CANNES, France: The apocalypse came early to the Cannes Film Festival this year, filling screening rooms with snarling dogs, bursting bombs, shouting men and screaming women. Midway through Day 2, on Thursday, characters had gone blind, gone to prison, gone to war. One had turned into a piece of furniture, and another had crawled out of a sewer, slimed in waste that the filmmaker threw at the audience with giggles, metaphorically speaking, ofcourse.

Cannes has a tradition of shaking audiences up, sometimes all the way out the nearest exit. Last year on Day 1, the festival unveiled “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” the Romanian film about illegal abortion during the Ceausescu era, which took home the Palme dOr. This year that same competition slot was occupied by another powerhouse film, “Waltz With Bashir,” an animated documentary from Israel about the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Written and directed by Ari Folman, who has made some half-dozen live-action documentaries, and animated by the Bridgit Folman Film Gang, the movie is a soldiers story by one of their own: the haunted young man at its center is Folmanhimself.

He plunges us right into his nightmare with a harrowing vision of low-down and dark dogs running at the camera, teeth bared and eyes glowing bilious orange-yellow. The dogs run and they run, gathering in number as they cut a swath through everything and everyone ? men, women, children ? in theirpath.

People scatter like pebbles, and a ribbon of slobber lashes the camera lens. Finally, the dogs stop under a window where a man several stories up from the street warily looks down at the snapping, barking, growling menace below. Cut to a bar, where a man, Ari ( Folman), asks his friend Boaz, the man who has dreamed himself into that phantasmagoric scene, what happens next. “I wake up,” Boazsays.

Like Boaz, who is haunted by the war in Lebanon (or rather his absence of its memories), Ari is plagued by a past he cant recall. And so he sets out to uncover history, to sift through the memories of other Israeli soldiers ? all but two of the nine testimonials are firsthand accounts ? and to make sense of the one image he does retain, that of three young soldiers rising naked out of the sea and somnolently drifting into the Beirut battlefield. As in “Maus,” Art Spiegelmans two-volume graphic novel about the Holocaust, the animation in “Waltz With Bashir” initially works as something of a distancing device, giving you the space ? intellectual, emotional ? to process the story and its accumulatinghorrors.

Folman isnt a revisionist: he points fingers at the followers of Bashir Gemayel, the charismatic Christian militia leader and Lebanons president-elect whose assassination preceded the mass murder at the camps, and saves hard words for Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli defense minister. Folman also doesnt blink when it comes to what young soldiers do in wartime: at the sniper who lethally picks a man off a donkey, at the tank that crushes flowers and then cars under its wheels, taking down men drinking coffee and buildings alike. First pop songs fill the air and then yellowflares.

Brought to vital, plausible life in a combination of Flash, classic and 3-D animation, the characters look as if they stepped right out of a graphic novel. Their faces and bodies, for instance, are outlined in black, but their faces are so ductile and expressive that I was surprised that they hadnt been rotoscoped (the animation technique in which live-action movement is traced over). The fluidity of the figures accentuates the air of surreality ? one soldier compares war to an acid trip ? which deepens as the story reaches its terrible end. That finale, which finds the animation violently giving way to live-action documentary footage, is stunning, at once a furious act of conscience and alament.

“Waltz With Bashir,” which as of Thursday afternoon did not have American distribution, was a welcome tonic, given the cloying aftertaste left by the festivals opening selection. Bad openers are another Cannes tradition, so it wasnt much of a surprise that “Blindness” is such a misfire. The film, which heads to American theaters later this year (via Focus Features), was directed by Fernando Meirelles, who shook up screens in 2002 with “City of God,” an art-house exploitation film with lots of bullets and not enough brains, and then went higher-brow with an adaptation of John le Carr?s “Constant Gardener.” Based on a novel by the Nobel laureate Jos? Saramago, this new film goes higher up the brow still, with an allegory with a very large capitalA.

U.S. officials to meet in N. Korea

A State Dept. envoy’s visit to Pyongyang this week appears aimed at restarting six-party talks on N. Korea’s nuclear programs. The communist country failed to disclose an inventory of its nuclear activities when it was due Dec. 31. Pyongyang had pledged to halt its nuclear programs in return for aid. The U.S. is trying to prod talks rather than provoke confrontation.

INDONESIA: The country extradited 4 rebel soldiers suspected in the attempted assassinations of East Timor’s president and prime minister, the police chief said.

BRAZIL: Rescue workers found 2 more bodies near the site where a boat ferrying people home from a religious festival sank in the country’s Amazon region. The discovery raised the death toll to 17, with dozens still missing.

If ever the time was ripe for reforming farm subsidies, this would be it.

