And what with the price of coal!” She also had lesbian leanings, which the film politely ignored.It has been a big year for lesbian cinema, though with poor results. There were no less than four tales about murderous lesbianism – Sister My Sister, Heavenly Creatures, Fun and Butterfly Kiss – and all of them dreadful. Then there was Thin Ice, about lesbian ice dancers, which inevitably gained the title Pink Rink.On a slightly gay theme, Shallow Grave had the considerably endowed Kerry Fox emerging topless from the bathroom; the man’s indifference was the first hint that he might be gay. And The Usual Suspects had, among its many memorable moments, two criminals exchanging banter: “And what will you do if you end up inside?”"Fuck your father in the showers. Go for some lunch.” Not exactly gay perhaps, but worthy of Tarantino.Another strong woman was Sigourney Weaver in Polanksi’s Death and the Maiden. Having survived torture and rape at the hands of the secret police, she later turns the tables on Ben Kingsley, and his subsequent ritual humiliation may well have had its attractions for bondage fans.Sharon Stone, one of Hollywood’s strongest women, graced the mock spaghetti western The Quick and the Dead as the fastest gunslinger since Clint, and while she didn’t let on as to whether she was wearing knickers this time, she did blow Gene Hackman out of his boots.

In a similar vein Sophie Marceau looked terrific in breeches as D’Artagnan’s Daughter, and also engaged in some heavy swordfighting with the best of them.Lots of good sword fighting, too, in La Reine Margot, which pleased many women with its line-up of well-muscled, long-haired Frenchmen all hacking divots off each other. The sexiest moment though was Daniel Auteuil and Isabelle Adjani shoved up against a wall. They may have been fully clothed, but what urgency! Of the other French films, Leon gave us a new sex symbol Jean Reno looks like France’s answer to Robert Mitchum. He has the same huge body, the same rolling walk, the same husky voice and the same natural gravitas If I were Fanny Ardant, I would go for him. In fact, she does go for him in the forthcoming Antonioni film, Beyond the Clouds, and mighty touching they are together.Taken all in all, the sexiest events of the filmic year all came from strong women in touching moments.

The first time Meryl touches Clint in The Bridges of Madison County is when she straightens his collar from behind, much as she must have done a thousand times before with her husband and son.Also very touching was Johnny Depp in two different films. As Ed Wood, he played the Z-grade, poverty-row film director, who was also a man who claimed to have stormed the beaches at Iwo Jima wearing a full set of women’s underwear beneath his combat gear. His first marriage cracks under that strain, but when he explains his desires to Patricia Arquette she calmly removes her angora sweater for him to try on. A kind moment in a lovely film.Depp also played the title role in Don Juan De Marco, a man who, far from being mad, knew just how to woo the cotton socks off any women who crossed his path. “You have brought my manhood alive and made it sing,” he says to one girl, and gets the fascinated reply: “It sings?” He also inspires his shrink, Marlon Brando (in his best role in years), to regain the passion he once had for his wife, Faye Dunaway. “What happened to the celestial fires,” he asks her, “that used to light our way?” Try it out , it’s a good line.The two Depp films get my vote for sexiest moments of the year, although Kristin Scott Thomas gets a special award for being the sexiest Englishwoman. As Angels and Insects showed, she has intelligence, strength and, that most civilised quality, a sense of irony.

The fact that Hugh Grant didn’t marry her in Four Weddings and a Funeral should be a punishable offence.Is there finally any one over-arching pattern to all of this? Not really, except to note that, even if women are getting stronger, there is less sex, and indeed less violence, in the movies compared to the Seventies, in spite of what the moral crusaders would have you believe. In more general terms, the US independent scene is by far the healthiest at the moment, with films such as Clerks, Crumb, Amateur and The Brothers McMullen proving that all you need to make a movie is a good script, a bunch of friends, a garage, a credit card and a passion I wish someone would tell the British that. Then they would not need to head down Sunset Boulevard in search of satisfaction.. When the young Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the Camera D’Or, the much-coveted prize for the best first feature, at Cannes last May, he kissed the little statuette at the awards ceremony.

The simple gesture was characteristic of a director whose sweetness and humility had won over all the journalists who met him. A few days earlier, when I met him on a noisy balcony overlooking the Croisette, the storm clouds were gathering over the sea. “I can feel that the town is getting sadder and sadder,” he said, through an interpreter (he speaks no English). “The rain makes it look as if the city is crying.” It was the first time he had left his own country, and all he had seen of Cannes so far was this single street. Heaven only knows what he must have been making of Western culture (although perhaps, on reflection, it reminded him of a souk).
The White Balloon provides us with a vivid snapshot of a world that will be equally exotic to most British viewers. Iran produces 70-odd films a year, Panahi says, but they are barely seen abroad, apart from the work of the cinema’s elder statesman, Abbas Kiarostami, a regular on the festival circuit: he wrote the screenplay for Panahi’s picture.Set during the 90 minutes leading up to the Iranian New Year (the story takes place in real time), it tells of the adventures of a small girl who sets out to buy a goldfish but loses her money along the way.