Can I just say? I’ve really been enjoying Vanity Fair’s Cannes Film Festival coverage this year. Props to them. VF has a piece about how this year’s Cannes seems extra, extra glam, like everything is especially over the top. You can read the full piece here. In the midst of the piece, they quote Melanie Laurent – a veteran of many Cannes film festivals – about the vibe this year. Her reaction was pretty interesting:

Earlier in the night, we asked Melanie Laurent, the French actress and festival veteran who has hosted the opening- and closing-night ceremonies, about the aforementioned surreal swirl at the festival. She told us that the flashy, energetic atmosphere around some of the Cannes proceedings this year was not always the norm.

“I think we are going a bit too crazy,” Laurent told us on Monday. “I remember 15 years ago, it was more charming. Less crazy. Less almost vulgar. More respectful.”

She paused, and then added, “But I feel the same way for any other subject in the world.”

She may have had a point. As with any multi-national film festival, where deals are made and buzz is the coin of the realm, there’s a fine line to walk between glamour and excess. Over the course of one week, we’ve seen adults get into heated arguments over who gets to take the next helicopter home from a party. (“This is like a valet line for rich a–holes,” a fellow journalist deadpanned while watching.) We’ve overheard publicists debate which yacht party they would attend that evening. We’ve been invited to a Benicio Del Toro-hosted domino tournament D.J.’d by Paris Hilton that benefited Nepal. We have, we confess, been poured champagne from a rapper’s $300 bottle while sitting in a villa that looked like it may have hosted a Bachelor hot-tub orgy. We’ve witnessed men and women in black-tie drop all social graces upon learning that they’d be unable to get into a beach party. And this was all on the Croisette, where electronic music is pumping at all hours. (Amy Poehler joked in an interview with us this afternoon that she would only do press if there was disco music playing throughout her interviews. “The only time it is quiet at Cannes is between 9 A.M. and noon when people finally sleep.”)

[From Vanity Fair]

Vulgarity? AT CANNES? While I never! It’s almost like the rich a—holes have taken over and all of the sheiks, Saudi princes, tech billionaires have invaded the South of France with luxury yachts, pillaging the film festival for nubile beauties willing to make some cash on the side. Oh, wait. That’s been happening for a while.

Photos courtesy of WENN.