Food prices are soaring, the farm economy is thriving and Washington faces large budget deficits.

But horse trading both figuratively and literally has largely preserved the $25 billion in direct payments aimed at giant farms.

The Senate-passed farm bill included a provision making it easier for horse breeders to qualify for the 15% long-term capital gains rate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., championed this tax break, along with faster depreciation for breeders.

Those provisions are small potatoes in the $300 billion farm bill, but they help explain why farm subsidies may survive in a hostile climate. Reform advocates now see a presidential veto as the only hope of altering the status quo.

Reformers Outmaneuvered

Last year, a broad coalition including small-government conservatives, environmental, anti-hunger and free-trade groups joined to fight for farm-bill reform. Since then, soaring food prices have strengthened the case for reform.

But with $300 billion at stake, farm-state lawmakers outmaneuvered the few reformers in Congress.

The bill now being finalized in a House-Senate conference committee promises an extra $10 billion for food stamps a big help in winning over urban lawmakers.

“That’s the coalition that holds the farm bill together,” said Brian Riedl, budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Other members of Congress may be tempted by $4 billion in conservation funding or $1 billion for specialty crop farmers.

Farm state lawmakers also have a key ally in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who backed the House bill.

Pelosi has championed a $1-per-gallon tax credit for fuel producers who use cellulosic ethanol.

The losers in the farm bill derby have been “family farmers and taxpayers,” said Sandra Schubert of the Environmental Working Group.

The group’s database shows that under current law, 93% of direct subsidies go to just five crops: corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice. Two-thirds of farmers get no payments, while large agribusinesses reap the benefits.

Rather than providing a safety net for small and midsize farmers, the bill promotes consolidation of farms into agribusinesses, Schubert says.

In 2007, corn growers got $2.1 billion in direct federal payments, even though the price of corn has jumped 169% since the 2002 farm bill passed, says Heritage’s Riedl.

New federal ethanol mandates have helped fuel the price surge. Now one-fourth of the U.S. corn crop goes to make ethanol. Farmers are growing more corn at the expense of other crops.

Purdue University economists Corinne Alexander and Chris Hurt estimate that the growing use of crops for fuel raised U.S. food costs by $15 billion in 2007.

Rather than ending mandates and subsidies for ethanol production, Congress is responding to higher food prices mainly with more food-stamp funding.

New farm-bill spending seems aimed at repairing the damage from existing farm policies, Riedl says.

“United States farm policy is perhaps the most economically incoherent set of policies,” Riedl said. “It can only be explained by political horse-trading.”

Bush Threatens Veto

The White House expressed doubt Wednesday that President Bush will be able to sign any bill emerging from Congress. The biggest sticking point is over direct crop subsidies.

The White House wants to end payments to farmers with adjusted gross income of $200,000, but would settle for $500,000. Negotiators in Congress might go as low as $750,000, but no lower.

“Congress doesn’t like taking back money it’s been giving out to its constituents,” said Taxpayers for Common Sense analyst Demian Moore.

Bush wants Congress to pass a one-year extension if it won’t approve real reforms. That would mean no increases in food stamps, conservation or other pet programs. Lawmakers hope to gain a veto-proof majority.

Something inherently theatrical about Robert Rauschenbergs talent ? always evident in his radical feeling for color, light, composition and new ingredients and juxtapositions ?prompted him to his boldest and freshest conceptions when he worked onstage. From the early 1950s until 2007 he designed for dance. And in the late 50s and early 60s, when he first came to fame, he was recurrently (at times constantly) occupied in dancetheater.

When he won the international grand prize at the Venice Biennale in 1964, he said he regarded the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as his biggest canvas. Although the remark offended some in Cunningham circles (primarily the composer John Cage, who seems to have felt it sounded too proprietorial), it was completely justified. At that time there was no better place to see the range of Rauschenbergs inventiveness than the Cunninghamrepertory.

Rauschenberg wasnt just the designer of most pieces Cunningham had choreographed in the previous 10 years; he was also a permanent colleague. He toured America and, in 1964, the world as stage manager to the Cunningham company, adjusting the lighting and costumes, making several of the dancers into his long-term friends, helping turn the itinerary of a dance company into a fulcrum ofideas.

In 1954 Rauschenberg was the first stage designer to follow the principle of artistic independence already established by Cunningham and Cage. All he needed to know was which dancer to design costumes for, and if Cunningham had any further specifications. So when Cunningham asked (in 1954) for d?cor around which the dancers could move, Rauschenberg placed a large red free-standing combine center stage in “Minutiae”; though the choreography has not survived, the d?cor is still used in some CunninghamEvents.

