Oscar Wilde could easily have been referring to the Cannes Film Festival when he said, ‘Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.’ Everything here looks and feels like a movie. Everywhere you turn there’s artifice. The red carpet is professionally lit, the extras (crowds) are lined up waiting for ‘action’ and the enormous crew (festival staff) could rival any major studio production.
Projecting its own obsession with materiality back into its auditoriums, the 66th Cannes International Film Festival is chiefly concerned with artifice. This year’s official selection also featured narrative structures driven by familial and social concerns. Beginning with the most bombastic, here are 2013’s top ten trends at Cannes: