From 'Baywatch' to Bosnia

And, of course, Kids. From the start, the scent of controversy had turned Larry Clark's harrowing splatter-portrait of New York youth into the festival's only sure Event. By the day of the screening, members of the press were throwing elbows to get in. Kids itself proved to be a visceral experience, too, but director Clark found himself on the defensive on the dais: ''This is real,'' he argued. ''This is the way a lot of kids are.'' Meanwhile 20-year-old screenwriter Harmony Korine, sporting a Beatles mop top and a black suit, revealed a knack for one-liners. Asked why Kids failed to show one character's penis, he deadpanned: ''It was too big for the screen.''

Bingo. With that, Korine had satisfied France's yearly quest for an enfant terrible. The next day, he was on the cover of a Gallic tabloid headlined ''Bad Kids.'' ''I read somewhere that I was a 14-year-old girl,'' said a baffled Korine. ''I'm not kidding!''

But Kids couldn't hog all the headlines, nor was Korine the only bewildered star. Putting celebrities through the meat grinder is a Cannes tradition, one that leaves even some of the most flashbulb-hardened faces dazed and confused. ''It's very odd, the whole business of being stared at,'' said Hugh Grant. ''It's like being in a safari park backwards. Instead of staring out, they're staring in.'' Still, Kevin Pollak offered a touch of sentiment when asked about his arrival at the Palais: ''You hear some French guy announce Les Usual Suspects, and suddenly any acerbic cynicism goes away.''

Really, Cannes is a two-headed beast. There's the pedigreed poodle of the competition (home to highbrow stuff like Underground and Carrington), and the shaggy mutt of "The Market," where hundreds of films are up for sale — including low-grade dog food like Leprechaun 3 and Space Freaks From Planet Mutoid. This year was no exception. One day you had the Shanghai Triad press conference, where Chinese actress Gong Li dabbed tears from her eyes after being reunited with former lover Yimou. The rest of the time, you had Pamela Anderson. Everywhere. Forget the Palme d'Or; most of the real palms along the Croisette were stapled with posters of Baywatch's Anderson straddling a motorcycle and proclaiming ''Don't Call Me Babe!'' — the catchphrase from Barb Wire, her first movie. Barb Wire hasn't actually been made yet, but that didn't deter photographers from waiting in an Iwo Jima-style heap on the dock of the Carlton Hotel. Anderson eventually washed up on a motorboat called the Power Trip One, flaunted her impossible curves to a chorus of camera clicks and wolf whistles, and then vanished back across the Mediterranean, chased by a flotilla of pleasure boats.

If Cannes '95 saw a shortage of master filmmaking, it compensated with a surplus of parties. Beyond Rangoon had a Burmese feast; Carrington had tea and crumpets. Bad Boys countered with topless dancers. People entering the bash for The Madness of King George — which won Helen Mirren Best Actress — strode past guards in redcoats, powdered wigs, and britches. And as for catwalk, a documentary about supermodel Christy Turlington — well, the producers couldn't entice Turlington to come to Cannes, so they flew in four anonymous models from Paris instead. ''They do have names,'' said one organizer, ''but I don't know what they are.'' The most exclusive soiree happened a few miles outside of Cannes, at the famed Moulin de Mougins restaurant. There, to raise money for the AIDS organization AmFAR, emcee Sharon Stone auctioned Naomi Campbell's navel ring. A Saudi prince bought it for $20,000.

The next day, Depp was asked how he was responding to the festival. ''Hallucinating,'' he said. ''And it wasn't self-induced. It just sort of happened.''