Cannes fall-out

IN last weekend's Sunday Tribune Ciaran Carty criticised "the dismissive attitude of many Western critics"to the decisions of this year's Cannes jury. The jury's principal prize, the Palme d'Or, was shared between a dated and unremarkable Japanese film, Unagi (The Eel) and a simplistic and merely worthy Iranian film, The Taste Of The Cherry.

The critics' dismissiveness, smacks of cultural arrogance", bristled Carty. He did not specify which "Western critics" were guilty - but I, for one, certainly was dismissive of the two Palme d'Or winners' in my report here on the morning after the awards were presented. I remain convinced, as I wrote at the time, that "neither of this year's Palme d'Or winning films seems likely to' find any significant international audience".

Cultural arrogance has nothing to do with assessment of the prize-winners, which is merely realistic. While Carty stated that The Eel "would entertain multiplex audiences if given a chance", the reality is that the entire porcine cast of Babe will be flying over your nearest multi-screen cinema before The Eel turns up in one of its theatres.

The fact is, subtitled movies do not stand a chance at the multiplexes - in Ireland, Britain or the US. The last time a foreign-language film got a multiplex booking in Dublin was at the beginning of last year, when UCI Tallaght played La Haine - a visually dynamic and far more accessible film than The Eel. It was taken off after a week but went on to run in the Screen at D'Olier Street for a further 10 weeks.

Despite winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1995, Emir Kusturica's Underground flopped in France, struggled through a fortnight on one Dublin art-house screen and still has not opened in the US - it may never do so.

The Cannes jury's decision to share the main prize between the Japanese and Iranian films was made, wrote the Observer's film critic, Philip French, "in the sure knowledge that their judgment would not be checked by movie-goers in the English-speaking world".