Some films are, for lack of a better word, glacial; they're immense, dense, frozen and seemingly immobile. And a film like that can affect the viewer in one of two ways; either you bounce off the frozen surface of it, shut out and shunned -- or you find the frozen surface to be a mirror, showing you things within your own reaction to it. With its naturalistic tone and bleak outlook, the new film from the Dardenne Brothers, Lorna's Silence, is certain to provoke those kinds of polarized reactions. I found myself more in tune with the film and what it was reaching for, and was impressed by the familiar Dardenne methods and concerns and themes (which won their film L'Enfant the Palme d'Or in 2005 and Rosetta the same award in 1999) in Lorna's Silence. At the same time, I can also understand the somewhat lukewarm reception for Lorna's Silence; it's only at Cannes that you hear people saying "Oh, not another hyper-realistic drama set in the gulfs and gaps between old and new Europe. ..."

We follow Lorna (Arta Dobroshi) through her day -- phone calls, work, dealing with life. And that life gradually makes its shape known to us. She's an Albanian, living in Belgium; she's entered a marriage of convenience with Claudy (Jeremie Renier) that's not actually convenient at all, as Claudy's a junkie who's trying to quit; his needs and demands hang heavy on her. But then Lorna has a meeting with Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione), and things take a very different turn, as he explains that they have to be sure that Claudy's death looks like an accident. ...

I've been fortunate enough to have been able to go to Cannes for the past four years now, and I'm getting ready for my fifth. And, as I often say when explaining film festivals to people who've never been to one, it's not just an adventure; it's a job. Cannes is a "get-away" the same way running from a burning building is "a tour of the grounds"; there are plenty of movies, plenty of work, and the overall emotional tone of the event is a mix of exhaustion and exhilaration. The heady moments of pure movie magic come fast and furious with the muck-and-money reality of international financing and distribution happening all about you.

Going to Cannes means seeing at least 40, maybe 50 or more movies in 10 days, never mind actually thinking and writing about them; you'd think that that kind of pace would soon turn into a blur, and it does, but it's a glorious one. Here's some of my favorite movie going moments (highly subjective, of course -- I've not included last year's ridiculously strong quartet of Persepolis, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, as they're still so fresh in my mind) from the past four years of the Cannes Film Festival; think of these as the rushed recollections of a film critic who knows exactly how lucky he's been.