Sometimes Cunningham gave not specifications but poetic clues. For example, for “Winterbranch” (1964) he said to Rauschenberg, “Think of the night as if it were day.” Rauschenbergs response was to think of images like being caught in the headlights of a car, and he made all-black costumes and lighting that sometimes threw the stage into darkness while viewers were shielding their eyes from thelight.

When Cunningham was experimenting with new definitions of stage space in “Summerspace” (1958), suggesting both that the stage was just a section of a vaster landscape and that the mood was that of a summer idyll, Rauschenberg responded with impressionistic pointillism. The costumes of the dancers matched the backdrop view in near camouflage, and the work evoked scenes by Monet and Seurat while also suggesting a wildlifedocumentary.

In “Crises” (1960) the dancers wore single-color all-over tights that glowed fiercely against the surrounding blackness. In such works Rauschenberg also became one of the all-time masters of theatricallighting.

Rauschenberg had come to know the young Paul Taylor in 1953, while Taylor was a Cunningham dancer. When Taylor began to choreograph in the succeeding years, Rauschenberg was his designer; works like “Three Epitaphs” (1956, all-black costumes again) survive in Taylor repertory today. In the 1960s Rauschenberg was involved in the radical dance-theater experiments at and around Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village and was close to Cunningham-connected experimentalists like Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber and Steve Paxton; he even choreographedhimself.

Rauschenbergs full-time connection to the Cunningham company ended with its 1964 world tour. Though he and Cage had stimulated each other profoundly and were in many ways like-minded, their egos had clashed; Rauschenbergs “my biggest canvas” remark sounded like colonization in a dance theater where the point wasindependence.

But others led him back to dance theater, nobody more beautifully than Trisha Brown. Her “Set and Reset” (1983) was an instant masterpiece, largely thanks to Rauschenbergs astonishingly imaginative designs. Three screens simultaneously broadcast separate video collages in black and white (more than 20 years before a video component became the norm in new choreography), while the dancers rippled around the stage in part-translucent costumes marked with gray and black figures that resemblednewsprint.

Rauschenberg and Cunningham did collaborate again ? though collaboration may have always been too tight a word for the freedom they gave each other ? on several pieces over the decades. The last of these was only last October, “XOVER”(pronounced “Crossover”), which had its premiere at the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College. (It has yet to be seen in New York or most other cities.) The white costumes against a largely white backdrop recall the all-white paintings of 50 years before; the nonwhite parts of the backdrop, combining silk-screen photography and painting, connect isolated images (a bicycle, a fence, an industrial view) with beautiful color and details oflight.

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Sean Penn: No Madonna Vote

Sean Penn isn?t going to make life easy for anyone at this year?s Cannes Film Festival as head juror. But at least he won?t have to recuse himself from voting on ex-wife Madonna?s documentary about Africa. It?s not being shown in competition.

Penn, nevertheless, is going to have an interesting time of it here.

He may be the first juror in the history of the festival to have at least one bodyguard with him at all times.

He also has his publicist ? still cheerful after her first day of the 10-day adventure ? by his side. He?s known to make or provoke interesting comments, some of which may need interpretation not just in French, but in English.

Penn?s publicist may literally have to put out fires. He also broke the French indoor smoking ban a few times, first at the press conference introducing the jury, then later inside the Carlton Hotel dining room at the private dinner for the jury, the cast of “Blindness,” the opening night film and the top guests and luminaries.

Audiences this week as well as filmmakers should be warned: Penn?s enthusiasm for a certain movie in competition may only be indicated by puffs of smoke, sort of like the selection of a new pope.

And there?s more to come. Both his current wife and his ex-wife arrive on Friday, which may create more drama than in any film here this year.

Robin Wright Penn, from whom he was nearly divorced in the last six months (they are now back together), arrives shortly. She co-stars with Robert De Niro in the closing-night film (next week) directed by Barry Levinson, called “What Just Happened?” It?s a satire about a Hollywood agent in the middle of divorcing his third wife.

Arriving on Friday, however, is Penn?s first wife, Madonna, who?s coming to co-host AmFar?s Cinema Against AIDS dinner with Sharon Stone, show the documentary she made about discovering poverty in Africa and hit a lot of parties. Luckily, the documentary isn?t in competition so Penn won?t have to deal with it in a formal way.

That would be enough, you?d think, to make any man need a cigarette. But into this mix also will come beautiful and intelligent model Petra Nemcova, who?s working with the Creative Coalition.

Penn brought Nemcova with him as a date to several Oscar parties this past winter. Not only that: Nemcova almost certainly will be attending the screening of a documentary about volunteers who went to work in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami, which Penn is presenting under his own aegis.

