Perhaps what I should have said is that it would be ludicrous to take the opinions of any competing film crew seriously, given the back-stabbing nature of such an event. That only a Cannes virgin would draw any kind of inference from the instant reaction of a Cannes audience, given the long history of booing, shrugging or walking out of the best of films, from L’Avventura to L’Humanite to Brown Bunny to Colossal Youth.

I also could’ve said that Soi Cowboy has a ’sit down and think’ as opposed to a ’stand up and cheer’ ending, that very few people walked of the morning screening I attended and that I spoke to many people afterwards who were very taken with the film (Mark Cousins, Peter Bradshaw and Jan Schulz-Ojala amongst others) - but then I’d rather not just hide behind the opinions of others.

By contrast, Soi Cowboy was undoubtably the most deeply personal film I saw at the festival. The hermetic environment it depicted, the complex contours of these characters, none of whom are obviously likable, the almost unintelligible personal language that they speak, the complete refusal to open things up and make it easy for the casual audience - all of this felt absolutely fresh and real to me. I found it more visually/formally striking than Hunger too, and ultimately far more rewarding.

Of course we all have our opinions. If it had been up to me, I would have given the Camera d’Or to a small US film called Afterschool - Bruno Dumont felt otherwise… But it generally pays to actually watch a film and then think about it before such opining takes place.