By Dave McCoy
MSN Movies

May 18, 2006

At Festival des Cannes, the only activity favored nearly as much as watching films is eating. On the opposite side of the Croisette, across from the Palais, restaurants are everywhere, one on top of another. People pack the indoor and outdoor cafés and indulge in cheese or duck or crépes or steak tartar or rich shellfish. It's culinary decadence at its peak.

So, you're probably thinking: Great ... glad people love to eat in France. What in the hell does this have to do with a film-festival dispatch?

Well, today's theme is consumption, and I thought it best to paint you a nice, romantic picture before ruining your appetite.

The other theme for today is a simple one: Be careful what you wish for.

Yesterday, after a couple of lackluster films, I frustratedly begged Cannes to "pick it up." (As if Cannes was really responsible for my film choices.) Today, I am a scarred mess of a man. Oh, Cannes picked it up ... and then threw it at me, slapped me and rubbed it sadistically in my face.

I saw only two films today, and that was plenty. Both shook me to my core ... and my core is food, folks. Like the patrons gorging themselves on the Croisette, I love food, especially meat. But tonight I'm not sure I want to ever eat again.

Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation" screened in competition, and though it's early in the festival, based on the audience's enthusiastic response, it's got a good shot to perhaps win the Palme d'Or. Linklater has done something truly impressive: He's taken Eric Schlosser's 2001 eye-opening nonfiction best seller about the disgusting ins and outs of the fast-food business and crafted a sprawling, fascinating fictional character study about the people who work in that industry. The movie weaves together a dozen or so characters, from the top-level executives that run the fictional Mickey's fast-food chain (their latest creation, The Big One, is sweeping our obese nation) to the teens working the counters, to the Mexican immigrants who pay thousands of dollars to cross the border, only to then find work in horrifying conditions at meat-packing plants.

All of these lives intersect in the fictional small town of Cody, Colo., where neon corporate signs of McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc., dot the skyline and offer a scary image of American sameness. And Linklater is instantly comfortable here. He's explored the trappings of small-town America in movies such as "Dazed and Confused," "Slacker," "SubUrbia," and to a degree in "The Bad News Bears." Much of the same talkiness that he captured in those films is present here (Schlosser's facts and figures are interwoven into many long conversations characters have). In those films, as well as "Waking Life," "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise," Linklater's characters love to spout theories and pose philosophical questions about "life." But here the director is working with cold, brutal facts, and the result is his most mature work to date.

A good portion of the film — which starts when Mickey's marketing whiz Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) learns that there is literally crap in his company's meat and heads to Cody for answers — is pure satire. The laughs flow, America is mocked (much to the delight of the French press in attendance) ... and then in the last third, the tone turns dead serious. When Linklater finally drops his final bomb — a nearly unwatchable, graphic five-minute cow slaughter sequence set inside the killing floor of the meat-packing plant and viewed from the innocent eyes of a new worker — the laughs have dried up. He follows it with a final, cruel coda that earlier would have generated chuckles, but here leaves you slumped over in your chair, crying.

I've gushed to this point without mentioning the stellar cast that lends so much life to this social-political examination. Most notable and crushing are former Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno ("Maria Full of Grace") and (believe it) Wilmer Valderrama (speaking entirely in Spanish) playing married immigrants whom the plant chews up and spits out like one of its patties. Young Ashley Johnson makes a break-out performance as a teenage Mickey's worker who begins to grow a conscience. And though briefly featured, Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette and Linklater regular Ethan Hawke are all magnificent.

Fans of the book must've been worried when they saw that a dramatization was being made of such an important work. But Linklater's film will touch more people, coyly sugarcoating its scathing points with humor, and Schlosser's message remains firmly intact.

Taxidermia

I'm in a tough spot here. I really don't quite know how to explain György Pálfi's "Taxidermia" to an MSN audience. I've never seen anything like it (though it contains touches of Peter Greenaway) and it's definitely cinema at its most extreme. How should I put this? It starts with a man shooting fire from a body part that resembles a lighter, and concludes many years later with that man's grandson, a taxidermist, removing his own organs and sewing himself back together before finishing the act with something even more shocking. Oh, and this is after he stuffs his dead father, who has been torn open by his cats. Suffice to say, this Hungarian film had people gasping, groaning and squirming. Streams of people walked out of the theater during the film. However, the ones who stayed gave it a loud ovation as it ended. I was one of those. For all its graphic displays, "Taxidermia" strives to define the body and sex in all forms as art. Oh, and it's also quite funny in a way that only the Eastern Europeans can be. And honestly, this is the reason you come to film festivals: to see something original and challenging, even if it will haunt you for days.

But how does this tie into food, you ask? Well, one of the protagonists (the, uh, one who eventually gets stuffed) is a champion speed eater, and a good portion of the film examines gluttony in numerous ways. Long shots of men and women slurping down piles of caviar and other unmentionable parts, and then throwing them back up, dominate the film for stretches. It's so shocking that you have to laugh ... or leave.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need a salad.

MSN Movies has access to the special "X-Men: The Last Stand" screening on Friday night. Are you excited to see it? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com.

Dave McCoy is lead editor for MSN Movies.