All of these people also should be running into each other at major events, such as Saturday?s Woody Allen premiere, the Vanity Fair party at the Hotel du Cap?s Eden Roc and the Sunday premiere of “Indiana Jones.” This will be enough to make the bodyguards and publicists start smoking, too!

This doesn?t even take into account Penn?s several attractive co-jurors, such as 25-year-old Natalie Portman, who looked vibrantly stunning on the red carpet last night at the “Blindness” premiere, along with Alexandra Maria Lara and Marjane Satrapi.

Nevertheless, Penn didn?t seem all that pleased to be lumped in with the other jurors during the red carpet presentation. He grimaced during group photos, then broke away from the gang and climbed the red carpeted stairs alone to be photographed with the heads of the festival.

Jury deliberations may make “12 Angry Men” seem more like “Mystic River” than “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Again, proper ventilation may be required.

Still, this isn?t to say that Penn won?t prove to be an excellent Cannes head juror. His taste in film is excellent. As a director, he?s made wonderful movies such as “Into the Wild” and “The Crossing Guard.” His thoughts on the films selected by the Cannes screening committees will be most incisive and welcome.

Julianne Moore Can See; Cate Blanchett’s Magic; Daniel Day-Lewis Sings; Eva Desperate for a Break; Panda-Monium

A movie in which everyone in a city goes blind except Julianne Moore seems a little strange. Shouldn?t it be the other way around?

A lot of people here didn?t go crazy for the opening night film, “Blindness,” directed by Fernando Merielles. I must say I loved a lot of it, this thought-provoking thriller that co-stars Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal and a large supporting cast that also includes Maury Chaykin and Don McKellar, who wrote the screenplay.

McKellar?s worked on this post-apocalyptic story adapted from a novel by Jose Saramago for almost 10 years. It?s kind of a sequel to one of my favorite films, McKellar?s little gem called “Last Night,” with Sandra Oh.

“Blindness” is rough-going and not always for the faint of heart. But Mereilles and McKellar are up to a lot here, and if it?s released properly, “Blindness” could find a cult audience. The performances, of course, are all excellent. Moore is luminous. Ruffalo does some of his best work.

And Merielles (”City of God,” “Constant Gardener”) is full of little surprises. When Ruffalo loses his eyesight, for example, Merielles nearly cuts the actor?s head out of the frame. It?s one of many neat touches. …

At Wednesday night?s premiere, I had a nice chat with Eva Longoria Parker of “Desperate Housewives.” She despaired of not getting to see any films ? she?s working for L?Oreal, as she does every year, making appearances and looking smokin?.

Longoria ? a regular tabloid presence ? was unexpectedly delightful. She?s funny and beautiful, which isn?t a bad combo. She told me Dana Delany will be back on the show next season, which is great news. The bad news?

“We only have a few weeks off, then we?re back to work,” Eva said.

She and her hubby, Tony Parker, will putter around their Hollywood mansion and try to keep busy being fabulous. …

Cate Blanchett is here and causing a stir. Why? She had her third child three weeks ago and looks like nothing happened. She?s such a good actress! She came to the premiere with her manager while her mom looks after the baby and husband, Andrew Upton, supervises their two other sons.

Blanchett is ready for Sunday?s premiere of “Indiana Jones,” in which she plays the villainess. “I still can?t believe I?m part of it,” she said. …

No one can figure out what?s happened to Javier Bardem. The Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winner isn?t coming to the Woody Allen premiere, even though he?s the star. He?s also dropped out of the film-musical “Nine,” a role that seemed custom-made for him. Where in the world is Javier? His “Nine” replacement has been named: Daniel Day-Lewis.

“Nine” is a musical. But I am told by insiders that DDL, who is a chameleon, sent a tape to director Rob Marshall and that “everyone was knocked out.” Of course, Daniel can sing! Why not? For “Chicago,” Marshall turned Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones into songbirds and won Best Picture. So DDL should be a snap! …

And what would Cannes be without an opening day outdoor stunt from Dreamworks? Last year, Jerry Seinfeld “flew” across the Croisette in a bee costume. Wednesday morning, Jack Black appeared with 40 people wearing panda bear costumes to promote his “Kung Fu Panda” animated film. The bears were hilarious, Black was his usual wild self and Dreamworks? Jeffrey Katzenberg told me he actually tried on a panda suit.

The movie, which we saw Tuesday night, has great visuals and witty dialogue. Dustin Hoffman is a hoot as Black?s equivalent Yoda. Call it “The Karate Kid” with animals. Kids will love it. And parents will be amused enough to stay awake till the end. …