- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 23 2007 17.50 BST
Missing you already ... Catherine Deneuve and other cast members wave to the press at today's Persepolis screening. Photograph: Getty
Persepolis screens today. Potentially it's one of the most interesting films in the competition; an animated, child's-eye account of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. For the past few nights I've been reading Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel and liking it a lot. I've done some research and I've checked the screening schedule. Everything is set. All that's left is to miss the film.
The list of films I've missed at this year's Cannes is a long as an orangutan's arm. I have not seen Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park or Ulrich Seidl's Import Export or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and nor have I seen the Romanian movie that everyone says is going to win the Palme d'Or. Right now I can barely remember what I have seen. It has all become a bit of a blur.
I take a wrong turn on the way to the International Village and find myself back in the Marché du Film. There is a poster that seems to be cropping up everywhere this year, advertising a film called The Spirits of the forest (I'm assuming that lower-case 'f' is intentional).
It's computer-animated, exceedingly dainty and the artwork features a bunch of smiling furry creatures cavorting in a woodland glade. So far, so so. It's just that these animals look purely terrifying, grinning and demonic; like the cartoon characters that Robert Crumb's brother drew when he began to go insane. It's this that makes me realise I'm through with the Marché. I vow not to set foot in the place again.
On the Croisette the temperature is rising. It's too hot to move, too hot to think. But the daily trade magazines feel skimpier today, suggesting that the blaze of deal-making that typifies the first few days is finally at an end. Slyly, imperceptibly, the festival has entered the final straight.
