Nicole Kidman's twin wins

The Australian actress is in the limelight this year with not one but two highly rated movies. Three Indian films about the dark underbelly of urban life also drew widespread praise from the audience

As the 65th Cannes film festival nears its close, Nicole Kidman's celebrated star status is glimmering seductively. She is in two films: Lee Daniels' The Paper Boy, based on Pete Dexter's novel, and the yet-to-be-seen Hemingway and Gellhorn directed by Philip Kaufman based on the tumultuous courtship and marriage of Ernest Hemingway with war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
And at five hours and 20 minutes, Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur is the longest running film at the fest. It was screened in two parts and was well attended, even applauded. Kashyap brings an edgy raciness to his portrayal of rampaging groups, exploiters and extortionists in his depiction of open and brutal lawlessness as it develops decade upon decade in Jharkhand. His episodic style is punctuated with music and songs, and refreshingly, hiswomen are strong, independent and defiant.
Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely, set in the murky backstreets of Mumbai, seems to have crossed the imaginary line into mainstream world cinema. Bought and tom-tommed in Cannes by leading distributor Fortissimo, its content has a different pacing and feel to it. The film presents two self-destructive brothers caught in making C-grade horror and porn films for small-town theatres. The lead actors give compelling performances, especially Nawazuddin Siddiqui and new actor Niharika Singh, whose vulnerability coupled with a certain worldly wisdom has an appeal that is hard to resist.
Vasan Bala's Peddlers, again about the dark side of Mumbai and its drug-driven by-lanes, graphically presents the struggles of thousands to eke out a living against all odds. Peddlers rips off layer after layer of what makes life even remotely bearable. Apart from the sleaze of city life as a running theme, 2012 Cannes is also witness to directors of repute dealing with blurred boundaries.

Abbas Kiarostami's latest, Like Someone In Love, is set in Japan and presents low life folk pitted against the respected academics. Brazilian director Walter Salles' On the Road focuses on the heady life of the 40s and 50s in the US. The surprise package comes in the form of a 14-minute film Night Shift by Zia Mandviwalla, a Parsi now settled in New Zealand.
And finally the most awaited event: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made a spectacular appearance, in an ethnic ensemble designed by Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla at the fundraising AMFAR gala (The Foundation for AIDS Research). The event raised nearly US$11 million. Said Ash, "It's been eleven glorious years coming to Cannes. This year, it's a special privilege to support AMFAR, the dinner and the auction."

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