pre-Pre Best Actor Favorite for playing Elton John in “Rocketman” because byzantine Best Actor rules dictate that all Best Actor winners come from musical biopics. I didn’t make the sytem, people. You can write your local representative at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But then, none of that interested Cinema Romantico which, once again, was unable to attend the south of France cinematic carousal because, once again, the only outlet willing to give us accreditation was Horse & Hound. Still, that does not prevent us, just as it never prevents us, from bestowing our non-celebrated, un-exalted Brûlé Palme, this blog’s variation on Cannes’ prestigious Palme d’Or, awarded each year to Cinema Romantico’s favorite Cannes Film Festival attendee. Last year’s Brûlé Palme was cancelled in deference to Asia Argento respectfully making it real, and there were attendees this year who made it real too. But we didn’t feel like canceling the award in 2019. No, in realizing we’ve only got, what, twenty, thirty good years left of the red carpet not being underwater, we felt like reveling in the glorious silliness of the whole shindig. That’s why, following in the footsteps of past winners such as Kylie Minogue, Bill Murray, and, of course, her eminence, Nicole Kidman, this year’s recipient of Cinema Romantico’s faux-illustrious Brûlé Palme is Marion Cotillard.

Don’t get the blog wrong, we appreciated Margot Robbie flouting red carpet protocol by sporting sequined trousers like a disco Katharine Hepburn, and the blog totally dug Charlotte Gainsbourg making Saint Laurent, of all things, feel like casual Friday at Cannes. But ultimately, it was Cotillard, arriving for a screening of “Matthias Et Maxime” by breaking Cannes etiquette, as Vogue notes, by exposing her abs with a crop top and pair of black shorts paired with, as W advises, a Balmain kimono and leather peep-toe boots that won the Burned Palm of our heart. This was not, however, Come As You Are, a la Sharon Stone’s infamous Gap t-shirt at the 1995 Oscars, product of an emergency rummage through the closet, but Come As You Feel Like It, creating a rift in the fashion universe, walking the red carpet like she was strolling along a south of France beach boardwalk. And no doubt if she was strolling along a south of France beach boardwalk she would have made it look like a wooden red carpet, a multi-purpose elegance, if you will, where she’s half-a-second away from running in the sand or gliding through a swank soiree, so effortlessly, enchantingly blurring the lines between leisure and glamour that she gives hope to all us rubes that fashion transformation is one accessory away.