have to listen to the same chat-up lines, and whether you can wangle a ticket to the Formula 1 races, where youll get to mingle with the same class of people and where your big chance might be there waiting for you.
Perfume is also the word used by young actors to refer to elderly millionairesses, all plastic and Botox, but who are, at least, more intel- ligent than their male counterparts. They never waste any time: they, too, arrive in the final days of the Festival, knowing that money pro- vides their only pulling power.
The male perfumes deceive themselves: they think that the long legs and youthful faces have genuinely fallen for them and can now be manipulated at will. The female perfumes put all their trust in the power of their diamonds.
Igor knows nothing of all this. This is his first time at the Festival. And he has just realized that, much to his surprise, no one here seems very interested in films, except the people in that bar. He has leafed through a few magazines, opened the envelope in which his company has placed the invitations to the most prestigious parties, but not one of them is for a film premiere. Before traveling to France, he tried to find out which films were in the running, but had great diffi- culty in obtaining this information. Then a friend said:
Forget about films. Cannes is just a fashion show.
Fashion. Whatever can people be thinking?Dotheythink fashion is something that changes according to the season of the year? Did they really come from all corners of the world to show off their dresses, their jewelry, and their collection of shoes? They dont under- stand. Fashion is merely a way of saying: I belong to your world. Im wearing the same uniform as your army, so dont shoot.
Ever since groups of men and women first started living together in caves, fashion has been the only language everyone can understand, even complete strangers. We dress in the same way. I belong to your tribe. Lets gang up on the weaklings as a way of surviving.
But some people believe that fashion is everything. Every six months, they spend a fortune changing some tiny detail in order to keep up their membership in the very exclusive tribe of the rich. If they were to visit Silicon Valley, where the billionaires of the IT industry wear plastic watches and beat-up jeans, they would understand that the world has changed; everyone now seems to belong to the same social class; no one cares anymore about the size of a diamond or the make of a tie or a leather briefcase. In fact, ties and leather briefcases dont even exist in that part of the world; nearby, however, is Hollywood, a rela- tively more powerful machinealbeit in declinewhich still manages to convince the innocent to believe in haute-couture dresses, emerald necklaces, and stretch limos. And since this is what still appears in all the magazines, who would dare destroy a billion-dollar industry in- volving advertisements, the sale of useless objects, the invention of en- tirely unnecessary new trends, and the creation of identical face creams all bearing different labels?
How ridiculous! Igor cannot conceal his loathing for those whose decisions affect the lives of millions of honest, hardworking men and women leading dignified lives and glad to have their health, a home, and the love of their family.
How perverse! Just when everything seems to be in order and as families gather round the table to have supper, the phantom of the Su- perclass appears, selling impossible dreams: luxury, beauty, power. And the family falls apart.
The father works overtime to be able to buy his son the latest sneak- ers because if his son doesnt have a pair, hell be ostracized at school. The wife weeps in silence because her friends have designer clothes and she has no money. Their adolescent children, instead of learning the real values of faith and hope, dream only of becoming singers or movie stars. Girls in provincial towns lose any real sense of themselves and start to think of going to the big city, prepared to do anything, absolutely anything, to get a particular piece of jewelry. A world that should be directed toward justice begins instead to focus on material things, which, in six months time, will be worthless and have to be replaced, and that is how the whole circus ensures that the despicable creatures gathered together in Cannes remain at the top