Yeah... I was there... Cannes 2003. Gallo and Sevigny showing up in a flood of popping flashbulbs. And yeah, this film is one slow ride. But the vitriol that flowed after was unjust and I couldn't help feeling that if some great European master had made exactly the same movie we'd all be finding elegiac metaphors and existential analogies hidden within the subtext (if there was any text that is!) THAT scene with Sevigny is not exactly worth waiting for and you do leave the theatre with the empty feeling of having just watched a two hour documentary of the wheel revolutions on a racing bike. But there is something that stays with you (not boredom), something contemplative and dare I say, profound. If only it was made by Tarkovsky we'd know what that was.
Review of The Brown Bunny
